Today, I have my publisher hat on and I'm focused in improving the revenue flow from the google ads on my websites. One way to get more is get rid of the LCPC - low cost per click advertisers. Basically, you find the list and then in your adsense account, filter the low paying ads.
Why does Google have people paying less? It has something to do with being a Google-preferred advertiser who has a high quality score (relevance of ads, clickthrus) and size of adsense budget.
How do you find these low-paying advertisers? You google the web. Here's a few sites:
adsblacklist.com - a whole site and forum dedicated to identifying LCPC. Sign Up, put in your URL and keyword, click generate. You will then get an extensive list of 200 sites to block in your AdSense competitive ad filter. BUT, while I can find posts on this topic on problogger and elsewhere, they all point back to adsblacklist.com.
Filtering/blocking lcpc ads - Copy the list generated at Ads Black List and open your adsense account. Then Adsense Setup > Competitive Adsense Filter and paste that list.
Showing posts with label revenue. Show all posts
Showing posts with label revenue. Show all posts
Saturday, September 20, 2008
Wednesday, September 17, 2008
Monetizing websites - CPM focus
Standard sources of revenue (when volumes get big)
- Sites with small amounts of traffic always start with google adsense. It works at low volumes. CPM vendors require sites to have certain levels of traffic. Will wrote a great article on ProBlogger about CPM marketing where he lists the minimum page views that different vendors require. They range at the high end to Advertising.com (2 million pageviews per month) to the low end where AdsDaq and Ad Dynamix have no minimums.
- Most site owners with large volumes of traffic (again, what is large?) prefer the reliability and predictability of CPM over CPC or CPA. They know what they'll make.
- Definitions for you beginners: CPM - a dollar amount, often $3, per thousand impressions. An impression is a page view. One visitor might have 8 page views. CPC is cost per click (Google adsense, AdBrite), CPA is cost per action, as in affiliate programs.
- Top CPM network vendors: Tribalfusion, Burst media, - I found some good starting materials, an advertising focused website, an article on CPM Vendors, and a freaktitude article. Hotchalk is focused on our market so they are of interest to me
- CPM vendors have to be above the fold
- You can have multiple CPM vendors on the same page so long as they are above the fold. I know where exactly the cut-off is on my computer with my toolbars and my resolution. But, is there a standard definition of how many pixels down is above the fold?
- CPM network vendors do not ask for exclusives so you can mix and match
in the same spot. For instance, with one leaderboard, you might set up an adserver such as Open X which alternates between your own ads, tribalfusion, burst media, and google ads (when there is no demand from the others).
- google ads go lower on the page as an additional revenue enhancer
- affiliates are a time drain, highly unreliable, and mostly don't work. With great skill in some niches, you can work an affiliate successfully but it's an uphill battle
- if you have very valuable traffic, google ads are a good way to go
- very valuable niche traffic might best be monetized with affiliates and adsense.
Some details. I was just looking at TribalFusion's Publisher agreement which says:
- they need at least 2K unique visitors per day
- They must be the only 468x60 banner above the fold!
- All banners are 468x60 pixels.
BTW - TribalFusion's Publisher agreement should be updated in terms of ad size since their website says the standard unit sizes are: 468x60, 728x90, 300x250, 336x280, 120x600, 160x600, and Pop-Under
Data Sources
Advertisers like standard sources of date more than your own web stats. Examples:
- Quantcast - Currently the best since they pull data from the ISPs
- Alexa - An old favorite but biased by the percentage of people that install their toolbar
- Compete - New to me but very user-friendly
- Comscore - Subscription-based
Current hot sizes for CPM Vendors:
728 x 90 - leaderboard
160 x 60
300 x 250 - preferred
I had thought the banner (468 x 60) was the standard but it's apparently a has-been.
What's hot in our market in terms of demographics?
- teachers & parents
- what's not in demand: kids
So printable worksheets and our parents forum are hotter than sites for kids for advertising
del.icio.us
- Sites with small amounts of traffic always start with google adsense. It works at low volumes. CPM vendors require sites to have certain levels of traffic. Will wrote a great article on ProBlogger about CPM marketing where he lists the minimum page views that different vendors require. They range at the high end to Advertising.com (2 million pageviews per month) to the low end where AdsDaq and Ad Dynamix have no minimums.
- Most site owners with large volumes of traffic (again, what is large?) prefer the reliability and predictability of CPM over CPC or CPA. They know what they'll make.
- Definitions for you beginners: CPM - a dollar amount, often $3, per thousand impressions. An impression is a page view. One visitor might have 8 page views. CPC is cost per click (Google adsense, AdBrite), CPA is cost per action, as in affiliate programs.
- Top CPM network vendors: Tribalfusion, Burst media, - I found some good starting materials, an advertising focused website, an article on CPM Vendors, and a freaktitude article. Hotchalk is focused on our market so they are of interest to me
- CPM vendors have to be above the fold
- You can have multiple CPM vendors on the same page so long as they are above the fold. I know where exactly the cut-off is on my computer with my toolbars and my resolution. But, is there a standard definition of how many pixels down is above the fold?
- CPM network vendors do not ask for exclusives so you can mix and match
in the same spot. For instance, with one leaderboard, you might set up an adserver such as Open X which alternates between your own ads, tribalfusion, burst media, and google ads (when there is no demand from the others).- google ads go lower on the page as an additional revenue enhancer
- affiliates are a time drain, highly unreliable, and mostly don't work. With great skill in some niches, you can work an affiliate successfully but it's an uphill battle
- if you have very valuable traffic, google ads are a good way to go
- very valuable niche traffic might best be monetized with affiliates and adsense.
