I have advised my clients for years to think like every page in their website is the “home” page because readers don’t primarily enter websites through the “front door.”  Since readers could be landing on any page for their first, be sure to design the page to maximize the engagement and chance of them reading more.

Never has that advice been more important than when monetizing traffic that comes from search or social media sources, since that traffic is unlikely to “stick” by earning a second and third page view.  The value of the traffic is only what the publisher can earn on that one page view.

Now, finally, publishers are getting the religion and making hay while the sun shines.  Since traffic driven by postings to Facebook and Twitter tend to be one-and-done, why not capture the greatest revenue you can at the point of entry?  So publishers are selling advertisers on displaying “entry-point” ads in large formats and utilizing targeting data from whence the traffic came to make the advertising even more valuable.  These ads could be page-take-over ads like Forbes has been running for years, or they could be lavish on-page impressions, like push-downs with embedded video like the New York Times has put primarily on its home page in the past.

Now Ad Age reports on a new service from ad-targeting firm 33Across that is making this easier for smaller sites with less of their own tech resources.  “A new approach from ad tech company 33Across is looking to “democratize” this strategy across a broader network of publishers’ sites, according to the company CEO Eric Wheeler. The product serves a large additional ad to visitors who reach a site through Facebook, Twitter, Google and other sources. The display ad pushes in from the left without obscuring the text of an article.”  Read the whole piece here.