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Ask HN: Best Ad Network for Tech Blog?

9 points by dell9000 17y ago

Been using AdSense for quite some time as I am not focused on revenue from blog... but would love to try new networks. Whats working best for tech?

billpg 17y ago
I have no idea, but I'm interested in answers because when my blog used adsense, I'd always worry about mentioning viruses because of the ads that would show.
ig1 17y ago
If you've got a reasonably sized readership I'd try Federate Media. I'm actually working on something in this space at the moment as a side project (smarter ads for tech & programming related content), but I'm not going to be ready to test with users for a couple of months. Feel free to drop me an email though if you're interested and I'll let you know when I go live.
- PStamatiou 17y ago
  As a sidenote, FM usually requires about 1M pageviews/month minimum. I had talked with them a few years ago and they loved my blog & content but from a business and advertising perspective they just needed big traffic #s. As for what you're working on ig1, I might be interested as well. My email and blog URL are in my profile.
  - ig1 17y ago
    I was actually looking at FM data the other day (I was curious about the viability of the business model proposed by the YC journalism startup so was doing some analysis using FM ad pricing as a basis), and only about a third of the sites FM represent do more than 1M pageviews/month. About 15% of their sites do less than 100k pageviews/month.
    - PStamatiou 17y ago
      Interesting - I'm guessing that is stemming from the "groups" they have. For example, they have a network for tech blogs, mommy blogs, etc. I am just guessing the tech blogs one I had been talking with them about was very competitive and just based on the nature of tech blogs, fairly high-traffic. Or they've since changed some of their strategy.
PStamatiou 17y ago
Without knowing your traffic #'s, I can't say for sure but the big networks require a lot of pageviews/month. Among the lower is Tribal Fusion, which requires around 5,000 uniques per day. My blog is just about at this level, except for lower traffic on weekends, so I am considering applying soon. Otherwise you might consider private ad sales (not talking about those shady link exchanges emails everyone gets, those are bad news). Not easy to work with but it's the best bet for a small blog (let's say sub-100,000 uniques/month). There's also great potential to work with affiliate stuff if you find products you can honestly recommend and that your readers would trust your opinion on. I make about 1/3 of my blog income from affiliate stuff. Also make sure to invest in a URL tracker so you can hide affiliate links with yourdomain.com/Your_Slug to increase conversions and also let you find click stats, do A/B tests etc. I use one that is a WordPress plugin, you can find it on my blog in my profile, or feel free to email me. I'm just heading out the door but this is what was on the top of my head. I've tried pretty much everything out there for my blog over the last few years and have now gotten it to be ramen profitable (or in my case, healthier: salad w/ balsamic and chicken profitable)

9 points by dell9000 17y ago

Been using AdSense for quite some time as I am not focused on revenue from blog... but would love to try new networks. Whats working best for tech?

billpg 17y ago

I have no idea, but I'm interested in answers because when my blog used adsense, I'd always worry about mentioning viruses because of the ads that would show.

ig1 17y ago

If you've got a reasonably sized readership I'd try Federate Media. I'm actually working on something in this space at the moment as a side project (smarter ads for tech & programming related content), but I'm not going to be ready to test with users for a couple of months. Feel free to drop me an email though if you're interested and I'll let you know when I go live.

PStamatiou 17y ago
As a sidenote, FM usually requires about 1M pageviews/month minimum. I had talked with them a few years ago and they loved my blog & content but from a business and advertising perspective they just needed big traffic #s. As for what you're working on ig1, I might be interested as well. My email and blog URL are in my profile.
- ig1 17y ago
  I was actually looking at FM data the other day (I was curious about the viability of the business model proposed by the YC journalism startup so was doing some analysis using FM ad pricing as a basis), and only about a third of the sites FM represent do more than 1M pageviews/month. About 15% of their sites do less than 100k pageviews/month.
  - PStamatiou 17y ago
    Interesting - I'm guessing that is stemming from the "groups" they have. For example, they have a network for tech blogs, mommy blogs, etc. I am just guessing the tech blogs one I had been talking with them about was very competitive and just based on the nature of tech blogs, fairly high-traffic. Or they've since changed some of their strategy.

PStamatiou 17y ago

Without knowing your traffic #'s, I can't say for sure but the big networks require a lot of pageviews/month. Among the lower is Tribal Fusion, which requires around 5,000 uniques per day. My blog is just about at this level, except for lower traffic on weekends, so I am considering applying soon. Otherwise you might consider private ad sales (not talking about those shady link exchanges emails everyone gets, those are bad news). Not easy to work with but it's the best bet for a small blog (let's say sub-100,000 uniques/month). There's also great potential to work with affiliate stuff if you find products you can honestly recommend and that your readers would trust your opinion on. I make about 1/3 of my blog income from affiliate stuff. Also make sure to invest in a URL tracker so you can hide affiliate links with yourdomain.com/Your_Slug to increase conversions and also let you find click stats, do A/B tests etc. I use one that is a WordPress plugin, you can find it on my blog in my profile, or feel free to email me. I'm just heading out the door but this is what was on the top of my head. I've tried pretty much everything out there for my blog over the last few years and have now gotten it to be ramen profitable (or in my case, healthier: salad w/ balsamic and chicken profitable)