There are already greater than 200 streaming companies on this planet. Is there room for an additional?
Whereas it’d really feel slightly late within the recreation for a brand-new streaming service to hit the bottom operating – particularly as big-name streaming platforms wrestle to develop subscriptions and advert income – free companies have a better time gaining traction.
Take Mansa, a free streaming service based by a bunch of filmmakers and actors, together with Nigerian-British movie star David Oyelowo. Mansa launched in April with an $8 million seed spherical that included participation from WndrCo Founder Jeffrey Katzenberg and Vista Fairness’s Robert Smith.
The platform has a distinct segment. It streams content material associated to Black tradition geared toward a worldwide viewers, together with films, TV exhibits and short-form movies.
Its first order of enterprise was to draw viewers, which Co-Founder Zak Tanjeloff tells me Mansa has achieved, though he declined to share numbers. Now, Mansa is concentrated on attracting advertisers. “There’s lots of [growth] alternative within the free streaming area,” Tanjeloff says.
Mansa is free for viewers and consists of each ad-supported TV channels (FAST) and on-demand titles (AVOD). Having each choices helps to extend whole watch time on free apps, which already choose up viewership momentum quicker than subscription-based AVOD companies as a result of, effectively, duh, they’re free. In line with Samba TV’s most up-to-date report, one in three US viewers subscribe to a FAST service, in contrast with one in 4 paid streaming subscribers with an ad-supported membership.
Tanjeloff additionally runs an funding agency known as Tanjeloff Holdings (which was an early investor in Samba), so he is aware of a factor or two about what it takes to construct a worthwhile linked TV enterprise – which, for a free AVOD platform, means constructing a sustainable promoting enterprise.
However as necessary as promoting is to Mansa’s long-term profitability, Tanjeloff says that viewership scale should come first.
I spoke with Tanjeloff to study extra about how Mansa intends to monetize.
AdExchanger: How does Mansa earn cash?
ZAK TANJELOFF: The enterprise is usually predicated on promoting.
We additionally earn cash from content material distribution. We’ve got our personal FAST channel, which is on Roku, Hearth TV, iOS and Android, and shortly to be on Vizio, LG and Samsung.
And we’ve an unique distribution cope with AMC Networks. We’re going to amass some movie titles, which we’ll add to our streaming platform after a window of theatrical exclusivity.
Is your advert income rising?
Monetization is coming, however the trajectory of our enterprise remains to be very a lot in early days. Earlier than we might begin piquing advertiser curiosity, we would have liked to succeed in a sure scale when it comes to viewership, which we’ve now met.
Are you able to share how many individuals watch Mansa presently?
I can’t share actual numbers, however I can say that our viewership has grown about 46% month over month since we launched earlier this 12 months.
Viewer retention is rising, too. Returning customers now make up over 70% of Mansa’s viewers, up from 5% when the platform was nonetheless in beta testing main as much as this 12 months’s launch. Engagement can be up: Common session instances are between 60 and 65 minutes, up from 20 minutes at launch.
Nonetheless, streaming companies are beginning to prioritize profitability. How will Mansa guarantee sustainable enterprise progress?
Proper now, we’re targeted on buyer acquisition value (CAC) and lifelong worth (LTV). Our LTV is six instances larger than our CAC, which suggests our direct advertising and marketing efforts are bringing in new viewers extremely inexpensively in comparison with the long-term worth they symbolize for advertisers. Extra returning viewers with longer session instances means larger common income per person.
What varieties of viewers information can Mansa use to focus on advertisements?
We use information equivalent to location and viewing historical past to focus on advertisements. When folks join a free account, we additionally get their identify and e-mail, which we anonymize when used for promoting.
Logging in isn’t required for entry, however nearly 70% of our viewers elects to create an account for personalised content material suggestions.
How are you promoting advertisements: immediately or programmatically?
We promote advertisements programmatically by way of SpringServe [owned by Magnite]. We’re beginning to work with some companions to do direct gross sales, however we haven’t constructed out our personal direct gross sales staff but.
Many diverse-owned media corporations desire direct gross sales over programmatic. Why did Mansa resolve to start out with programmatic?
You’re proper: Minority-owned media corporations desire direct gross sales to make sure they’re operating an advert that’ll resonate with their viewers. However for us, programmatic means a decrease threshold to promote extra spots. We do intend to develop direct gross sales however, for now, we’re prioritizing scale.
This interview has been edited and condensed.
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