Boosting Adsense revenue with Adwords

[Tim_Bowyer]

Does anybody have any experience with this? I've seen a few posts where people have talked about boosting their adsense income by spending money with Adwords to promote their site, but surely the maths doesn't stack up? I mean, you spend 20 cents to get somebody to visit your site with only a 5% chance of earning you 10 cents by clicking on one of your ad's - or am I missing something?

[eljefe3]

Arbitrage. Google is supposedly tring to crack down on it, but judging by the number of MFA sites, this tactic stil works well.

[Tim_Bowyer]

But how can it work? Surely the adwords cost will always exceed the adsense income? And is it just frowned on by G, or actually a violation of TOS?

[eljefe3]

Ask all the people the have the sites like best10sites.tld, hot25sites.tld, 10-best-sites-for-mfa-ads.com etc. etc.

Basically they bid on cheap keywords, then show just enough content to get higher priced ads to show.

[Tim_Bowyer]

...Also, you say G is trying to crack down on this, but are you sure we're talking about the same thing? "MFA sites" normally refers to sites with little or no content, but I'm talking about a site with 600+ pages of content that is already earning good Adsense revenue - I'm just wondering if I can boost this revenue by advertising the site with Adwords. But the maths doesn't seem to add up...

[eljefe3]

Why can't you arbitrage with content sites also?

You probably just need to know your conversions a litle better and know where to get cheap adwords to get to your site, and then hopefully you have a nice CTR for higher paying ads and voila'.

[Tim_Bowyer]

Thanks, I'll try to figure out what that actually means in practice. So I have a site about futures trading, where every click earns me $1, and I advertise it on Adwords using a keyword other than "futures trading" - for example "pronunciation", which only costs 20 cents. So then my Adwords ad for my futures trading website appears on pronunciation websites, which will give me a very low CTR but that’s OK coz I only pay for the clicks, so then (optimistically) 5% of these clickers click on one of the ad’s on my futures trading website, so I earn, per 1000 clicks:

50 x $1 – (1,000 x 20 cents) = -$200.

Am I missing something?

[Green_Grass]

"Am I missing something? "

Yes, Many Things.

Adword bid prices depend upon many factors which cannot be quantified anymore.

There is the new QS.

There are CTR figures/ Budget/ Competitor bidding etc etc

Normally adWords will not allow you to bid for 'unrelated words'. You can't for example bid for 'pig' and sell 'futures'. Adwords will charge you an astronomical figure like $10 for the bid.

MFA's work on high CTR on their sites..upwards of 40%. They also have huge budgets on G adWords and have a long term approach, which allows them to build up a solid long term adWords account with high CTR and low CPC for keywords. They may not always make money, but they must certainly do so on the long term.

The new QS should theoretically knock them of the G radar. But they must have some black hat techniques, which we are not aware of, which allows them to keep on going on the adWords side.

[Tim_Bowyer]

Thanks for that! So from what you're saying, arbitraging only makes money for MFA sites, or from MFA-type strategies not really related to content.

Another way that I've read to increase Adsense revenue is to filter out low-paying MFA ad's - does this work, or does it simply mean you get even lower bids and/or PSA's?

[Green_Grass]

"where every click earns me $1,"

You already have a niche which makes us salivate.. I am soooo 'GREEN'.

You are right in thinking that blocking MFA's will increase revenue. However do ensure you have enough advertisers in your niche.

You can also increase revenues by reducing adblocks.
( However CTR may fall). You need to balance new lower CTR with higher EPC.

You may increase CTR by blending and trying to experiment a bit.

There are many threads on this forum relating to above strategies. Do a search or check the Library threads for more detailed information please.

[bts111]

Looks like I am going to have to do a little reading on futures trading ;)

[zegiv]

Hello,

I've make a little test for this yesterday.

I spend 40 € in Adwords and I earn near 78 $ in Adsense.
So yes, it's really possible but I think :

- You need a really hight CTR
- You need to advertise on low CPC keywords with hight traffic
- You need to really know Adwords for have a CPC as little as possible
- You really need a web site with a lot of content, because hight traffic keywords are very "global", so you need a web site very complete for you sector.

Of course it's not possible to spend 80 € and earn 160 $, because if you want to spend 80 € on adwords to get more traffic you need to increase you CPC and so you will decrease you profit on each clic...

[Tim_Bowyer]

Thanks for the useful tips, Green Grass and zegiv - sounds bloody complex! Think I'll start by filtering out those pesky MFA's..

