5 ms·

What other options are there for small websites? Has anyone heard of anything that could be a credible replacement for adsense?

by hooande 16y ago

mikeyur 16y ago
Direct sales are the most profitable ad solution. Adsense only works (makes you more than a buck or two) with large libraries of content - popular content with high search numbers and lots of advertisers in that space. ie. Articles about dieting and debt will bring you more per click than technology. The best way to make money on a small site is to go out and contact active advertisers (people advertising on sites like your own) and having a low (no-brainer) price for ads. $10-15/mo. for a small 125x125 px ad will bring you more than an adsense banner (for the majority of sites). Affiliate marketing is also a great alternative. Find other products like your own and include those banners mixed in with other ads.
- Tichy 16y ago
  How does 10$/mo for a small banner work? Meaning, how often would it have to be displayed? Otherwise I think that approach doesn't lead far, namely, you can only make 10$ per month and advertising space.
  - mikeyur 16y ago
    $10 was an example price, but for most small sites you can't expect to make hundreds (or thousands) a month. I consider 'small' less than 1k uniques per day. How you display the ads largely depends on your site and traffic. If you're only receiving a couple hundred pageviews each day, you'd want to have that ad showing as much as possible (to get a better price from the advertiser). For a lot of these ads, you'd have multiple placements. ie. 4 ad spots for 125x125 pixel banners. On a site with a couple hundred pageviews it's realistic to assume you could get $15 for each of those ads (depending on the topic). You're delusional if you think Adsense or other advertising networks will make you more than $15/mo. You're lucky if you get a $1 CPM (cost per 1k views) with most networks, assuming 6,000 views/month on a small site (~200/day * 30) - you can do the math there. Again, this varies depending on the content. I worked for a small content network and we could charge $500/mo. for a banner spot that received about 20,000 views per month. But we only made $100-200 max with Adsense (across the whole site - roughly 45,000 impressions a month).
    - skinnymuch 16y ago
      Just to chip in here, I know you were saying "I consider 'small' less than 1k uniques per day." to give an example, but this example is also most likely assuming you don't have targeted niche specific traffic. My 1K uniques/day pop culture tech/media site makes as much money as my 100 people/day very focused site on Apple products. Both are still serving Adsense only though that is only because I haven't gotten around to changing the latter site's advertising. Also, $1 CPM with Adsense? If you are mainly a content based site (i.e. blogs) and place say two Adsense ads in prominent locations and maybe one Adsense link ad, you should easily top $5 CPM. I usually stay between $5 to $10 CPM for wordpress based sites. Here is an awful yet wonderful example at how you can whore your site out and make it an Adsense cash cow: WiseGeek.com. Specific content example: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-fire-pit-designs.htm http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-fire-pit-desi....
patio11 16y ago
At levels above "webmaster welfare" (as my SEO friends call it), you can do direct ad sales or affiliate ads. A smart guy once suggested to me that when trying to sell ads on a semi-successful site he would "give" one of the six ad slots to an affiliate-using merchant by using their standard affiliate creative in the slot, and watch what revenue was from that. That would both give social proof to the site ("Look! It already sold one ad!"), and give him a floor to establish prices on the remaining inventory. If you can make e.g. $60 a month with on affiliate ad, then charge everybody else $100 a month for the same slot. Apparently, in many niches, "Your ad in this space. Click here." works well enough to sell out inventory for small sites. There are many, many options for you if you want to make it a self-service thing rather than a "Email me, hammer out an agreement, and after you Paypal me the money I'll add your link directly in myself." [Edit: At higher levels of deviousness it occurs to me that why have one filled slot and five empty ones when you can have five filled slots and one empty ones. This space is going, going, gone -- get it before it becomes booked! Don't like affiliate ads? Advertise your favorite OSS project. You can always rejigger things once your "last" spot sells, dropping one of the donated "ads" from the rotation and freeing up another "last" spot.]
- icey 16y ago
  What you're calling devious is what most of us would call effective use of marketing psychology. Cialdini has written a bunch about it, and I think it's gotten into the collective marketing consciousness as the "scarcity principal". It's used everywhere else ("Act now! Supplies are limited!"), why not on the web?
  - skinnymuch 16y ago
    I'm going to assume the OP is calling all marketing psychology devious. Would you not agree? I know devious has a harsh connotation to it, but strictly looking at its definition, it seems to fit with your last two sentences.
breck 16y ago
Across my sites my revenue looks like this: Amazon Associates: 60% Adsense: 25% eBay Partner Network: 10% Other affiliate networks(CJ, LinkShare, miscellaneous): 5%
- skinnymuch 16y ago
  Not bad. Did you get funding from YC already? I'm just trying to understand what your company does :P
anigbrowl 16y ago
A good few people I know have been very happy with affiliate ads, especially with Amazon. Those are mainly people with high-quality content - expertise in a niche field or especially fine writers - who are comfortable endorsing specific products. For example, one person has a rather excellent 'how to' book aimed at indie filmmakers, and owns/demonstrates techniques with video-capable DSLR cameras; readers ready to take the plunge are invited to purchase via his affiliate link, and his original content is so good that it's a pretty fair trade: it might cost the buyer $50 more on a $1500 camera but he has easily saved readers many times that amount. It's not his main source of income but it doesn't hurt.
- moultano 16y ago
  Do affiliate links actually increase the price of the item? I thought the kickback came out of Amazon's margins.
  - anigbrowl 16y ago
    That's right, as far as I know; it's sales commission as opposed to the warehouse model. I meant $50 more than you might pay by shopping among competitors: Amazon might not have the best price but you've derived value from the person's detailed insight into why it's a good purchase, plus you'll get Amazon recommendations for other purchases from people whose reasons for purchasing are similar to your own, which is also useful. My point was that while the revenue is intermittent rather than a steady trickle, the intermittent rewards are individually decent - which dovetails nicely with occasional but high-quality content updates rather than drip content + SEO.
robk 16y ago
For contextual ads, you don't have much more of a choice. The recent decline of Yahoo's YPN was sad in that it was the only real alternative. Chitika and Amazon are fine for product-oriented content but lousy on other kinds of content.

