Maximizing Revenue with CPM, CPC, Affiliates?

A noob running a site with about 4,000,000 hits/mo...

[Brett2004]

I have recently helped take over (in partnership) an existing website that averages around 4M hits per month. The site has no controversial or adult material, and is primarily original content.

Until this month, the site generated a two digit monthly income through affiliate sales only (no adwords, adsense, or CPM programs).

We have recently been approved by Fastclick, Burst Media, RealTech Network, and Google Adsense. We applied and are awaiting word with Tribal Fusion and CaSale.

I have started implementing the code for Fastclick as primary, and with some trouble, have been getting defaults to Burst (although many seem to get lost in the transfer). We've placed Google Adsense on selected pages.

Fastclick has generated a significant income source (relative to what it used to be, anyway). Burst has been much less, and Google Adsense has generated a VERY small amount, considering the number of impressions we've sent there.

I know I'm getting long winded, but is there anyone who could share some tips for maximizing our income and use of ad space?

Thanks much in advance!

[fclark]

Welcome to the board, Brett2004.

I'd also like to hear what some of the more experienced have to say about your situation. It really sounds like you're in for an interesting time.

Did you purchase this site?

[webmastertexas]

Depending on the theme/topic of your site (4mil is a lot of hits!) you can sell ad space. That wouldn't guarantee you income like Fastclick (depends if people want to advertise on your site), but for the traffic you get, you should be able to charge a pretty penny for those who do want to advertise. Also, are you implementing ENOUGh Fastclick ad formats? They have tons.

[disgust]

hits are generally refered to as "how idiots track statistics." hits don't mean a thing- if you have one page with 20 images, that's 20 "hits."

two things matter for advertising: unique visitors, and pageviews.

the more unique visitors you have, the better adsense will be. the more directly related to something commercial with decent profit margins, the better adsense will be. read a bit about adsense CTR optimizing. is your problem a lot CTR or low pay per click?

if both of these are lacking, CPM services may be your best bet.

[sadelb]

what exaclty is cpm?

[disgust]

an advertising model that pays per 1,000 impressions.

a 1$ CPM would mean 1$ per 1,000 impressions, etc.

[Brett2004]

Thanks for the input.

I've just finished the first month with this site (it's a small business that I recently gained a half-interest in).

We were approved by and implemented: Burst, Tribal Fusion, FastClick, RealTech, Casale, and Google Adsense.

So far we are still moving code around, but it seems that Burst and Tribal Fusion require being close to or at the top of the rotation in order to provide quality CPMs with lower defaults. It's definitely still a big learning curve! The profits for the first month were a pleasant surprise though!

And to clarify, the site averages just over 4 million page views a month, and October's unique visitors will be just about at 500,000. Growing every month!

The next question I have- how to sell your own ad space? I'm researching ad serving programs now. Any input? :)

[Rondo]

Tell us more about the subject of the site.

With 500,000 uniques you have a Big business, not a small business. And you should be making a rather good income.

Many would kill for this traffic.
With just a 0.1% conversion rate you would be making 500 cpa sales a month!

[wellzy]

Wow, 500,000 uniques a month and a 2 digit income. I think we need to know the subject of the site to better give advice. That many visitors should put you in the 6 digit/mo income, but it depends on the site. IMO you should go with AdSense. I have tried many of the ones you mentioned, but not paid as well as AdSense.

How many pages are you planning on inserting code into? That's a lot of inserting no matter how you look at it. ;)

wellzy

[Zygoot]

>many visitors should put you in the 6 digit/mo income

I think 4 or 5 digit earnings is much more likely than 6 digit a month with 500 000 unique visitors.

[Brett2004]

Thanks for the input!

The site is a love, dating, and romance advice site, and also has a large database of love lyrics, poetry, and quotes.

Right now we're in the mid 4-digit income range per month, based upon October's figures. 5 digits sounds much better, but how? :)

Thus far we've put ad code on the top 130 pages or so, as they seem to get the majority of the traffic.

We're working on getting ad serving software up and running through our host. We will probably go with PHPADSNEW. We currently get about one e-mail a day from companies asking to pay to advertise on our site, but I have no way to accurately track it yet, so that we can sell CPM advertising!

[wellzy]

I think 4 or 5 digit earnings is much more likely than 6 digit a month with 500 000 unique visitors.

I did low 5 digit earnings from one site last month with only 28K uniques. If I do the math (X18) he could easily be doing 6 digits. But it all depends on the site. I am running all affiliate products. He is looking to generate income from advertising, so your figures are probably closer to what he could actually earn.

wellzy

[guitaristinus]

I get about 300,000 uniques/month to one of my sites and don't make anything from it. I tried a few different ads on it, but felt like I wasn't compensated enough. I use it to transfer PR and traffic to my other sites. Without ads I think others will more likely link to it. It's part of my long term plan.

There is money in love, dating, and romance, though. You might consider linking off to a little adult. Your visitors may be interested in that.