$1 a click for futures trading is nothing - there are some incurable illnesses that command $10 a click - money for ghouls! But remember where there's honey there's a whole heap of wasps...

[mertero]

If you have a good site, then you might also earn from new 'visitors'.

For example, if the visitor is happy, he might come back again and again. Or tell his friends. Or post in his blog.

So a visitor might be worth more than a single 'unique'.

[humblebeginnings]

Of course it's not possible to spend 80 € and earn 160 $

;-)

[rebelde]

As mertero says, a sticky site that people like, bookmark, and want to return to can be successful advertising on AdWords.

So I guess there might be two camps: those who offer nothing and hope to make a quick buck as people leave, and those who offer great sites and hope to gain repeat visitors.

[jomaxx]

Tim, if you have a worthwhile site that people are likely to return to or link to, this idea definitely makes sense. Make a longterm investment; get prominent for those search terms you want to would love to be on page 1 for.

OTOH, trying to turn AdWords into a short-term profit center by lowballing bids and trying to sell irrelevant traffic back to Google seems foolish. This is a totally different business. You'll have to make site changes that hurt your core business, and it might even get you banned from Google.

If you already have a solid site, don't take your eye off the ball.

[TheTraveler]

Actually you can pick up cheap ckicks in your niche by targeting the MFAs themselves. Just concentrate on the ones in your niche that are/were gaining clicks from you and your competitors. You can CPM about 1/3 of them and CPC the rest.

Something I developed, thinking about getting a patent on it! ;)

[edited by: TheTraveler at 9:30 pm (utc) on Nov. 23, 2006]

[Hobbs]

>pick up cheap ckicks
Just be careful doing that, you could contract serious side effects!

[Tim_Bowyer]

Good advice all round. I agree with Mertero (and rebelde and jomaxx) that an Adwords click is worth more than an Adsense click because you're gaining a potential lifelong visitor and promoter of your site.

But I don't get Traveler's "CPM a third and CPC the rest".. anyway it sounds like small beer if they're only paying 1-3 cents.

So I'll try Adwords and see how she goes. I've already zapped those slippery-as-DickCheney MFA's (maybe we should just call them Dick Cheneys), with no noticeable result so far...actually logic says Google is right when they say that all you're doing by removing the lowest successful bidders is lowering your CPC...

[Pedent]

Another factor is that even if visitors don't come back, they may view multiple pages. If you averaged 20 pageviews per visitor, and had a 5% CTR, then that would be 1 click / visitor.

[Tim_Bowyer]

Good point.

[Tim_Bowyer]

6 hours later - no doubt about it, adwords supercharging adsense looks like a winner so far! For a sticky, high-content site, that is, paying low on adwords...

[MThiessen]

Consider this. I would not *just* be using adsense on the other end of the adwords. If you sell products, or have affliates, make sure that they are involved so you can earn not just from adsense, but other sources.

[ezimedia]

HI

I tried this about 2 months ago.. with a few sites.. I was spending.. like $60-$70 per month on adwords for the sites and was making back $150-160$ in adsence... and a few $$ in affiliate sales..

but lately adwords has dropped 99% of my keywords.. from $0.10 a click to $0.50 to $5.00 a click... so I have paused most of my sites..

Not sure what to do..

I was thinking about trying Yahoo and msn and other PPC but just have not had the time to test this..

Anyone else in my Boat..

Thanks
Tom Dahne

[Green_Grass]

"Anyone else in my Boat.. "

Yes.. Quite a few making a 'living' from arbitraging are in the same boat .

[chrisv1963]

"Ask all the people the have the sites like best10sites.tld, hot25sites.tld, 10-best-sites-for-mfa-ads.com etc. etc."

And don't forget to ask how many of them violated the TOS, served junk pages, got reported by angry Adsense publishers that are tired of seeing junk ads on their websites, got banned from Adsense and ended up spending a lot of money on Adwords with zero return ...

[sailorjwd]

Sailing the Same Boat!

Adwords spending has gone from a peak of $15K/mo down to about $150/mo

Goodbye to my AMEX rewards program :(

But at least i have a plasma screen in every room of my trailer.

[Tim_Bowyer]

I reported earlier that adsense fuelled by adwords was working swell - I spoke too soon. It was just a temporary surge. I paused the adwords already.

[sailorjwd]

Welcome aboard Tim!