As of January 1st, 2024, Zedge is moving to a new way of dividing ad revenue from rewarded videos. Our previous calculation used a global average that treated all video ads the same, dividing each day's total video advertising revenue by each day's total video ad views, resulting in a very stable average ad rate (basically, any rewarded video unlock earned artists about $0.01).
The new system pays out based on how much an ad view earned that day in the country where the ad was actually viewed. To understand how the change to this calculation might affect a given artist, let’s look at an item behind a video ad that receives two sales on the same day.
Under the old calculation, those two sales would have earned the artist ~$0.02 in November, no matter where the downloads occurred.
After the January 1st 2024 change to the royalty calculation, this is how the location of the purchaser would change what the artist earns:
- An item with two rewarded video unlocks, one in the U.S. and one in India, would have earned $0.10 for the same two sales in November ($0.094 for the download in the U.S. + $0.002 for the download in India) – a 381% increase!
- An item with two rewarded video unlocks, both in the U.S., would have earned ~$0.19 for the same two sales in November – an even greater 838% increase!
- An item with two rewarded video unlocks, both in India, would have earned ~$0.005 – a 76% decrease.
The total revenue that gets divided among all Premium artists does not change in this scenario; only the method by which we divide that revenue has changed.
We believe this adjustment improves the overall user experience for Zedge’s customers, while more fairly rewarding the artists who are driving the bulk of that revenue. While some artists will see their total revenue increase, others may see their total revenue decrease.
The increases should be significantly greater than the decreases. Here’s a high-level summary of what the change might mean for certain artists based on November’s data:
Creating art that drives sales in T1 countries will help keep your revenue as high as possible.