Forum Moderators: skibum
Just using organic traffic, I was recently able to get about 50 unique visitors a day (500 or so pageviews). I tried promoting the site via AdWords (at the minimum nickel per click rate) and was able to raise the traffic to 600-800 unique visitors per day. Yesterday I opened the campaign up worldwide and was able to get 2,000 unique visitors and 21k unique pageviews (US still seems to account for 90%+ of the visitors, or at least .com addresses do).
I've tried to monetize the traffic, but since most people viewing the site have the videogame, AdSense CPM is very low. I've also tried casino advertising (given the mature nature of the game), but I've had no luck so far with that either. The recent PPC-driven traffic has gotten me to a point where I can be considered by most banner advertising firms, but I'm not sure if I could get the required CPM to make it worthwhile (at the moment, $5 CPM would be what I'd be looking for). I'm sort of in a chicken and egg kind of situation -- If I don't spend the money on PPC to drive people to my site, I won't have the numbers needed to get a good banner network. If I don't have a banner network, I don't have a way to monetize the traffic I'm getting (and at the moment, buying).
My question is, basically, what should I expect for CPM rates on this kind of venture? I have a lot of room to add pages, so I could see 25 pageviews a visitor as a possibility once the site is more fully developed. Would it be out of the question to expect a CPM of more than $2 or so to monetize the PPC traffic I'm using? I wouldn't mind using occasional pop-unders or flyovers on the site, but by the same token, I don't want to irritate my visitors. Still, I can't continue to sink this much money into a site if there's no prospect of recouping at least a significant portion of the money I'm putting in. Does my situation seem workable?
Any input you guys have would be much appreciated.
