Marketing
Kidipede is the leading homework help source for sixth-graders writing reports: nearly all of our visitors are kids ages 10-12. Since the very dawn of the web in 1995, Kidipede has been answering kids' questions. Today, with an Alexa ranking of 41,000, a Quantcast rating of 4,900, more than 700,000 uniques a month - and still growing by 20% a year! - Kidipede's high quality, narrow focus and affluent niche market draw immediate attention from national advertisers.
How do kids find Kidipede?
Three-quarters of our traffic comes from search engines, mostly from Google. Twelve percent is people directly typing in our address, probably off some sheet the teacher gave them, and ten percent is from other sites that link to us.
We've never really advertised, though we do have an Adwords account that I've done some experimenting with. As far as I can see, there's no way to use Adwords to drive traffic to the site for less than about a penny a click, and we don't make much more than a penny a click, so I haven't thought that was worthwhile. I could be wrong about that. It might be worth looking into.
One problem with using Adwords is that they don't allow landing pages that show popups, whereas we make a lot of money from pops. So that's an issue that would have to be resolved for us to use Adwords more. There's probably a technical solution to this problem that could be built into the design of the site, if I got around to it.
What are kids doing when they get on Kidipede?
They're either at school, doing research on school computers, or they're at home doing homework. According to a poll I did last spring, it was about half and half, I think. I could redo the poll easily (or poll about anything else, as long at it doesn't involve collecting personal information). Google Analytics shows that the majority of our traffic comes from 9-3 East Coast time, which suggests that a lot of the kids are using it at school.
How do kids behave on Kidipede?
About half the people who come to Kidipede see only one page, very likely because they go straight to the page they were looking for. But we average almost three pages per visit, with an average visit time of more than three minutes (pretty standard). When people stay for more than 30 seconds, they average about ten minutes on the site. Three-quarters of the kids are new when they come: this is not a site people come back to every day like Facebook.
What does Kidipede's revenue look like over time?
(Note: October looks low because it's not over yet; we expect to hit about 9000 this month, with the dip owing to the recession.)
The big dips are what happens in the summer when kids aren't in school. Thus to average good money all year, we need to make more than the average in the winter, because traffic is going to collapse every summer.
What does Kidipede's traffic look like over time?
Number of unique visitors per day, from November 2002 to October 2008 - still rising!
How much revenue does Kidipede make per unique visitor?
Cents per unique visitor, November 2002-present (with some gaps where I lost the numbers)
What kind of ads does Kidipede accept?
Kidipede accepts leaderboards (728x90 pixels), regular and wide skyscrapers (120x600 or 160x600), cubes (120x120 or 160x160), boxes (300x250), small boxes (180x150) and text ads. We track ads using AdvertPro and can provide accurate and timely click-through statistics. We can work with other shapes of ads, but I don't think it's good for the brand for people to be confronted with huge ads as soon as they get to the site. One possibility is a thank-you popup thanking a company for sponsoring the site. Right now I don't know how to make the Advert-Pro software make popups, but I could figure it out if I needed to.
We don't accept ads for gambling sites, or tobacco, alcohol, diet pills, or anything that most people find inappropriate for teenagers!
Isn't it illegal to target ads to kids under 13?
I have been asked this question many times. It is not, though it may be more regulated in the future. Right now there are two sets of rules that cover this question. The first is COPPA, which says that you can't collect any sort of personal information about kids under 13, like their name, address, email address, etc. without their parents' permission. We never collect any personal information, and don't even have a registration process.
Why did people want to punch Socrates?
Where did Egyptians bury your liver?
How old are the Rocky Mountains?
What does a half-timbered house look like?
How do you spin wool?
(a project)
The second is a voluntary set of guidelines, CARU. These say that we must have a privacy policy posted (we do),and that we can't ask for personal information unless we get permission from the parents (we never ask for personal information). They also include guidelines for ads you can check out here. Basically the guidelines say no deceptive ads, no unhealthy or racist ads, no ads mocking parents, nothing dangerous or excessive, nothing too scary or violent, and no R-rated movies (too bad, because that's just what 12-year-old boys like!). No urging kids to ask their parents to buy things. Be careful mixing ads with content. You should read these over, but they're not actually going to be enforced, because they are voluntary guidelines and not laws.
Do you have a way for people to subscribe?
You can buy a subscription, and then you see the site without ads, but you need a paypal account or a credit card number to do that, which we assume means you've gotten an adult involved. (subscriptions cost $.99 for a week, but we're lucky to get one or two subscriptions a week). A possible source of income might be to sell subscriptions for a higher price, and more aggressively, but I think most of our visitors come once and not regularly.
Can Kidipede target ads to specific groups?
Yes, we can target by continent, by country, by zip code. We can also target specific operating systems (Mac or Windows). We can target just certain days or times of day, like only evenings or weekends. We can target by keyword (only on pages that have "crafts" in them). And, of course, we're already very targeted in that most of our visitors are 10-12 years old.
Can a sales person post ads, or do you have to do it?
Sales people can post ads themselves, once they have access to our AdvertPro software through an online interface. They would need to watch some training videos and practice to get the hang of it.
Some competitors to look at?
- kidspast.com- uses Adsense
- socialstudiesforkids.com- uses Adsense and maybe another ad broker?
- ancientgreece.com- uses Adsense and perhaps some affiliate ads
- ancient-greece.org- ads for Keds! and Adsense
- crystalinks.com/greece- Adsense at the bottom of the page
- historylink101.com
Try searching for "ancient greece" "ancient china" "ancient india" etc. to find more.
These are some fancier sites that also target our audience:
What about affiliate ads?
I have not found them to pay well. We do use a lot of Amazon links at the bottom of each page so the kids can buy books related to the subject they're reading about, but that brings in about $500 a month. Nothing else we've tried has ever been worth the trouble - the kids don't have credit cards, and don't buy stuff. Although somebody does buy the books, that may be because Amazon's one-click service means kids don't have to ask their parents first?
What about text links?
I don't want to use links in the text of the site itself, because I think that's confusing for the kids and they don't pay well anyway. We'd be happy to take text links in the margins or at the bottom of pages.
Suggestions
I think your idea for printable coupons is a good one, though my kids weren't sure kids knew what coupons were. Other ideas include one company sponsoring the whole site, like a skateboard company or something, or a company sponsoring a page or a section. We'd like to work towards Google's vision of sites doing well by doing good, and if possible promote things that everyone can feel good about, like books, magazines, or educational stuff or athletic stuff like skateboards, or good solid clothes rather than fashionable junk. I'd love to partner with some green campaigns or something like that. Charities? There may also be a big untapped source of advertisers in local kids' activities, if we place their ads according to zip code: craft shops with lessons, local skating rinks, ski places, gymnastics lessons, birthday party places, etc. But that might be a lot of work for the return, unless it could be automated.
For the future, the best place to put extra money if we get it would probably be first into a real professional web design team (right now I do all the web design myself), second into building up some cash reserves, and then to buy other similar sites to increase overall traffic. Some marketing might be good too.
