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Monetizing a SMS Notification Application

8 points by ddemchuk ↗ HN
I'm working on the finishing touches of an application that's main feature will be sending out real time SMS notifications. For the purposes of this question, I'll use the example of a sports score text message update service (Not my actual idea, but similar in function).

I'm planning on offering two different account options, one free, basic, and ad supported, one paid, customizable, and ad free.

The free service would only send messages like "the score is now 7 to 3" while the paid version will have options like sending a message saying "Manny Ramirez hit a double for 2 RBI's".

So my question is, what kind of monetization options are there for the free account? I've contacted www.movoxx.com, a company that embeds 40 character ads into every text you send, and that seems like a good option so long as they accept my idea and allow me to sign up. Does anyone have any experience with them?

The service should appeal to users who are looking for a good amount of SMS updates so there's a potential for sending out thousands of messages a day if the product catches on.

What other options are there for SMS message monetization?

10 comments

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qhoxie
Ads are a good way of doing it, but I have never been a fan of the per message ad. I would suggest leaving the messages clean and then sending messages dedicated to an ad. Clearly full message ads will generate more revenue per and be less frequent.
ddemchuk
Do you know of any other services that implement this advertising model successfully?

Before discovering Movoxx, this was how I pictured a successful advertising campaign operating through SMS messages...

tjpick
sms messages have a built in monitization scheme: per txt and people are well conditioned to this IMHO. I'd be surprised if you tick anyone off by using it, and I'd heavily question any deviation from this.

I'd probably go for something like a free trial 10 messages, after that sign up and start paying. Just stick with the single paid account.

ddemchuk
That was actually my exact model before I found out what Movoxx was. I haven't gotten any actual CPM projections from them yet, but their service made it seem to me that it would make it easier to pick up more users because it would allow a long term free option for them.

But I originally had planned on 20 free alerts, then you would have to upgrade for something like $20 for 6 months.

iigs
I don't know how movoxx works, but I can say I always get a really uneasy feeling when I think about my phone number being close to an advertiser's database. Even if they give you the ads and they never see the numbers, as your customer I can't be sure of that, and it would make me unhappy.
ddemchuk
I see what you're saying. From my first few emails with them, I have learned that they have an API for ad placement so I think all ads would be handled on my end. They did say they have a free SMS gateway though, which would obviously open up my phone number database to them, which would fall in line with your concerns...
theantidote
What are you using now for your SMS gateway? I think the easiest way is to have the user choose their service provider when they provide their phone number and then you can send an email to phoneno@serviceprovider.com or whatever the text message email address is for their provider. I'm pretty sure that's free and easy to do. That way you could also use an email marketing platform and just make your ads tiny enough to fit in a text message.
ddemchuk
I'm using the exact system you just mentioned. What email marketing platform would you recommend if any?
joshu
Check out zong.com - I met the CEO not too long ago and they seemed to really have a clue.
ddemchuk
They definitely do seem to have a pretty nice platform built. But my product will be more passive in interaction and there seems to be a pretty big cut taken out from using their service (looks like you're only getting about 45% of the total sales).

I guess I would need to weigh out using a full featured service like that or piecing together my own for a better value.

I'm currently delivering the text messages via the phone number email that all phone's are assigned. Obviously this will have to be analyzed soon to make sure it can scale, not to mention I'm not sure if sending that many emails a day would make me spam-list worthy.