Some details. I was just looking at TribalFusion's Publisher agreement which says:
- they need at least 2K unique visitors per day
- They must be the only 468x60 banner above the fold!
- All banners are 468x60 pixels.
BTW - TribalFusion's Publisher agreement should be updated in terms of ad size since their website says the standard unit sizes are: 468x60, 728x90, 300x250, 336x280, 120x600, 160x600, and Pop-Under
Data Sources
Advertisers like standard sources of date more than your own web stats. Examples:
- Quantcast - Currently the best since they pull data from the ISPs
- Alexa - An old favorite but biased by the percentage of people that install their toolbar
- Compete - New to me but very user-friendly
- Comscore - Subscription-based
Current hot sizes for CPM Vendors:
728 x 90 - leaderboard
160 x 60
300 x 250 - preferred
I had thought the banner (468 x 60) was the standard but it's apparently a has-been.
What's hot in our market in terms of demographics?
- teachers & parents
- what's not in demand: kids
So printable worksheets and our parents forum are hotter than sites for kids for advertising
del.icio.us
Sunday, September 07, 2008
Looking for wisdom....and some good consultants
Here are the questions that are important to my business for which I would be willing to pay money to get sage advice from someone who inspires my confidence....
My site's position on Google has slipped slightly on a few hundred words over the last two to three months. The traffic seems down (corrected for seasonality) and my Google PR rating went from 7 to 6. Could this be because I eliminated the google adsense ads on my site? There were making money but I felt, were distracting my visitors and not contributing to the quality of my site. They were making some money for me.
Parking domains. I've been looking at Sedo, Godaddy, trafficclub, and even the google adsense parking service. The google one seems to require someone to qualify my holding lots of quality domains. Google's funny in this area since on one hand, most parking services run a lot of google ads on them. But Google seems to be experimenting with allowing adwords advertisers who allow their ads on content sites to block parked sites. And google seems to be selectively offering a parking service for domain owners. Here's my question: whats the best parking service?
Credit card gateway services. A chunk of my revenue every month goes to the credit card services. Is it too much? Could I get lower rates? Are their better services? I'm looking for info in these areas. So far, I've found credit cards online 101, credit card vendor, and some ezine credit card articles.
del.icio.us
My site's position on Google has slipped slightly on a few hundred words over the last two to three months. The traffic seems down (corrected for seasonality) and my Google PR rating went from 7 to 6. Could this be because I eliminated the google adsense ads on my site? There were making money but I felt, were distracting my visitors and not contributing to the quality of my site. They were making some money for me.
Parking domains. I've been looking at Sedo, Godaddy, trafficclub, and even the google adsense parking service. The google one seems to require someone to qualify my holding lots of quality domains. Google's funny in this area since on one hand, most parking services run a lot of google ads on them. But Google seems to be experimenting with allowing adwords advertisers who allow their ads on content sites to block parked sites. And google seems to be selectively offering a parking service for domain owners. Here's my question: whats the best parking service?
Credit card gateway services. A chunk of my revenue every month goes to the credit card services. Is it too much? Could I get lower rates? Are their better services? I'm looking for info in these areas. So far, I've found credit cards online 101, credit card vendor, and some ezine credit card articles.
del.icio.us
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Monetizing website traffic
I'm searching for ideas and specifics and industry norms on monetizing traffic. Is $.01 per visitor good or bad? Put otherwise, can I earn $10 per CPM? What combo of approaches should I try?
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- Just park it. I have one parked domain that is now producing over $1 per click and close to .7 clicks per visitor. It is amazing. Should I just use my highly trafficed sites to send traffic to my parked domains hoping that the high $/click will pay-off? Seems simple and effective to me.
- Do, as SEOProNews suggest, the right thing to monetize your traffic : Marketers will closely examinetheir traffic and then take steps to monetize it. It mayinvolve producing their own products or services to offerto these visitors. It may be using an affiliate program to offer a product...Domination of the main keywords in your market or niche willspell monetary success even for webmasters whose main goalmay not be making money from their sites… these strangecreatures do exist I am told!
Aggressive marketers will take a different route, especiallyif they have gained domination in a niche area; many approachother businesses in their niche with offers of partnershipsand independent deals… they supply the leads or customersto these businesses in return for a percentage of the sale.
I personally go for “residual income deals” where I get apercentage of the revenues generated for the life of theclients I refer. Large multinational companies in yourtargeted niches probably won’t give you the time of day,but smaller, lesser known companies will give you lucrativedeals if it is a “win-win situation” for both parties.This is my number ONE way to monetize my traffic. - I have tried adsense which produces steady income. I have tried affiliates and for the 20 programs that I've tried, I've found only one that consistently makes money. I have looked to build & buy my own products but so far, other than my original product line, I'm a one-trick pony.
- What are decent monetization rates? Is $.01 per visitor good or bad? I see $5 per CPM impressions thrown around as a standard rate. But is it real and what does it mean? Is that the rate for each banner on the page or for the total advertising on a page? Does that mean that for every visitor, assuming each visitor views four pages and there are two banners on each page, that a visitor = 8 impressions paying 8/1000 of $5. Which equals 40/1000 or 1/25 or $.04 per visitor?
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