Fastclick and other impression based networks

struggling to find advertisers

[jackti]

Hi there - I have a quite popular automotive site (motorcycles to be specific (sport bikes and such)) with 2-3 million pageviews a month and about 10000 unique users/day and i'm serving 468x60 ads for related merchants through cj (as defaults) as well as the least intrusive ads i can find on fastclick - problem is, fc only manages to serve about 1/8 of the traffic, and at .45 cpm it's not exactly paying off big time for me. dont even get me started on cj, i could just as well be serving fastclicks publicservice ads for nothing thats how much cj affiliates have been paying off ....

now to the point, i don't have time to be contacting advertisers about selling ads nor do i want to spend a lot of time doing hard work to earn some money.. so what else is there? shouldn't you be able to make _some_ profit (cpm) on a site as big as that? so anyone make some suggestions please.. ?

[jeremy goodrich]

I would try the new program from Google - Adsense, from the posts I've read (here) it seems the effective CPM for a publisher is a LOT better than any traditional ad network.

Welcome to WebmasterWorld! Nice to have you here.

I would also think about affiliate programs (there should be some) in your niche, which can be run in conjunction with AdSense.

[jackti]

wow speedy reply, thanks for the feedback.. i will look into that google program.. another thing that should be mentioned is the weird fact that my ctr is around 1% for fastclicks nonsense ads but 0.5 for the extremely targetted cj banners i present - back to the drawing board..

[jeremy goodrich]

That's why we're (WebmasterWorld) the largest webmaster forum on the net - fast, friendly service ;)

Take a look at the AdSense Forum [webmasterworld.com] here @ WebmasterWorld - lots of great info already from our community has been shared.

[Imaster]

Hi Jacti,

To maximise profit, you could use the Fastclick 468*60 as well as Google Adsense skyscraper (120*600). My personal experience is that the adsense 468 banner won't help you earn as much as the skyscraper. :) Skyscraper is way ahead of all other inventories for Google atleast.

Lastly, try applying to other advertising networks like advertising.com, tribalfusion, etc. If you get approved for any of them, you then have 2 or 3 different banner sets to serve. Use a banner rotation program and run them all in sequence. You won't see much PSA's and it will increase your earnings.

As for Affiliates, Cj's, Amazon's, et al, I haven't seen them earn me even my daily lunch

Good luck and any more questions, just knock the door :D

[jackti]

Thanks for the ideas, thats actually what i've done, i put the google ads in a skyscraper and kept the fastclick ads in banner format. google adsense is so far giving me good ctr and the related ads go for .40 cpc, thats pretty good.

I just got refused with the tribal fusio network - they said my pages content did not fit clearly into.. blah blah.. anyways i'm looking into some more programs now hoping i can serve some more ads - it's so frustrating having tons of traffic and not being able to "use" it ....

[jackti]

just one more thing....

i've sent in a form to tradedoubler for non exclusive representation (im in europe) as well as to advertising,com. are there any more programs i should look into?

[jeremy goodrich]

With as much traffic as you say you have, seriously consider contacting some vendors in your space as well for 'private' or 'direct' deals.

If there is volume, then a direct type arrangement could be made that would be very lucrative.

Consider (if you can) getting somebody with some business development experience to set the thing up for a commission, so that way you have an experienced negotiator working very hard on the deal ;)

Aside from that I can't think of any networks that haven't been mentioned, proprietary and or exclusive stuff that can take your website to the "next level" might also be considered so you could offer some type of membership / subscription too.

[killroy]

Go to Google and searcdh for "yourKeyword affiliate" and "yourIndustryNich affiliate". It seesm like the obvious thing to doy but I waq suite pleasantly surprised.

Also, running adSense has brought me to lots of affiliates right in may sepcific area... Jsut checck out the top ads and see if they have affiliates. then Block them and ad their affilaite links instead.

SN

[firstmark]

Your problem is high page views per user or low clickthru rates.
If you have 10,000 visitors a day and 3 million page views a month you would have 100,000 page views a day.
Thats 10 page views per visitor.
This sort of high page view per visitor ratio is going to mean low clickthru rates on ads in most instances.

One would like to think online in terms of raw impressions, but its unique visitors that are the real advertising currency online. If you aren't willing to run the "obtrusive" banner ads on fastclick you are choosing to settle for high default rates.
Unless the ad is an on mouse ad or a trick download prompt you should consider running it from fastclick.

I am seeing lower defaults than ever on fastclick banners. One of my sites has had a sub 10 percent default rate this month.

[jackti]

Well, my avg. pageviews are high due to forums and lots of content, but not as high as 10, the avg. number of pages viewed are 7 i think (monthly est. total varies a lot from winter to summer..) and fastclick is based on unique users i know, thats why if i could just get into some more pay per impression programs, i'd be set =)

And, yes id rather have a nice-looking and relevant default than a flashing 'WINNER! click here to collect you cash!' banner showing on my pages, who wouldn't? even if i realise it's not going to make me any cash i dont want to be annoying my viewers.

Since getting into that google program, i've seen a lot more of googlebot btw. anybody know if google will crawl your site deeper if you are in the ad program?

[TallTroll]

>> avg. number of pages viewed are 7 i think

Not too shabby

>> i've seen a lot more of googlebot btw.

Check which one. There is a special Gbot for AdSense, tagged as MediaPartners

>> anybody know if google will crawl your site deeper if you are in the ad program?

They will deny it under pain of death. But I suspect you do rate a closer look (which may not necessarily be a good thing, if you know what I mean)

[jcoronella]

I've had really good luck with Burst Media. I use them on sites where I care more about my users not going into flashing banner induced seizures. They have the flashing banners too, but after being a member for a few months they really do a good job of finding targeted banners and you can remove the ones you don't want.

It all depends on the characteristics of your site. Of three sites:
1) Adsense only - low traffic but phenominal click through
2) Fastclick only - high untargeted enteretainment traffic, low user retention.
3) Google Skyscraper & BURST banners - established site with decent pages/user, pae views, and targetable content.

Then a smatterring of affiliate programs where they apply.