Business model of Imgur

Customer Segments

The main audience of Imgur’s image sharing platform is its community of free users, comprising internet consumers that wish to view and share images online. Its community is made up primarily of millennial males, with 84% of its user base being male and 74% being under the age of 35, with the majority coming from the US.

The Company also serves advertising agencies and big brands with its various advertising solutions, and provides analytics services to website operators and businesses that wish to gain greater insights into the traffic generated by images and posts. A number of high-profile companies have taken advantage of Imgur’s advertising, including Budweiser, PlayStation, Square Enix, Paramount and MTV.

Value Propositions

Imgur’s principal value to its users is that its platform is free to use, enabling them to view, share and link to images without charge. For advertisers, Imgur’s greatest value is its large base of users, with the platform’s 150 million active monthly users and 6 billion monthly page views give brands and advertising agencies a significant boost in audience numbers.

With the platform’s users primarily being young males it is also easy for advertisers to find their target audience. The Company’s analytics services are also of value its advertising customers, providing useful insights into the extent to which images spread successfully across the internet.

Channels

The Imgur image sharing platform is accessible free of charge through its mobile and desktop websites at www.imgur.com, as well as via its iOS and Android mobile apps.

The Company’s analytics and advertising services can also be accessed via the Company’s website through online contact forms or through direct contact with Imgur’s sales and marketing team.

Customer Relationships

Imgur’s image sharing and hosting platform is a self-service offering, with users able to access the site’s full suite of services after completing their online registration, requiring no interaction with Imgur representatives. The platform’s community go on to generate and curate much of the website’s content.

Imgur’s advertising and commercial analytics services require a greater degree of personal care, with sales representatives tailoring services to the needs of each individual client.

Imgur provides user guides and troubleshooting tips in the help section of its website and keeps users updated with developments through its blog and Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Key Activities

Imgur primarily develops, maintains and manages a platform for online image sharing and hosting. It also sells advertising solutions to big brand names through both traditional advertising and socially-focused native advertising.

Additionally, Imgur provides data analytics services to website operators and businesses that enable them to better understand the life cycle of their images, tracking how many users are viewing a certain image, which websites publish links to the image, where the image is shared and – in particular for advertisers – where the image gains traction from a marketing standpoint.

Key Partners

Imgur’s key partners comprise tech companies, software developers, advertisers and community members.

Imgur has partnered with a number of high-profile tech companies on various projects. It is notably a founding partner of the Digital Ecologies Research Partnerships alongside other websites such as Reddit, Twitch, Fark and Stack Exchange. The initiative aims to help researchers study the data collected by the sites with a view to better understanding social networks and the information trafficked through them.

The Company has also partnered with websites including Mashable, The Onion and Urban Dictionary as part of the Google Contributor project that enables users to view pages without ads by contributing a small fee to the content creators.

Imgur’s community members could also be considered partners as they are responsible for contributing, curating and moderating the content found on the site.

Key Resources

Imgur’s key resources are its platform, its community, its IT infrastructure and its advertising partners. The reliability of Imgur’s platform and its relationship with advertisers is key to the Company’s ability to generate revenue.

The platform’s community of users, who generate much of the site’s content, is key to maintaining the platform and attracting advertisers.

Cost Structure

Imgur’s principal costs relate to the development and maintenance of its platform, the management of its partnerships, the maintenance of its IT infrastructure and the retention of its personnel.

The Company employs engineering, sales and support staff, all of whom are paid salaries and benefits.

Revenue Streams

Imgur has several streams for generating revenue, its primary revenue stream being its various advertising solutions.

The Company allows companies to advertise through banner advertisements, as well as via native advertising solutions such as sponsored posts and sponsored images. These sponsored offerings, which can be single images or albums containing images and GIFs, are boosted by Imgur within its feed so that branded posts can be seen by a maximum number of users. One of the first companies to take advantage of these sponsored opportunities was Ebay.

Imgur also generates revenue through the sale of its API to developers who wish to create Imgur integration for commercial use.  It also provides paid-for analytics services to websites and businesses, and sells a variety of products such as t-shirts, hats and stickers. through the Imgur Store.