What other options are there for small websites? Has anyone heard of anything that could be a credible replacement for adsense?

by hooande 16y ago

What other options are there for small websites? Has anyone heard of anything that could be a credible replacement for adsense?

mikeyur 16y ago

Direct sales are the most profitable ad solution. Adsense only works (makes you more than a buck or two) with large libraries of content - popular content with high search numbers and lots of advertisers in that space. ie. Articles about dieting and debt will bring you more per click than technology. The best way to make money on a small site is to go out and contact active advertisers (people advertising on sites like your own) and having a low (no-brainer) price for ads. $10-15/mo. for a small 125x125 px ad will bring you more than an adsense banner (for the majority of sites). Affiliate marketing is also a great alternative. Find other products like your own and include those banners mixed in with other ads.

Tichy 16y ago
How does 10$/mo for a small banner work? Meaning, how often would it have to be displayed? Otherwise I think that approach doesn't lead far, namely, you can only make 10$ per month and advertising space.
- mikeyur 16y ago
  $10 was an example price, but for most small sites you can't expect to make hundreds (or thousands) a month. I consider 'small' less than 1k uniques per day. How you display the ads largely depends on your site and traffic. If you're only receiving a couple hundred pageviews each day, you'd want to have that ad showing as much as possible (to get a better price from the advertiser). For a lot of these ads, you'd have multiple placements. ie. 4 ad spots for 125x125 pixel banners. On a site with a couple hundred pageviews it's realistic to assume you could get $15 for each of those ads (depending on the topic). You're delusional if you think Adsense or other advertising networks will make you more than $15/mo. You're lucky if you get a $1 CPM (cost per 1k views) with most networks, assuming 6,000 views/month on a small site (~200/day * 30) - you can do the math there. Again, this varies depending on the content. I worked for a small content network and we could charge $500/mo. for a banner spot that received about 20,000 views per month. But we only made $100-200 max with Adsense (across the whole site - roughly 45,000 impressions a month).
  - skinnymuch 16y ago
    Just to chip in here, I know you were saying "I consider 'small' less than 1k uniques per day." to give an example, but this example is also most likely assuming you don't have targeted niche specific traffic. My 1K uniques/day pop culture tech/media site makes as much money as my 100 people/day very focused site on Apple products. Both are still serving Adsense only though that is only because I haven't gotten around to changing the latter site's advertising. Also, $1 CPM with Adsense? If you are mainly a content based site (i.e. blogs) and place say two Adsense ads in prominent locations and maybe one Adsense link ad, you should easily top $5 CPM. I usually stay between $5 to $10 CPM for wordpress based sites. Here is an awful yet wonderful example at how you can whore your site out and make it an Adsense cash cow: WiseGeek.com. Specific content example: http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-fire-pit-designs.htm http://www.wisegeek.com/what-are-the-different-fire-pit-desi....

