7 ms·

That's actually not terribly surprising. Reddit's always been extremely conservative with ad space, and it seems like they could offset a lot of that if they st

by cheald 16y ago

That's actually not terribly surprising. Reddit's always been extremely conservative with ad space, and it seems like they could offset a lot of that if they started running more "traditional" ad slots. By their own numbers, they do about 14.3m pageviews/day. Let's assume half of that is AdBlocked. A single 300x250 at an exceptionally low $0.05 CPM would yield $3,575/day in ad revenue, or $107,250/month. I'll guarantee that reddit could pull far, far higher CPMs. Like, an order magnitude or two higher. Edit: I'm off by an order of magnitude, see below. Point stands, though, that there is a lot of ad money they're leaving on the table.

_pi 16y ago
Reddit's actual CPM is 8$. One of the admins said that Conde wants to keep it a premium brand and they don't actually set the CPM. I'll try to dig up a link. It's also why there's tons of cross reddit advertising, and adverts that are paid are only seen for a tiny bit of time.
- endlessvoid94 16y ago
  I'm really interested in hearing more about this. Were you able to find a link?
  - _pi 16y ago
    http://www.reddit.com/r/ads/comments/cpm2d/i_cant_believe_somebody_bought_this_ad/c0ubpto http://www.reddit.com/r/ads/comments/cpm2d/i_cant_believe_so... Here you go. Took a bit. Also it's risen about 1$ in the last year. http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090327/reddits-ad-experiment-is-good-news-for-conde-nast-maybe-for-digg-too/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090327/reddits-ad-experime...
    - corin_ 16y ago
      Pretty depressing seeing comments like "Also there is no way a website has a $8CPM" and wondering why people who don't know what they're talking about keep on talking. I sell at double that rate for smaller sites on a daily basis ;/
      - endlessvoid94 16y ago
        Coincidentally, I'm running a site and I'm having lots of trouble finding people to pay more than peanuts. I just got my first deal for $2 CPM for a pretty damn targeted site. http://www.thathigh.com http://www.thathigh.com - got any tips for me? how do you usually pursue direct advertisers?
jamiequint 16y ago
I agree with your main point but your math is off by an order of magnitude: (14,300,000 x $0.05 x 0.5)/1000 = $357.50/day I still think Reddit could easily pay their costs by running ads, not sure why they are not doing so.
- danielsoneg 16y ago
  Their user base is outright hostile to the idea.
  - cheald 16y ago
    Users are actively hostile to ads in general. Reddit's userbase, in particular, has been spoiled by the staff's similar attitude towards ads. The fact remains that computing power, bandwidth, and storage takes money, which is easy for your average hostile-to-ads user to forget. If they dropped in AdSense units, there would be an uproar for about a week, then people would adapt and life would go on with a significantly bolstered revenue stream. Worst that happens is that more users would still be adblocking, but given their page view volume compared to their expenses, I can't imagine that even that would be a net loss.
    - masklinn 16y ago
      > The fact remains that computing power, bandwidth, and storage takes money, which is easy for your average hostile-to-ads user to forget. Uh... therefore reddit gold. That's the point.
      - axod 16y ago
        Reddit gold will probably bring in 2% of what adsense would bring in (If the userbase was 'better')
        jacquesm 16y ago
        I think you are completely wrong about that. Even at a very low conversion rate subscriptions pull in an awful lot of money. Typically my subscription income outweighs my ad income by about 5 to 1 in a given month. And my site is far smaller than reddit. The key to this is user retention, and if reddit users are loyal to reddit (which they seem to be, especially those willing to pull their credit cards) I wouldn't be surprised to see retentions on the order of 6 months or more. What do you base the 2% on ?
whimsy 16y ago
I believe a Reddit blog post quoted AdBlock ratio at something closer to 30%. 50% is extremely conservative.
- kmfrk 16y ago
  That's before the hypothetical backlash, though.
zitterbewegung 16y ago
Might want to consider how many of their users use adblock of some sort.
- cheald 16y ago
  Re-read the post - I did, and at a very conservative number. :)

by cheald 16y ago

_pi 16y ago

Reddit's actual CPM is 8$. One of the admins said that Conde wants to keep it a premium brand and they don't actually set the CPM. I'll try to dig up a link. It's also why there's tons of cross reddit advertising, and adverts that are paid are only seen for a tiny bit of time.

endlessvoid94 16y ago
I'm really interested in hearing more about this. Were you able to find a link?
- _pi 16y ago
  http://www.reddit.com/r/ads/comments/cpm2d/i_cant_believe_somebody_bought_this_ad/c0ubpto http://www.reddit.com/r/ads/comments/cpm2d/i_cant_believe_so... Here you go. Took a bit. Also it's risen about 1$ in the last year. http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090327/reddits-ad-experiment-is-good-news-for-conde-nast-maybe-for-digg-too/ http://mediamemo.allthingsd.com/20090327/reddits-ad-experime...
  - corin_ 16y ago
    Pretty depressing seeing comments like "Also there is no way a website has a $8CPM" and wondering why people who don't know what they're talking about keep on talking. I sell at double that rate for smaller sites on a daily basis ;/
    - endlessvoid94 16y ago
      Coincidentally, I'm running a site and I'm having lots of trouble finding people to pay more than peanuts. I just got my first deal for $2 CPM for a pretty damn targeted site. http://www.thathigh.com http://www.thathigh.com - got any tips for me? how do you usually pursue direct advertisers?

jamiequint 16y ago

I agree with your main point but your math is off by an order of magnitude: (14,300,000 x $0.05 x 0.5)/1000 = $357.50/day I still think Reddit could easily pay their costs by running ads, not sure why they are not doing so.

danielsoneg 16y ago
Their user base is outright hostile to the idea.
- cheald 16y ago
  Users are actively hostile to ads in general. Reddit's userbase, in particular, has been spoiled by the staff's similar attitude towards ads. The fact remains that computing power, bandwidth, and storage takes money, which is easy for your average hostile-to-ads user to forget. If they dropped in AdSense units, there would be an uproar for about a week, then people would adapt and life would go on with a significantly bolstered revenue stream. Worst that happens is that more users would still be adblocking, but given their page view volume compared to their expenses, I can't imagine that even that would be a net loss.
  - masklinn 16y ago
    > The fact remains that computing power, bandwidth, and storage takes money, which is easy for your average hostile-to-ads user to forget. Uh... therefore reddit gold. That's the point.
    - axod 16y ago
      Reddit gold will probably bring in 2% of what adsense would bring in (If the userbase was 'better')
      - jacquesm 16y ago
        I think you are completely wrong about that. Even at a very low conversion rate subscriptions pull in an awful lot of money. Typically my subscription income outweighs my ad income by about 5 to 1 in a given month. And my site is far smaller than reddit. The key to this is user retention, and if reddit users are loyal to reddit (which they seem to be, especially those willing to pull their credit cards) I wouldn't be surprised to see retentions on the order of 6 months or more. What do you base the 2% on ?

whimsy 16y ago

I believe a Reddit blog post quoted AdBlock ratio at something closer to 30%. 50% is extremely conservative.

kmfrk 16y ago
That's before the hypothetical backlash, though.

zitterbewegung 16y ago

Might want to consider how many of their users use adblock of some sort.

cheald 16y ago
Re-read the post - I did, and at a very conservative number. :)