Some web publishers have a small idea: create something that will help users, then get it working online somehow. Then–almost in shock–they watch it take off. That’s the magic of the web. Now add advertising to it, and suddenly you have another solid revenue flow that you didn’t expect. This happened for Sergey Chudnovsky; his website 4shared.com provides a way for people to upload and quickly organize their files online.

Sergey and his website– 4shared.com –is this month’s Direct Media Exchange Featured Publisher.

“…DMX gives us this great opportunity to join partner ad networks and get higher revenue because of the auction model.”
-Sergey Chudnovsky

Vince Panero (VP) : How did you get interested in web publishing originally? What were those early days like for you?

Sergey Chudnovsky : We just decided to create our own interesting web service to see if we could make something attractive: something which could be used later to develop our own business as web developers. Of course we already had certain skills at that moment, but pretty soon the service itself started to look potentially like it would become popular. We thought that we should try to earn some money with it.

VP : Can you tell us about your website/s? How would you describe your focus/business model? And are there any particular issues exclusive to your site that you had to overcome to make the advertising model work?

Sergey Chudnovsky : Basically, 4shared.com is an online file storage site where people can save their files and organize access to them easily. 4shared has a lot of advantages and usable features for different users’ requests. 4shared.com has become successful and gained traffic mostly because of its extremely friendly interface. It’s pretty similar to the usual file manager, so users need not learn a new way to use it. Actually, that was our main goal: create an expandable, easy and convenient service for the user.

The biggest issues were monetizing international traffic and making ads non-obtrusive. It is also very important that ad placement and appearance should fit into the site design. That’s why we try to cooperate with many advertisers; this gives us a variety of interesting ads.

VP : What was the inspiration for the name of your website, “4Shared”?

Sergey Chudnovsky : Initially it was going to be a file sharing portal, so ‘For shared’ sounded good. However, the purpose and abilities of our service are a bit wider now.

VP : Did you get into this with the idea that you would make ad dollars from this site? How did you initially monetize your site? What problems did you encounter utilizing these early methods?

Sergey Chudnovsky : This idea came as soon as the site started to get more users. Initially we worked with AdSense and the problem was with ad appearance and placement optimization–getting better results without damaging page integrity, making it nice to look at, etc.

VP : Why did you start using Direct Media Exchange as your ad management platform of choice?

Sergey Chudnovsky : As I mentioned before, we liked working with different advertisers and DMX gives us this great opportunity to join partner ad networks and get higher revenue because of the auction model.

VP : What statistical changes have you seen since you started using it? For example, have your eCPM and/or revenue increased?

Sergey Chudnovsky : Yes, we have seen an obvious positive trend and our eCPM and revenue have increased during the last month.

VP : What do you like most about Direct Media Exchange? Are there helpful parts of it that other ad management interfaces simply don’t offer? And how does it address the specific needs of your website’s unique niche?

Sergey Chudnovsky : Oh, there are a lot of unique, useful features. The reporting system–with geo-targeting—is very convenient. And Media Guard with its rich abilities of precise tuning for additional networks. I would also note that the service is really stable and has perfect support.

VP : Do you have any comments on ad placement technique: what works and what doesn’t? Is there a particular type of ad that you favor over others in regards to your site? What are your thoughts around this?

Sergey Chudnovsky : We just like advertising of good quality and design, which is not loud and does not contain “click here” and other similar statements. Advertising of well-known brands or internet services of high quality works best typically. As for placement – according to the specific design of our site, we have specified places that we decided on long ago. These places are well-observed, but do not break the consistency of our pages nor affect application usability.

VP : Do you have any other tips or tricks that you think others using the exchange might find useful?

Sergey Chudnovsky : Use more networks, and place advertising in reasonable and well-observed places to attract interested users because CPA and CPC campaigns can bring much more revenue than just CPM.

VP : Do you have any final thoughts on this “exchange concept” (network transparency and competition, the utility of having just one login, etc.)?

Sergey Chudnovsky : This concept and all its components give publishers full and integral control over advertising on their websites. We are feeling ‘well-armed’ having such tools. That’s just great. I hope DMX will go further and continue improving the concept.

VP : If there was a recipe for success that you’ve discovered–and you were able to go back in time and share that with yourself when you were younger–what would that ‘recipe’ be?

Sergey Chudnovsky : I guess I’m not old enough yet to recommend something to a younger me. I think I’ve followed the correct way of doing things, so there is nothing to change. Maybe the advice would be to just have the patience to finish what I started and not quit on ideas half-way through. That’s all.

VP : Thanks for being a member of Direct Media Exchange.

Sergey Chudnovsky: I believe our successful cooperation will last a long time. We appreciate this opportunity to be your featured publisher.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 8th, 2008 at 10:25 am and is filed under About Right Media, Direct Media Exchange. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.