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AdSense Cranking Out the Revenue for Google?

is this program earning that much money

         

Taran

7:57 pm on Jan 5, 2004 (gmt 0)

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Hello Everyone,

I am wondering if Adsense is earning that much money from advertisers ... that much its distributing to publishers like me..

Comments are welcome.

Thank You.

KenB

6:15 am on Jan 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I'm sure Google is making a reasonable profit off of AdSense. After all they only pay us a percentage of what AdWords advertisers paid for each click we are paid for.

Dpeper

6:55 am on Jan 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

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What percentage does adsense pay?

Taran

7:43 am on Jan 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

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it varies but dont know exact amount.

Smiley

9:16 am on Jan 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

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>I am wondering if Adsense is earning that much money from advertisers

I'd said they earning loads from their advertisers, and many seem happy [webmasterworld.com]

John_Shaw

2:56 pm on Jan 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

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I don't know the percentage of the revenue Google takes, but I assume from the fact that they decide the percentage, and because so many publishers are making more from Adsense than from anything else, Google must think that there take is high enough. They could increase their cut and we would not know.

The only question is if G's cut is sufficient to cover the additional overhead created by the Adsense program, and if they continue to have enough advertising to serve the search results and Adsense.

natto

4:45 pm on Jan 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

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If you consider that many sites which host the adsense ads are non-professional sites, personal sites and blogs, then Google may get away with paying a small percentage to these people. After all, $10 or $20 or so every few months is enough revenue to satisfy most of these people. It's better than nothing and it pays the hosting. So, Google's cut may be bigger than you think as many adsense hosts are expecting only pocket change from the ads. The expections of these people are different to the expectations of bigger, professional sites that rely on advertising revenue to pay staff wages.

Even if Google were to cut the percentage paid to hosts (I'm not suggesting that they will!) then many hosts may stick with it as it may be their only source of income from the site.

europeforvisitors

6:34 pm on Jan 6, 2004 (gmt 0)



Natto, AdSense wouldn't be a viable ad network if its focus were on publishers earning $10 or $20 every few months. The real money for AdSense (not counting large corporate partners) comes from publishers who net four and five figures per month. If Google were to cut revenues, it would risk losing such publishers to competitors--if not today, then in the very near future.

In any case, the idea that Google has some kind of fixed revenue split (a la traditional networks that pay 50-50 or 60-40) may be a false assumption. It's just as likely--indeed, far more likely--that the revenue split is determined by a formula that takes several (or more) factors into acount. For example, Google might very easily choose to pay ad royalties on a sliding scale, since there's more profit after administrative overhead on higher-volume accounts. It makes a lot of sense for Google to use a formula that's more complicated than a simple split, since--among other things--such a formula makes it harder for competitors to learn what Google is paying and to offer a better split to successful publishers in high-profit categories.

John_Shaw

7:43 pm on Jan 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

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Does anyone have experience to give an educated guess as to the amount of income (Google's part of the split) Google would need to cover the cost of administration for an individual publisher as well as an appropriate share of general overhead cost?

Do they have a minimum for being in the program (other than the $100 min per check)?

loanuniverse

10:02 pm on Jan 6, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Since the system is in place and highly automated, each additional publisher added does not bring a huge amount of expenses. Granted those making less than $100 a year are probably not very profitable, but they bring other intangibles such as a more complete coverage of niche markets.

natto

9:26 am on Jan 7, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Europeforvisitors, that's a good point. The admin cost of basing the program on small-earning publishers would be too great. However, I've always seen the adsense program as a lifeline to small, independent publishers who earn a few dollars a month to cover their hosting costs and so I assumed this was the main focus of the program. Sites with high volumes of ads have (I presume) better access to other advertising options.

The sliding scale model sounds right to me and makes sense.

I suppose the real test of how much money the program makes is whether or not other companies start competing with Google. I understand that there are a couple of competitors to Google in this market. If a company decided to take on Google in this area, it would suggest that there's money to be made. Although saying that, companies often fight for market share in one area in order to boost or provide more credibility to another area of their business. Com[petition would be healthy - especially for small independent publishers who are now completely reliant on the revenue from adsense.

adfree

10:03 am on Jan 7, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



And don't you forget the much broader spread of the AdWords ads to satisfy G's advertisers to be able to show their ads at speciality and themed sites...

IMHP AS serves advertisers of the AW program nicely by multiplying G's potential for many specialty areas.

Jens

Taran

12:11 pm on Jan 7, 2004 (gmt 0)

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after discussion with many people and forums i think that adsense is earning a lot. but the actual thing is let me discuss.

google takes advance from advertisers but they pay us after a lot time like 40 days. whats their money doing in those 40 days.

natto

12:29 pm on Jan 7, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



It'll be gathering interest. It's the smart thing for a company to do.

europeforvisitors

12:32 pm on Jan 7, 2004 (gmt 0)



google takes advance from advertisers but they pay us after a lot time like 40 days. whats their money doing in those 40 days.

