Why Customer Revenue and Ad Revenue Don’t Mix

Seven reasons why you shouldn’t treat paying customers like product

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We’ve all heard this one by now: If you’re not paying for a product, you are the product.

You should never do this to your paying customers.

There are a whole host of reasons why serving ads to paying customers is a horrible idea — reasons I’ve learned firsthand launching dozens of digital products, from user-generated content sites to two-sided marketplaces to service subscriptions and just about everything in between.

Let’s go over those reasons and make sure you’re not setting up your customer-driven product for failure, whether you’re serving ads or not.

1. Traditional advertising as we know it is dying

That’s a bold statement, but I can defend it.

I know this is going to come off as controversial, especially to marketers, but the web was never intended to be a commercial marketplace in the traditional sense. Traditional advertising on the Internet never caught on like it did in print, radio, and television.

Think about it this way: The intent of most digital advertising isn’t to expose product value quickly, it’s to follow you around the…