Advertising on Help Desk Products

Tech-Talk from Internet Software Sciences President Scott Vanderlip

Paying for your help desk product with integrated vendor advertisements?

Welcome to 2015 and the world of apps with ads!
You will not be able to wink without carefully-crafted and specially-tailored ads sneaking in on some form of medium from your web browser, or now… the set of software program and utilities used to get your work done, possibly including your Help Desk.

Every click of your mouse or page refresh will bring a new, distracting advertisement to your eyes necessitating that you pause and potentially CLICK away for a whole another set of views or to purchase something.
but wait.. wasn’t I working on supporting a user???

That summer vacation kayak trip to Vermont that you just researched over lunch now has redirected ads on every page of your help desk ticketing system.  With every page refresh comes new pictures of kayaks and paddles, quiet kayak coves and fun-loving paddlers waiting for you!  Let’s face it, you are distracted!

Sadly, with so many  “FREE” Internet services and products (email, maps, directory, searches, etc), many businesses now expect daily work software to be free too!  Software takes time and dollars to design and maintain and many software companies may move their model of income to an ad-based scheme rather than simply selling the software or monthly services, since it can be far more profitable!

At what point will consumers prefer the “free” software model and replace their basic productivity tools like MS Word, and Excel with free versions in exchange for continual advertising.  Unlike a billboard on a freeway we pass everyday that is fairly static, Internet-connected web-based applications are perfect for ad distribution and can continually refresh and push new focused ads several times a minute even if we stay on the same web page. For many Internet-connected software packages and almost any software application, there is now a larger potential profit from selling users’ eyeballs instead of bankrolling the software company from purchases.

What does ad based software cost the user?

Advertising in work applications costs the employer far more money in the long run than just paying for the application in the first place.  Time and productivity of a person is far more important than saving a 50** cents a day per tech to pay for a professionally-developed and supported application.  Let’s look at the  example of a tech at a $30 /hr salary,  If that tech is distracted by more than 30 seconds IN A FULL DAY (30 seconds = 50 cents cost to employer) by those application-embedded ads, an employer would be better off paying for the product or service rather than getting it free with ads.

** Estimated cost of a tech / day for Web+Center – We did a quick calculation of how much it cost to provide Web+Center help desk ticketing software for 1 tech /day based on a 10 tech license with annual support and Web+Center used for 5 years.
Here is the basic breakdown of costs:

• License: 10 tech License – $5,000 / 10 techs/ 365 days x 5 years = 27 cents/day
• Support/Upgrades: $1000/Year / 10 techs/365 days  = 27 cents/day

Total Per day cost for Web+Center 54 cents/day/tech

We want your feedback!

Do you want the Web+Center product licensing (or other IT Help Desk solutions) to be free in exchange for advertisements taking a portion of the screen space?  What are your thoughts on advertising working its way into other software products as a method of paying for the software or services?  We have posted this same article on our website blog page on our website and encourage you to provide feedback on this important issue in the help desk field.  Some Help Desk vendors have adopted this model and are highly successful.  Is this the new business model other help desk vendors should follow?