Google pays faster than most companies do. I think most publishers who have experience in working with large corporations (or with affiliate programs) will tell you that.

europeforvisitors

12:42 pm on Jan 7, 2004 (gmt 0)



Natto wrote:

I've always seen the adsense program as a lifeline to small, independent publishers who earn a few dollars a month to cover their hosting costs and so I assumed this was the main focus of the program.

I think the main focus of AdSense is to make money for Google. :-) As for why Google opened the doors to publishers of every size I think that was done to achieve ubiquity or omnipresence, a la Amazon.com, not for altruistic reasons. By achieving a dominant market share in contextual text advertising, Google has made it harder for future competitors to gain a foothold.

Sites with high volumes of ads have (I presume) better access to other advertising options.

Yes, but those other advertising options seldom pay as well as AdSense does. That's why you see AdWords/AdSense ads on large corporate-owned sites like THE WASHINGTON POST and About.com.

I suppose the real test of how much money the program makes is whether or not other companies start competing with Google....Competition would be healthy - especially for small independent publishers who are now completely reliant on the revenue from adsense.

It remains to be seen if Google's competitors will reach as far down the scale (in terms of traffic and potential revenue) as AdSense does. Given the fact that Google already has a dominant market share and larger financial resources than most of its competitors do, I'd expect competitors to "cherry pick" the more profitable sites and traffic--either by having high traffic minimums (a la Overture's Content Match network) or by emulating targeted banner-ad networks like Tribal Fusion and going after established sites in profitable niches.

nakulgoyal

11:34 am on Jan 12, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Taran, today all sites use Adsense. And people who use adwords want traffic and sales, so basically via adsense you allow google's adwords members to see their ads on your websites as well as google.com! They get traffic and sales, you get some money because you got that visitor and google is happy to act as a meditor and share something!

CPCretirement

1:37 pm on Jan 12, 2004 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



A secondary advantage for Google is that Adsense ads on your site are also Adwords ads for Google. Adsense probably makes a lot of advertisers aware of the Adwords program when they come across the Ads on websites.

adfree

1:39 pm on Jan 13, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



"Adsense probably makes a lot of advertisers aware of the Adwords program when they come across the Ads on websites..."

That's what Google tries to accomplish when someone clicks at the Adsense link called Ads by Google...

Jens

hopeful

11:22 pm on Jan 14, 2004 (gmt 0)

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if i had a travel related website with 2000 visitors per day, how much revenue could i likely earn from adsense

dazzlindonna

11:29 pm on Jan 14, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



hopeful, that's not an easy question to answer. your best bet is to try it - you'll probably be pleased. if i had to take a wild guess, it would be somewhere in the $50-$100 per day range. but i could be way way off. one thing to remember - we are not allowed to discuss the specifics of what we earn, so you would only get vague answers even if someone had a very good idea of what the answer was.

figment88

11:34 pm on Jan 14, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



I've been wondering how much all of the AdSense publishers meant to Google in terms of one of its major distribution partners.

If we used AOL as benchmark, do you think the sum of all revenue Google earns from AdSense publishers is 1/10th of AOL, 1/4th of AOL, 1/2th of AOL, equal to AOL, twice AOL, etc.?

I don't know the answer to that question, but I am pretty sure that as a group AdSense publsihers are a bigger pain in the butt.

PatrickDeese

12:19 am on Jan 15, 2004 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



One way that you can guess how much one might earn is to see how much the Overture bids are for a particular set of keywords.

Granted Adwords and Overture's bidding system work very differently, but a publisher is more likely to earn $.60 per click on terms that being bid on at Overture in the $1.00 range than if the bids are $.10.

It depends a lot on the quality and quantity of traffic, as well as the topic.

I handle a client's Adsense account as well as my own and the CTR for the one site he runs adsense is almost 8 times the CTR of my account which is showing on 12 sites or so, but I am getting about 800 times the number of impressions he is. And my CTR is actually respectable (compared to CJ's, for instance.)

europeforvisitors

1:54 am on Jan 15, 2004 (gmt 0)



If we used AOL as benchmark, do you think the sum of all revenue Google earns from AdSense publishers is 1/10th of AOL, 1/4th of AOL, 1/2th of AOL, equal to AOL, twice AOL, etc.?


There's obviously no way to tell, but it's worth remembering that, if you're talking about content ads, targeted sites in profitable niches are likely to draw a higher percentage of high-$$$ ads than a general-interest portal or news & entertainment site will. On a site like THE WASHINGTON POST, for example, a lot of the Google text ads are just throwaways because stories come and go and many deal with noncommercial topics.

...I am pretty sure that as a group AdSense publsihers are a bigger pain in the butt.

I'd guess that the big corporate partners are more demanding, but there are obviously fewer of them, so maybe it all evens out. :-) Certainly it's easier for Google to simply dump an annoying mom-and-pop publisher than a demanding corporate partner that's racking up 20,000,000+ impressions per day.

I suspect that Google is learning what affiliate managers already know: that 20% of the publishers generate 80% of the revenues and snother 20% generate 80% of the unnecessary e-mails. :-) The "pester-to-profit ratio" may be a factor when Google decides whether a publisher should be removed for invalid clicks, violating the program policies in a minor way, etc. If the costs of servicing an account are higher than the profits generated by the account, that may tip the scales against the publisher.