Surfline · B2C · surf forecast and cam app
Play a short video ad before free users can watch the surf cam
Earns from free users; host remembers an ad years later
Workedad-monetization
What they did
An in-house ad sales team sells traditional media packages to brands, monetizing the free audience, including unskippable video ads that play before free users can view surf cams.
What happened
Free audience is monetized through ads; no revenue figures given.
In their words
Sub Club by RevenueCat · How to Succeed with Freemium and Hybrid Monetization — Paul Ganev, Surfline“We have an ad sales team, and traditionally we went to market and we would sell media packages, and that was kind of our strategy and we'd monetize the free audience.”
“I still can get cams. I have to watch an ad for, there's an ad for board shorts that used to play at the beginning of like every Surfline video from five years ago that I will never forget.”
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More from this episode
- Surfline: Give surfers free daily forecasts, then sell the full version to the keen onesGrows with zero paid ads; free-to-paid conversion up a lot over five years
- Surfline: Publish a surf report page for every beach so searchers land on youSEO is the biggest channel after word of mouth; no numbers
- Surfline: Let free users use a few features without limits instead of capping visitsTested both; guest prefers unlimited use of free features, no numbers
- Surfline: Keep adding paid features and new surf cams for free users to upgrade toShort spike from early adopters, then a higher baseline conversion
- Surfline: Get brands to give subscribers exclusive discounts instead of showing them adsWell received; outperforms banner ads for brands, no numbers
- Surfline: Cut market research down using your own free users' data and surveys
- Surfline: Aim the paid plan at surfers who go often; leave casual ones to free apps