Pheedo has just introduced a new advertising service called "Ads For Feeds". Website publishers who participate can cut and paste ads into their RSS web feeds. [Found via Pamela Parker's post in ClickZ. I also noticed Rok's writeup after I finished the final draft of this post.]

I visited the Pheedo site to get the full details. There are actually two offerings for site publishers: Ads for Feeds, and Ads for Feeds+. The former requires that a publisher insert ad code into their feed template, and offers limited feed analytics. The latter offers a wider range of feed stats, a variety of ad options, and hosts the feed for free - similar to what Feedburner does.

Both offerings pay an ad revenue share. According to the FAQ:

Pheedo pays you 65% of all advertising revenue generated by your feeds and sites. Our online reports detail your earnings.

Payment is made by check or Paypal every 30 days, if the minimum payout level is reached. The FAQ is rather sparse, but the "Terms and Conditions" says that the minimum payout level is $50, presumably in US currency, since the signup process only allows American publishers.

This service is similar to one that Feedburner has been rolling out. Feedburner states up front that they are limiting the number of publishers allowed into their program, so as to not to deplete the source of ads. I tried to go through the sign-up process for Pheedo but saw nothing about how they are rolling out acceptance of publishers for Ads for Feeds. There was also no information about minimum subscriber levels, which I believe Feedburner has. However, Pheedo claims to have been providing an ad network for RSS feeds since 2003, and thus may have a large advertiser base. Feedburner, if I'm not mistaken, only recently started rolling out their ads for feeds, and thus their ad base is insufficient for signing up large numbers of publishers.

There are a few drawbacks to Pheedo's offering:

1. If you sign up for Ads for Feeds+, it requires that you create a new feed URL, just like you would for Feedburner. However, if you already have subscribers to a different feed URL (say your native feed URL or a Feedburner URL), you have to redirect subscriptions. (Pheedo claims that is only requires a "simple redirect", something that's not always so simple when it comes to a feed auto-generated from a blogging platform, especially if the publisher/ blogger has limited technical background.)
   
2. Using Ads for Feeds+ means that your native feed has no ads. Anyone who wants to subscribe to your feed but really doesn't want to see the ads simply has to subscribe to your native feed. Although this is a problem for Feedburner feeds with ads as well.
3. Using Ads for Feeds instead means being able to insert the ad code into your "feed templates", as Pheedo puts it. They say "We'll also help you create custom ad code to fit your specific CMS." Now while they say that the offering is intended for a variety of users including bloggers, they never mention which blogging platforms they support. My experience with 3 or 4 platforms suggests that it might not be all that easy for bloggers to use Ads for Feeds. They may have to opt for Ads for Feeds+ instead.
4. Unlike Feedburner, Pheedo's offerings are only available to American publishers.
   

If you really want to monetize your RSS feeds and don't want anyone to circumvent the ads, you probably want to do one of two things:

1. Disable access to your native feed from all but the IP address of the site that is hosting your feed (and maybe your own IP address, for testing purposes).
2. Insert advertising into your native feed instead. Although doing so usually means less tracking options. (I haven't tried it, but you might be able to insert Pheedo ads into your native feed, then burn it with Feedburner. Although I can't see Feedburner liking this too much.)
   

Finally, using RSS ads from any network (including Google AdSense) typically means offering full-text feeds. I've noticed an attitude shift amongst some of the top bloggers in the blogosphere, from partial-text to full-text feeds, in the past few weeks. But given that full-text makes it easier for sploggers to steal your articles wholesale, many people are still leery of offering full-text. Which means that they probably will not make use of RSS-based advertising, thereby increasing the ad options for those who do.

I'm greatly disappointed that, not being an American, I will not currently have an opportunity to test out Pheedo's offering. I do plan to contact Pheedo and find out if and when they plan to roll out internationally.

(c) Copyright 2006-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://www.chameleonintegration.com/

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