LiveIntent Blog
  • Solutions
    • Advertiser solutions
      Discover a new advertising channel for powering profitable growth.
    • Publisher solutions
      Maximize the revenue generated across email and web inventory
    • Identity data solutions
      Build stronger connections with addressable audiences everywhere.
  • Identity framework
  • Case studies
  • Company
    • Our story
      Learn more about us, our mission, vision, and the people behind it all.
    • Careers
      Grow and develop personally and professionally at LiveIntent.
    • Press
      Read up on how LiveIntent is innovating the digital ecosystem.
    • Events
      Check out our upcoming events and stay up-to-date with all things martech.
  • Resources
    • LiveIntent Library
      Learn how to harness the power of email with our eBooks, guides, and reports.
    • Blog
      Explore martech topics, strategies, and tactics with fun, insightful content.
    • Knowledge base
      Get answers to all your pressing product related questions.
    • Brand assets
      Everything you need to know about the LiveIntent brand all in one place.
Contact Us
LiveIntent Blog
  • Solutions
    • Advertiser solutions
      Discover a new advertising channel for powering profitable growth.
    • Publisher solutions
      Maximize the revenue generated across email and web inventory
    • Identity data solutions
      Build stronger connections with addressable audiences everywhere.
  • Identity framework
  • Case studies
  • Company
    • Our story
      Learn more about us, our mission, vision, and the people behind it all.
    • Careers
      Grow and develop personally and professionally at LiveIntent.
    • Press
      Read up on how LiveIntent is innovating the digital ecosystem.
    • Events
      Check out our upcoming events and stay up-to-date with all things martech.
  • Resources
    • LiveIntent Library
      Learn how to harness the power of email with our eBooks, guides, and reports.
    • Blog
      Explore martech topics, strategies, and tactics with fun, insightful content.
    • Knowledge base
      Get answers to all your pressing product related questions.
    • Brand assets
      Everything you need to know about the LiveIntent brand all in one place.
Log in Contact Us
  • Blog Homepage
  • Programmatic Advertising
  • Email Monetization
  • Identity Resolution
  • LiveIntent Culture
  • Real Time Banter
  • LiveIntentional
  • Subscribe

How Zoosk implemented testing to optimize newsletter yield

    • Email Monetization
  • September 21, 2021
Nick Bolt
Senior product marketing manager, publisher solutions

Sometimes trying out new tactics and strategies can be daunting — especially if nothing is necessarily wrong with existing processes or approaches. However, maintaining the status quo can stifle growth and innovation. For example, when online dating company Zoosk first implemented LiveIntent’s LiveTags, they saw satisfactory performance, but they knew they wanted more from their email monetization strategy. With some help from LiveIntent and a thoughtful testing strategy, Zoosk improved its newsletter performance with surprising results.

Opportunities for optimization

Zoosk personalizes the online dating experience by providing a fun, safe, and easy way for users to find a romantic match. Zoosk’s behavioral technology is constantly learning from user interactions to deliver the best matches in real-time. Part of this real-time process is triggered emails, which provide updates on matches, activity on the platform, and suggest matches to users.

Zoosk began its partnership with LiveIntent by monetizing these triggered emails, placing LiveTags in their emails to create ad inventory. While the emails performed well, Zoosk wanted to pursue strategies to increase their existing ad inventory’s yield. In other words, Zoosk wanted to increase revenue without inserting additional ad slots into their emails.

Testing to inform strategy

One of LiveIntent’s yield optimization best practices is to tactically increase bid density by accepting ads of multiple sizes within each ad slot. After reviewing Zoosk’s LiveTag setup, the LiveIntent team found that Zoosk only allowed 300×250 creatives to serve in its email newsletters. With this in mind, the team advised Zoosk to allow multiple ad sizes to serve, such as the highly popular 970×550 and 970×250, enabling Zoosk to receive more demand, higher CPMs and, ultimately, greater revenue.

