Newcomer to WebmasterWorld who needs help please?

[fi5hbone]

hi there, i run an online magazine, and the url can be found in my user profile. it's a teen magazine, and you will find stuff that you usually find in a teen magazine. my question is whether this site has any prospects in the affliate world, and if you guys have any criticisms to help me improve?

i posted in other forums before but never got anything useful out of it so im seeking help here from the gurus. read a few threads started by rfung and you all are very inspiring!

[Zygoot]

A few ideas:

- Put up some contextual ads like Google AdSense. Works well for most sites with targeted traffic. You earn per click.

- Banner advertising (Tribal Fusion, Fastclick, Burst, Casale Media, ...). They pay per impression but payouts are quite low and most good banner advertising are quite picky. Many people with good sites don't get accepted by Fastclick and Tribal Fusion.

- Affiliate programs and networks. These pay you per sale or per lead. Try finding out in which kind of things your audience is interested. Maybe they are interesting in things like mobile phones or MP3 players; write a new article about phones and include a few affiliate links.

[fi5hbone]

hi there, thanks for your reply.i already put up google ads however the ctr is quite low, 4-6% only where do you reckon i put it the generate a higher ctr?

[Michael Anthony]

In the UK, the big seller to the teen market is mobile phones, Ipods and any other current "craze" gadget. And celebrity stuff too, maybe the "as worn by the stars" clothing site would be a good match.

And all the related stuff too - I know one guy who claims to make over 7 figures a month (in GBP) from just ringtone subscriptions.

[TurboDan]

The only problem is that many teens don't have credit cards yet - so that makes impulse buys from an online affiliate program less likely.

[fi5hbone]

that is true. hmm from where i come from, majority of teens have debit cards, not credit cards which can still be used for online purchases. but from where i come from, teens stay with their parents till they get married so yeah. haha, brats you might say., :P

[TurboDan]

Ha. I'm from NYC, so believe me I understand! ;)

I forgot about the debit cards. I got one at 17, if I remember correctly.

[suzyvirtual]

fi5hbone, 4%-6% is actually considered quite good CTR. Of course it depends on your industry etc.
If you are not really making significant income with that CTR, then increasing your traffic (rather than futzing with different ways of monetization) is probably where your focus should be.

[fi5hbone]

im trying to increase traffic as well but link exchange hasn't really been good to me. im currently going a little into am, just get my feet wet a little. it's kinda like a dream come true for me. my own little magazine, complete with articles and adverts. this is really something i enjoy. hopefully i can do this full time or something..

[fi5hbone]

anyway, i have put up a page selling stuff through am and working on adding on some more. traffic has increased but revenue from adsense isn't increasing at all. clickthrus and eCPMs are like erratic, can get high and low, instead of it being constant which i would prefer.

anyone has any idea why this comes about and a way to get around this? (a.k.a why isn't there a more constant revenue?)

[edited by: jcoronella at 3:27 am (utc) on July 21, 2005]