basic questions on how to get ads on a website

[newbie1]

I am fairly new to the world of advertsing on a website but trying to help a friend who has a entertainment and content oriented web site which has a traffic of about 2000 visitors per day with about 10000 pageviews per day. The traffic is expected to grow further every month. The site has ethnic name and some ethnic contents and attracts lots of ethnic asian population, mainly from asia and US. So far there are no advertisements (except two direct ads) on this site but my friend would like to start using them to generate some more revenues. He can put the ads at the top, bottom and on one side of all of the pages of the website. Can the members answer some of the basic questions..

- What kind of ads can he get.. banner, text, popups and others? What are the proper industry keywords used to refer to it?

- What is the difference between CPC and CPM? Which one is better (pros and cons)?

- What is the difference between AdSense and other companies like FastClick, ClixGalore, ValueClicks, clickXchange, FineClicks, Overture, Tribal Fusion, Burst Media, Mamma's Media, Realcast, JoeTech, adwords? Which ones are reliable, pay international affiliate and recommended?

- How to start getting the ads to maximize revenues? Is it difficult to get accepted as an international affiliate by Google and other networks? In general what are requirements to get accepted as an international affiliate?

Any other tips will be greatly appreciated!

[itraykov]

adsense is a good way to start. very easy to get accepted

if you want to sell stuff, ask yourself - who are the people that visit this site? how old are they? where are they from? what products/services would they be willing to buy?

i would stay away from popups unless you are desparate. it kills your returining visitor ratio and is very untargetted

it's all about MAKING EFFICIENT USE of your traffic

[angmi90]

I would wait until you got atleast 10,000 unique hits per day before you advertise because bigger ad networks won't accept you.

There are many different ad sizes and creatives that anyone can get via ad networks and private ad deals. Such as-
Banners-(728x90,120x600,160x600,468x60,ect..)

Pop-Unders/Ups- Careful with those, as visitors won't want to see them, I suggest using a frequency cap, such as a 24 hour time block that a user sees only one pop-under/up.

Text- Most ad networks do not offer text advertisements, except Adsense, but that technically isn't in this category.

CPC- Cost Per Click (ad networks/advertisers pay the webmaster everytime a user clicks on their ad)

CPM- Cost Per 1,000 Page Views (adnetworks/advertisers pay the webmaster everytime an ad is viewed 1,000 times)

CPA/Affiliate- Cost Per Action (ad networks/advertisers pay the webmaster when a user completes and action, such as buying a product or filling out a form- can be harder to make money with at first)

Adsense is probably the top ad network right now. They offer contextually served banner ads, which means, they analyze your site's content and take specific keywords out of the page and display advertisements relating to those keywords. Most of the time Google serves relevant ads, but sometimes they won't, it depends on the type of website it is.

Other Ad Networks- I personally have used Fastclick and they are my 2nd highest money maker, they pay on a CPM basis. Overall, very good ad network.
I've had experiances with these networks (in order from best to worst in my opinion)- Kanoodle's BrightAds (CPC), Fastclick (CPC/CPM), ValueClick (CPC/CPM), Advertising.com (CPC/CPM/CPA), SearchFeed (CPC), Burst! Media (CPC), and Mamma Media (CPC).

If the site is not based in the US/Canada/Britain it may be difficult to get a site into that ad program (except Google), but it isn't impossible. Most US ad networks want over 80% traffic from the US, I'm not sure if you can do that according to your post.

Another Great Ad Network- Kanoodle BrightAds. I use them a lot on my site and I have great success with them. They are a CPC network, but since my site is computer/technology related, they serve excellent computer ads that visitors on my site are going to click on.

Word Of Advice- Start off with Adsense and see where that goes. You'll want to apply to a few other ad networks (in my opinion FastClick and Kanoodle) to diversify your ad income. Try it out and see what happens. Good luck!

[newbie1]

Thanks to "itraykov" and "angmi90" for the detailed reply.

From your post Google(AdSense) should not have any problems accepting an international affiliate website so it will be on top of the short list. Can a website have ads from AdSense and FastClick, Kanoodle at the same time? On an average what are the rates for CPC/CMP/PopUps?

[itraykov]

i suggest you use adsense (CPC) and anohter CPM program like tribalfusion (not a bad idea to plug in a few stealthy affiliate links as well)

you can't use adsense in conjuction with any program that may generate "competative" ads

CPM and CPC (especially) prices depend on your niche (entertainment is *usually* cheap) I think you'll probably get about 6-9 cents per click on adsense and you'll be lucky to make $3 per millenia on CPM

[angmi90]

You can use Google Adsense with other ad networks such as FastClick, I'm not completly sure with Kanoodle (because Kanoodle's ads are text).

FastClick does not serve ads contextually, they are banner ads, so that is why it is NOT against the Adsense TOS.

[newbie1]

Thanks again. AdSense and banner ad program from company like FastClick, TribalFusion seems to be your recommendation.

- What other companies do you recommend if FastClick, TribalFusion do not accept the website as an affiliate.

- Assuming AdSense and FastClick accept the website, is it correct to say that the revenues will come from the CPC clicks on the ads by AdSense and FastClick simultaneously and also from CPMs by FastClick?

- If a surfer produces 100 impressions and clicks on 10 ads (combination of AdSense and FastClick ads) then does the affiliate get paid for 10 clicks or only 1 click? I am asking this question since I read somewhere that some companies do not pay if there many clicks from the same IP address. Basically, is the CPC counted as one click from one IP address per day?

Thanks!

[webmastertexas]

You'll get into Fastclick pretty easily, but you should forget about TribalFusion. People throw that ad network out too willy nilly, not realizing how hard it is to get in, especially with a movie/entertainment site. Go for Fastclick and Burst Media, and then slap some Adsense ads on there for some extra bucks. I was at the level of your friend's site about a year ago, and I'm guessing, until his numbers grow, he'll make anywhere between $200-300/month with the banner/Adsense combo.

[itraykov]

if a visitor clicks 10 times on your banner you get paid for 1 click. you get paid for UNIQUE clicks

at least with 99% of all CPC advert programs

[newbie1]

I assume that would be true if a visitor clicks on the same banner 10 times. But what if a visitor clicks on 10 DIFFERENT banners during his/her visit to the website then would that be 10 clicks or 1 click? Thanks.

[itraykov]

Yes, it would work if he click on 10 'different' banners (as long as they're each from a different advertising program)

Don't forget that if your visitor clicks on an ad he is leaving your site. There is good chance he will not click the back button

[newbie1]

For example if the visitor does a Google search on the site (through AdSense) and clicks on the first sponsor result then returns to the site using the Back button and clicks on the second sponsor result. That should count as 2 clicks, right?

[itraykov]

nope, that wouldnt count
adwords will rember this person's ip and wouldn't count his following clicks for the next 24 hours

but you could write up a script that rotates adsense, fastclick, etc

[newbie1]

How are the payments made to international affiliate? Is it through checks or some other means?

[itraykov]

Some programs offer direct bank transfer if you live in USA/UK

Other than that, they mostly work with checks

[inasisi]

For example if the visitor does a Google search on the site (through AdSense) and clicks on the first sponsor result then returns to the site using the Back button and clicks on the second sponsor result. That should count as 2 clicks, right?

nope, that wouldnt count
adwords will rember this person's ip and wouldn't count his following clicks for the next 24 hours

but you could write up a script that rotates adsense, fastclick, etc

From what little I know of AdSense, only if the user clicks on the same sponsor, will it not count. If the user clicks on a 2nd sponsor, it does get counted.