?? 3 in-app advertising ideas to monetize your freemium users. The key to freemium monetization in SaaS?

Hey Folks! There's no such thing as a free lunch. When you sign up for a "freemium" product - you pay with your personal data and...attention. In B2C, business owners monetize that attention with ads without second thoughts. In B2B though...it doesn't happen. Uninterrupted user flow in B2B SaaS is?sacrosanct...even if the users don't pay a dime to use your product!?

Well, what if you changed that - and used ads to push the FREE users to upgrade??

When you use the free version of Spotify - every few songs you will be interrupted by a particulary annoying ad. You will also be seeing these in-app advertising banners whenever you want to change a playlist until you upgrade or quit using Spotify. Because using the free version is (in my humble opinion) unbearable.

Well, if you know me - you know I'm the last person to promote unbearable user experiences. But I've also worked at a few freemium SaaS companies and I know free users can be a b...atch. I mean a lot. And not a bundle of joy.?

You can always mark your in-app ads with "upgrade to remove ads" link, leading to your checkout:?

Or use a countdown timer (with background opacity) to let your users know when the ad will disappear:?

Anyway, back to the story: the only time I got a very ugly threat from a SaaS user was the one time I decided to "grandfather" all free users with a 3-month notice, giving them a 90% discount to upgrade their accounts. Which meant they were to pay ~ $1 for a monthly subscription to a social media scheduling tool. Still, the uproar was huge.?

Now, my partner also has a SaaS tool with a very generous free plan. He has ~2000 users, most of whom a free users - which (as it just dawned on me) presents a huge monetization opportunity. ..

Watch my video rant with some alternative monetization lever ideas!?

So here are 3 in-app advertising ideas that you can use in no-code slideouts, banners or modals inside your product to make more $$$ out of your free users!?

Promote complementary tools and services ?

If you've experimented with tweaking your pricing plans , pushed for upgrades, and restricted your features - and yet your freemium users won't budge -?maybe it's time to take a leaf out of Spotify's book and try to monetize your audience with paid advertising?

Here are some examples of how you could do it (using Userpilot's no-code in-app experience builder , of course???). Use a slideout to promote complementary done-for-you services offered by a partnering agency:

You can charge the service provider a flat fee for displaying the slideout inside your product, or charge them per impression / click (since Userpilot shows you exactly how many interactions you've had!) or charge an affiliate fee for each sale of the service that came from your users...or all of the above!?

Promote your marketing resources and higher plans

Whether it's a webinar or a lead magnet (like our Product Metrics?Benchmarks Quiz !)?- you can use slideouts, modals and banners to promote it inside your product, thus pushing the free users down your nurture funnel:?

You can also use them on your website to convert visitors into MQLs:?

Cross-sell and upsell add-ons

?Upselling encourages customers to purchase a more advanced or premium version of the product they are already using to enhance their experience.?Cross-selling ,?in turn, involves offering additional complementary products or serviceto existing customers to meet related needs:

In some cases, you can even offer the same feature as both an upsell and cross-sell - either as a trigger to upgrade to a higher plan, or as an add-on:?

In sum: if your free users persistently refuse to upgrade, you can give them an extra nudge with a bit more annoying in-app modals (that e.g. disappear after a few seconds) or monetize your audience with in-app ads. To make them more effective for your advertisers, you can segment your user base by different attributes - and make your ads more effective by targeting specific?audience segments ?- e.g. women aged 20-25, or account managers based in Germany, or users that engaged in a specific feature, or bought a specific product a certain number of times etc....your imagination is the limit:?

P.S. Looking for more inspiration on how to communicate with your users in-app and collect user feedback?? Join our upcoming webinar about in-app surveys!?

See you all there!