A user of Google AdSense was recently notified about a beta program of Google’s that, when fully launched, would give publishers “an opportunity to monetize your most engaged users.”
While there are no official details from Google (beyond a confirmation that there will be more to share soon), the program, reportedly called Rewarded Ad Gate, would essentially serve as a paywall alternative, triggering on a visitor’s fifth page view of the month.
If the visitor chooses to view an ad, according to outlined details on the Webmaster World thread, a video or image ad would appear for 30 seconds or less, followed by a thank-you message. After that, the visitor would be granted access to the page or site.
If the visitor chooses not to view that ad, access would not be granted until the next month when the page-view count is reset.
Google’s Rewarded Ad Gate program wouldn’t be the first to attempt this type of paywall alternative, but coming on the heels of recent statistics showing more than half of consumers trying to get around paywalls (and 53% saying they leave sites altogether that ask them to volunteer information in order to access content), it’s an option that publishers should pay close attention to moving forward.
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