Zoosk valued their users’ experience and wanted to ensure that the change to accept various ad sizes would not impact their email engagement. LiveIntent worked with Zoosk to reconfigure the ad slots across all email templates and test them over a two-week period. During that time, LiveIntent closely monitored performance with Zoosk. After seeing an increase in ad revenue with no negative impact on email engagement, Zoosk decided to continue to accept multiple creative sizes in their emails instead of only the 300×250 sized units.

The outcomes of yield optimization

What happened next exceeded Zoosk’s expectations. In the 35 days after updating Zoosk’s LiveTags to accept multiple sizes, the increased bid density led to:

  • 35% increase in fill rate
  • 73% increase in revenue per open
  • 14% increase in CPM
  • 35% increase in overall revenue compared to the 35 days prior to the change

As for their email engagement, Zoosk saw:

  • 18% increase in impressions
  • 38% increase in CTR

After taking that leap, Zoosk was able to boost their revenue without adding more ad slots to their emails — an excellent example of how experimenting with new strategies can lead to beneficial results. By evaluating old habits and making slight adjustments, they were able to amplify the Zoosk experience for themselves and their users.

“LiveIntent has helped us grow our newsletter monetization program considerably. They’re willing to talk through and test new ideas, doing most of the heavy lifting themselves. This has allowed us more time to focus on our main priorities.”

Diogo dos Santos Pinto
Senior Project Manager, Strategic Initiatives at Zoosk

Want to learn more about yield optimization? Check out our video explainer.

0
Tweet 0
Nick Bolt
Senior product marketing manager, publisher solutions

Must-Read Content

3 publishing priorities
    • Email Monetization

3 publishing priorities for 2023

  • Mano Pillai
  • December 21, 2022
    • Email Monetization

Staking a claim in $61.15bn in digital ad spend

  • Chris Hartley
  • December 13, 2022
    • Email Monetization

Why email is crucial to local publisher monetization strategies

  • Victoria de Leon
  • July 14, 2022
Learn more about Email Monetization.
View Post
  • Email Monetization

Consumer behaviors, email newsletters, and subscription fatigue with Mark Stenberg

  • Mark Dunning
  • June 13, 2022
View Post
  • Email Monetization

Email list monetization: What is it and why is it important?

  • Victoria de Leon
  • May 18, 2022
View Post
  • Email Monetization

4 ways to monetize your first-party data in 2022

  • Victoria de Leon
  • May 3, 2022
View Post
  • Email Monetization

5 tips for email audience building in 2022

  • Mark Dunning
  • April 5, 2022
View Post
  • Email Monetization

Unlocking and supporting business opportunities with first-party data

  • Nick Bolt
  • March 30, 2022
View Post
  • Email Monetization

CNET finds the sweet spot between direct-sold strategy and operational ease with Native Ad Blueprints

  • Jennie Conway
  • March 14, 2022
View Post
  • Email Monetization

Apple’s Mail Privacy Protection (MPP): What it means for direct-sold deals

  • Nick Bolt
  • February 22, 2022
View Post
  • Email Monetization

Building audiences in today’s digital world

  • Mark Dunning
  • February 16, 2022
LiveIntent Blog
Think outside the inbox and discover all the innovative ways email can help you grow your business.
© LiveIntent 2022
  • Solutions
    • Advertiser solutions
    • People-Based audiences
    • Publisher solutions
    • Identity data solutions
    • Identity framework
  • Company
    • Our Story
    • Careers
    • Employee Resource Groups
    • Press
    • Events
    • Contact us
  • Resources
    • Case studies
    • Blog
    • Knowledge base
    • Brand assets
  • Legal
    • Powered by
    • Content policy
    • Website privacy policy
    • Services privacy policy
    • Do not sell my info
    • Ad choices
© LiveIntent 2022
Popular topics
  • People-Based Marketing
  • Meet-a-LiveIntenter
  • Email Revenue
  • Identity Graph
  • Subscriber Acquisition
  • First-Party Data
  • Direct-to-Consumer
  • Cookie Apocalypse