How to Monetize More With Online Business Acquisitions
Updated on April 30, 2020
“Success is where preparation and opportunity meet.”
This iconic quote, from former racecar driver Bobby Unser, fits Kean Graham’s approach to scaling online businesses.
Kean founded MonetizeMore, a platform that helps publishers increase their ad revenue. He believes that of all the ways you can monetize your website, ad optimization is the “lowest hanging fruit.” And he’s right. MonetizeMore’s users report double- and triple-digit increases in their sites’ RPM (revenue per 1,000 impressions).
Kean’s venture into the online marketing world didn’t begin with MonetizeMore. Let’s rewind over a decade to when Kean was fresh out of business school. His first job after college was at a company that sold online classified ads. Kean was the company’s first marketing hire, and he showed initiative from day one.
One of the First Growth Hackers
At that time, digital marketing was a relatively new field, as Kean says, “I was a growth hacker before growth hacking was even a term.”
He recognized right away that he could grow the company while building something for himself at the same time. The wheels began turning, and Kean dreamed up an idea to start his own business.
“I got the inspiration to start the business during a trip to South America. I wanted to start a location-independent business that allowed me to travel around the world and run my business at the same time.”
When Kean returned from his trip, he got right to work. He developed MonetizeMore and applied it successfully to his employer’s business. Today, he uses his tool on all the sites he owns.
Due to Kean’s success with MonetizeMore, he began searching for ways to reinvest the profits. He contemplated stocks, mutual funds, cryptocurrency, and even investing more into his original venture. Ultimately, he realized he could produce the highest ROI by acquiring other businesses and implementing his ad revenue software on their websites.
“MonetizeMore has the technology to increase ad revenues for publishers, so it’s a pretty natural progression to actually buy websites that we can implement our technology on, and we know we’ll consistently increase their ad revenue. Immediately.”
Kean’s “investment opportunity” has gone full circle. “It’s enabled us to build a portfolio of ad-monetized publishers,” he explains. “Because it’s such a strategic fit to buy these publishers that are making money from AdSense or other types of display ad networks, we’ve been able to implement our technology and get the immediate return. But the other exciting part is we get to put ourselves in the shoes of our customer base of ad-monetized publishers.”
Kean’s enthusiastic outlook is obvious: “There is so much opportunity in the online space. This is the future.”
The Entrepreneurial Lifestyle
In addition to the lucrative lifestyle that being an online entrepreneur allows, Kean also appreciates how much freedom he has. “I can literally be anywhere in the world I want. I can chase the sun. When it’s winter up in the northern hemisphere, I can go down to the southern hemisphere.”
Kean has countless examples of how his online business has given him the freedom to do whatever he wants. “If a friend is having a wedding in another part of the world, I can go there and still work.” He also points out the advantages of not having a commute or being able to live in a dream destination without having to worry about career opportunities.
“It really opens up these brand-new avenues that wouldn’t be available if it required working from an office.”
Before taking the leap to buy a business, Kean advises that you perform due diligence first and warns that it’s “not easy.” He notes that “some sellers try to put lipstick on a pig” by making their business look better than it is.
His advice: “You need to be skeptical.” He also recommends doing your due diligence before buying a company. “One thing Empire Flippers does a great job on is finding those black-hat issues and filtering them out. I really enjoyed the transparency that Empire Flippers has with the buyers, and they legitimately want it to be a success after the actual sale.”
“They’ve done a great job of incorporating a strong screening process for each of the sites [on their marketplace]. It’s nice peace of mind for me as a buyer.”
Kean had a great experience with his first business acquisition from Empire Flippers and we hope he has continued success while expanding his portfolio of online assets.
Are you ready to start the process of acquiring a successful online business? Take a look at our marketplace or schedule a call today.
