The document outlines how to monetize a second screen service using advertising. It recommends: 1) Gaining users by promoting the second screen app on TV and expecting 1% of the TV audience to download the app each time. 2) Entertaining users for 1.5 hours by providing engaging content to fill the time instead of checking social media. 3) Generating impressions by pushing bite-sized content and sub-content to users every 3 minutes, achieving 1 impression per user per minute. 4) Achieving strong click-through rates by training users to engage with content and blending ads into the user experience without disrupting the flow. The approach was tested on a

1. Make money with
Second Screen

2. The Second Screen
“Second screen, sometimes also referred to as
‘companion device’ (or ‘companion apps’), is a term
that refers to an additional electronic device (E.g.
tablet, smartphone) that allows a television audience to
interact with the content they are consuming, such as
TV shows, movies, music, …” wikipedia

3. Objective
Today, 2nd screen services are designed mostly to gain
viewers, spreading the buzz around the show by
generating engagement primarily via social media.
Tomorrow you will want to monetize your 2nd
Screen service in a scalable way.
Here we outline our experience and key findings.

4. The web
The free web is paid for mostly by Ads.
$32 billion were spent on Ads in 2012. The whole
ad-supported internet ecosystem contributes $530
billion to the US economy.

5. The “ad” way
Use Advertising to monetize your
Second Screen service.
The time is ripe.

6. Scale
For an ad-supported business you need scale:
1. Users
2. Impressions
3. Clicks

7. Users
A lot of people (>80%) use a second device
while watching TV .
The users are there!

8. The loop
You probably have experienced this yourself.
While watching TV you might read your emails, check your
Facebook and Twitter updates or scroll through the news
for a few minutes to half an hour.
Then you get bored.
Before you know it you find yourself checking your inbox
again, desperately waiting for something to arrive.

9. 1.5 hours to fill
Here is the opportunity:
Although the user is “distracted” for half an hour or
so, s/he is still watching TV.
The user holds the smartphone/tablet for the entire
length of the show and is continually looking for
something to do.
1.5 hours are waiting to be filled by you!

10. Impressions
1.5 hours is a lot of time.
But, a lot of time translates into
a lot of potential impressions.
There is room for a strong business model

11. The math
let’s keep it simple:
 100,000 Users
 generating 1 impression/user/minute
 for 1 hour
= 6 Million impressions/hour
= $60,000/hour if you sell ads at $10 CPM
Your target

12. Your numbers
Maybe you have more users.
Maybe your show will run longer than an hour.
Maybe you will not put Ads everywhere.
Multiply or divide accordingly.
You should still be able to get quite an
impressive figure (per hour).

13. How to reach your goal

14. First set of challenges
1. Gain users
2. Entertain users long enough
3. Avoid spamming
4. Generate impressions
5. Generate clicks

15. Gaining Users
Gaining users to the service is fairly easy, just promote
the 2nd screen service on TV (consistently).
Our experience shows that, on average, you can expect
1% of your audience to download your 2nd screen app
for every time you (properly) promote it on TV.

16. Entertain users long enough
You need to use your second screen service and offer
something less boring than checking an empty inbox
or a news feed for 1.5 hours!
You can do it!

17. Relax
Don’t forget the user is usually in a relaxed state
in front of the TV.
That said, the user is not totally passive.
You have the opportunity to provide an engaging
alternative to Facebook and email updates.
The goal is to satisfy the user’s desire for
content without overwhelming and properly
guiding the user to generate clicks.

18. Generate impressions
You know you have the user’s attention if s/he is
watching your show and has downloaded your app.
You’re in the perfect position to…
Send the user something!
(it’s that easy)

19. Generate Clicks
Why is this important?
The more the user perceives clicking as a natural and
relaxing part of the experience, the more s/he will
engage with ads too!

20. Serve Ads
Shamelessly serve ads but blend them in the
service and in the app user experience.

21. The idea is simple, but achieving satisfactory results
requires a few extra steps.

22. Second set of challenges
1. Reach as many users as possible
2. Generate 1 impression/user/minute
3. Achieve strong CTR

23. Reaching users
To reach as many users as possible, you need to broadcast
your 2nd screen signal on your:
 Mobile / tablet app
 HTML5 web app
 Facebook wall
 Twitter account
 Web site
It’s not important where your users are,
it only matters how many you can reach.

24. 1 impression/user/minute
Generating such a rate is quite demanding especially
because you don’t want to spam your users but…
It’s totally doable.
There are multiple ways to do this, but we’ll focus on
the one we found most effective.

25. Less is more
When we push content within the 2nd Screen App, we
typically link them to two sub contents.
All content should be bite-sized and easy to consume.
Delivering content every 3 minutes (20 pieces of content /
hour + 40 pieces of sub-content) generates an average
sustained rate of 1 impression/user/minute.
To note: Content is usually contextual with the show but
this is not a strict requirement.

26. Sample User Experience
Impression 1 Impression 2
Content Sub-Content 1
Icon 1 Sub-Content 2
Back
Icon 2 Back
Impression 3
Pushed in real time on the 2nd Screen

27. CTR
Achieving a strong click-through-rate (CTR) is possible
provided that:
1. Users are trained to engage with content
2. Ads do not disrupt the user experience
3. Ads do not compete with content

28. Engaging with content
The User Experience suggested earlier has been
designed and tested to lead users to click (touch) the
second screen app often, with minimal distractions
while keeping the user focused (mostly) on the show.
Our experience shows that you can achieve a 60% -
80% CTR on the pushed content.

29. Blending Ads
Mobile (in-app) CTR is typically very low (< 1%).
The main reason being:
Clicking an Ad completely disrupts the user experience.
Our suggestion is to implement Ads in the same format and
flow in which you serve content. The user should be able
to engage with Ads and go back to the content fluidly.
If the users trust you enough to not disrupt their organic
experience and they feel that they are in control, they will
naturally engage with the ads.

30. Ad not competing with content
No app can exploit this better than
a 2nd Screen app.
As anticipated, you have a lot of time to fill.
Pushing content with proper timing will help you
leverage the relaxed-mood of the user to serve Ads that
the user wants to interact with.

31. What you can achieve
Our experience shows that it’s possible to
achieve an above average Ad CTR (>10%).

32. The catch?
You need content to serve.

33. The good news
Producing content to keep the user engaged is
less complex/expensive than you might think.

34. More good news
There is a long tail.
Our tests demonstrate that, after a show is aired, the
content produced for the 2nd Screen can accompany
the on-demand version to generate as much CTR
(revenue) as the live/first-airing.

35. References
We tested this approach on the 2nd screen service for a
prime-time show.
The 2 hour show ran for 5 episodes with each generating an
average of 2 million TV viewers.
The goal was to create a 2nd screen experience that would
be 100% paid for by Ads.
The service yielded a 75% margin on the 2nd screen
production costs.
Some of the technologies used are patent pending.

36. Going further
Beside what we presented here, there are additional
elements you should consider:
 Ad model (sponsorship, CPM, CPC, …)
 Content and Services to serve
 Production organization
 Single screen experience (what if the viewers watch
the video on the same device)
 Inventory size

37. Thank you
Feel free to contact me for suggestions,
comments or questions.
Giampiero Recco
X2TV, Beeweeb Group
g.recco@x2.tv