A Simple Idea That Could Increase Parking Yields

I’m not going to deny there are better minds than me coming up with ideas to make parking more lucrative but I’ve always had this idea and I thought I would share it.  When I develop websites we have an advertising term called “own the page” It essentially means that for a certain price we’ll brand the entire website around you, the background, the header, and in between posts.  You see a lot of this in celebrity websites as TV advertisers like to promote the start of a series or certain shows.  This brings me to the idea of letting one company “rent” my landing page.

Here’s how I would have it work.  The page is required to sit in the traditional style of parking with PPC ads for one month. After one month a total income for the month number can be generated.  That’s the “value” of your page.  At that point you can set a rate that one company or person can rent your landing page on a per month basis.  You can set the rate at whatever you’d like and while the page remains in traditional parking there can be a banner or logo that says “rent this page” with the follow through leading to the monthly rate.  I think it would be a good idea to show verified monthly uniques to help sell your site and give reasoning to your price. I realize some people don’t like to share their stats but let that be up to the owner of the domain.  I think the numbers may actually help them sell the domain. Heck, the renter may even buy it.  That is of course,  the site gets no clicks and you’ve been trying to sell a domain as a premium despite nobody ever types it in and in that case you shouldn’t show your hand.

After you accept the renter and he pays your rate, the renter would then be able to put up a one page lander that you either accept or deny.  I would assume he would put up an ad for his company and then a follow through but since it’s on your domain you should personally approve all ads.  Here are the positives I see in this

1. Google, Yahoo or whomever the parking company is using for ads is getting their share of the ads.  With this renting program its you, the advertiser, and the parking company, eliminating the ad originator. You found the advertiser
2. You can always go back to regular parking so you don’t lose anything while the page isn’t rented
3. You know how much money you’ve been taking in each month.  You can set the rate that you want based on those numbers. I would assume you would try for a little higher money.
4. The parking companies are going to have to be more open in this case.  They will have to go to a percentage to make it work. Twenty or 30% would be my guess.  Most people have no idea how much they get now.
5. Serving a one page ad is not a big feat technologically so transitioning a page from PPC to a lander wouldn’t be that big of a deal.
6. It’s an easy sell to an advertiser when you have the data
7. You get to sell yourself each time someone comes to the site.  Often it is advertisers and companies looking for names.  They get to test drive the page.  I would allow them to put a visitor tracker and a click through or they can pay to have it put up.

So that’s my thoughts.  I’m sure there are reasons why nobody’s done it yet but I couldn’t think of them initially.  I’m not going to make this happen so it’s no skin off my back if there are 100 reasons why this won’t work.  And if works  then I only want a few million dollars like the guys who had the idea for  Facebook.  So shoot what are other pros and cons.