patio11 16y ago

At levels above "webmaster welfare" (as my SEO friends call it), you can do direct ad sales or affiliate ads. A smart guy once suggested to me that when trying to sell ads on a semi-successful site he would "give" one of the six ad slots to an affiliate-using merchant by using their standard affiliate creative in the slot, and watch what revenue was from that. That would both give social proof to the site ("Look! It already sold one ad!"), and give him a floor to establish prices on the remaining inventory. If you can make e.g. $60 a month with on affiliate ad, then charge everybody else $100 a month for the same slot. Apparently, in many niches, "Your ad in this space. Click here." works well enough to sell out inventory for small sites. There are many, many options for you if you want to make it a self-service thing rather than a "Email me, hammer out an agreement, and after you Paypal me the money I'll add your link directly in myself." [Edit: At higher levels of deviousness it occurs to me that why have one filled slot and five empty ones when you can have five filled slots and one empty ones. This space is going, going, gone -- get it before it becomes booked! Don't like affiliate ads? Advertise your favorite OSS project. You can always rejigger things once your "last" spot sells, dropping one of the donated "ads" from the rotation and freeing up another "last" spot.]

icey 16y ago
What you're calling devious is what most of us would call effective use of marketing psychology. Cialdini has written a bunch about it, and I think it's gotten into the collective marketing consciousness as the "scarcity principal". It's used everywhere else ("Act now! Supplies are limited!"), why not on the web?
- skinnymuch 16y ago
  I'm going to assume the OP is calling all marketing psychology devious. Would you not agree? I know devious has a harsh connotation to it, but strictly looking at its definition, it seems to fit with your last two sentences.

breck 16y ago

Across my sites my revenue looks like this: Amazon Associates: 60% Adsense: 25% eBay Partner Network: 10% Other affiliate networks(CJ, LinkShare, miscellaneous): 5%

skinnymuch 16y ago
Not bad. Did you get funding from YC already? I'm just trying to understand what your company does :P

anigbrowl 16y ago

A good few people I know have been very happy with affiliate ads, especially with Amazon. Those are mainly people with high-quality content - expertise in a niche field or especially fine writers - who are comfortable endorsing specific products. For example, one person has a rather excellent 'how to' book aimed at indie filmmakers, and owns/demonstrates techniques with video-capable DSLR cameras; readers ready to take the plunge are invited to purchase via his affiliate link, and his original content is so good that it's a pretty fair trade: it might cost the buyer $50 more on a $1500 camera but he has easily saved readers many times that amount. It's not his main source of income but it doesn't hurt.

moultano 16y ago
Do affiliate links actually increase the price of the item? I thought the kickback came out of Amazon's margins.
- anigbrowl 16y ago
  That's right, as far as I know; it's sales commission as opposed to the warehouse model. I meant $50 more than you might pay by shopping among competitors: Amazon might not have the best price but you've derived value from the person's detailed insight into why it's a good purchase, plus you'll get Amazon recommendations for other purchases from people whose reasons for purchasing are similar to your own, which is also useful. My point was that while the revenue is intermittent rather than a steady trickle, the intermittent rewards are individually decent - which dovetails nicely with occasional but high-quality content updates rather than drip content + SEO.

robk 16y ago

For contextual ads, you don't have much more of a choice. The recent decline of Yahoo's YPN was sad in that it was the only real alternative. Chitika and Amazon are fine for product-oriented content but lousy on other kinds of content.