6 Figures?

[Fuzzyfish1000]

Sorry if this has been asked before - I used to come here quite a lot, but haven't been in a few years... Does anyone on the boards generate a 6 figure ($ / £) monthly adsense revenue? If so, what sort of traffic supports it? CTRs? Average CPC? Just interested, as I like to have something to aim for.

Cheers!

Fuzzy

[sid786]

Very WELL said, @SlimKim. Your 'idea' has defined a BIG business that's raking in $50k revenue, that too without Adsense, every month! Big congrats on that. I am inspired.

However, I don't get this part:

If you can implement an xml feed instead of only using the javascript Adsense test ads, then you are in position to work with hundreds of different cpc companies.

And yes, POF doesn't use adsense anymore as far as I know. Also, those million dollar checks were dating back to 2006. Right now, like you said, he must be minting millions every week.

[SlimKim]

Hi Sid,

Programs like adsense provide webmasters with javascript code because it is easy to copy and paste into a webpage.

But for Google search partners and larger publishers / parking companies / etc that use Google feeds .... those implement a different kind of code for the same looking text ads.

XML feeds are a tad more difficult to implement and are used for the same purpose as are javascript feeds.

I syndicate over 30 different feeds, mostly for low quality traffic and cpv traffic and all of the feeds are xml.

I have a few indirect premium feeds that come from G and Y. And you have to be a much larger biz than mine to get direct Y and G feeds, but they approve their feed partners to distribute those and that makes them indirect - meaning you deal with another company other than G or Y.

I won't mention my brand name but all will recognize the publicly traded companies like Looksmart and ValueClick who offer xml feeds for cpc text ads, same as do G and Y and many more.

[Fuzzyfish1000]

Hmm. A number of people have reacted like it is/was an obtuse question, but I have picked some things up from the responses, so thanks.

A couple of observations, along with some responses:

1) You're only going to do well with some new undiscovered idea... I disagree; it's not all about the next big un-discovered idea - it's about understanding your (potential) users and providing them with a better experience than the competition. Make people love your website. That's certainly what's worked for me.

2) I should leave the internet... Well, probably, yes. My CTR is sub 1%, which is a real shame, as last Friday I had 2.5M ad imps. Maybe I should make the ads blink...

3) Google reps have all the answers. I do have a Google rep, but there's oddly only so much they tell me. I don't know if I'm hitting a sensible industry target they set, but they pretty much leave me alone, unless I poke them. Every so often they drop me an e-mail with a suggestion, but if I'm honest, it's rarely something we haven't tried in the past, or discounted due to over-ad-spamming the site.

4) XML feeds are the way forward... Well, certainly a lot of changing information helps, but we chose the quality root over the mass-domain/labelled affiliate root. Just a life choice :-)

[SlimKim]

Yep - i have one affiliate with a top 200 website and in best of times his ctr is half of one percent and often .2 or .3 and on those really big web properties that use RON ads, ctr can often be .1 or less.

There is no one-size-fits-all and there are so many variations even within similar business models.

We each have to keep plugging away til we find what works for each of us.

[BillyS]

These are some of the best threads on this forum, they're really insightful.

In this example, the OP asks for very specific information on traffic and CTRs. When people share their experience and thoughts, the OP turns around and critiques the comments and talks about the 2.5M ad impressions they get on a single day.

Is it April already? ;)

[wyweb]

That's good stuff SlimKim.

No doubt.

Thanks for putting that out there.

[vikashkumar]

Hello Everyone,

I am new to this forum and glad to join you all people and just started working on ad sense and reading a book "The Adsense Code" from Joel Comm and implementing his tips to generate some good revenue. If any one have suggestion for me please let me know.

Thanks in advance.

[Fuzzyfish1000]

Hi BillyS - not critiques; just comments, and hopefully someone might find some of them useful. The whole point of the post was, I'm really not an AdSense expert, and my site is a very small fish in our niche; and I was hoping for some idea of what we should be doing with the sort of traffic we've got.

It does eat at me however when people post on boards like this though, saying that success is for other people, and is basically only achievable with a magical idea, or by spamming en-masse. I know plenty of people who have just worked hard at this game, and have made successful businesses with AdSense as a cornerstone.

Roll on Christmas when my site will drop dead ;-)

[BillyS]

Making that kind of money only takes one thing: A great idea that hasn't been done before. That's what you need to aim for, it's really that simple.

You asked what it takes to make over a $1 million a year in Adsense. I answered that question. I never said this was the only way to make that kind of money (you read it that way), it's just the easiest way.

When I wrote this I wasn't thinking a "big" idea either, just a "great idea that hasn't been done before." There are a ton of niche opportunities on the web.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

It's not rocket science, this question gets asked all the time.

Get more traffic and raise CTR through A/B testing.

It doesn't matter what your site covers, to earn more you need more traffic and the best CTR you can manage.

Tip: more ads isn't always better but more/better content is, focus on that.

[azn romeo 4u]

If you get 100k uniques a day and only get 1000 clicks, you need to leave the internet at once.

U know why I said this? To tell someone you get 100k uniques a day and to only get 1k click means a lot. U told a lot about your site in that one sentence.

U told me, you have lowsy bounce rate
U told me, you you have traffic that leaves after one-three pages.
Which means your content isn't drawing in your new visitors.
3mill and 1k click is not 1% it's .03% ctr which is bad, real bad.

I think you need to optmize your ad, and your layout.

I'm just giving an opinion that is all.

[Fuzzyfish1000]

Cheers azn. My bounce rate is about 30%, and avg number of pages looked at per user is 6.5. Average time on site per user is 10.5 mins. CTR is around 0.05%. Maybe the users just prefer the content to the ads...

I probably do need to optimize layout to increase CTR; but it's getting the balance between 'spammy' site, and useful, well layed out site right.

A/B testing is a good idea; for instance blend/vs contrast on the ads, or some different ad styles.

Thing I've found with that sort of thing - we change the ads for a day, and all the regular users spot them, and they get clicked; then a couple of days go by, and it drops off again...

[BillyS]

With close to 20 million page views per month, you're premium publisher material. I'm surprised Google hasn't contacted you about layout already.

[Fuzzyfish1000]

BillyS, they have. As I mentioned earlier in the thread, the suggestions they make are ok; but few and far between, and have made a bit of a difference; but it's frustrating with such a low CTR. Logically, if I could double the CTR to something like 0.1%, I could double the earnings.

[koan]

As I've also learned, some topics can get very popular yet have very little commercial interest from advertisers and visitors. The CTR sucks. I try to avoid those nowadays, or at least add CPM networks in the mix. Youtube, for example, can't have a great CTR, I'm sure.

[mkassets]

Fuzzyfish,

Why would you even use Adsense with such a low CTR and so many pageviews? Wouldn't you be better off with TribalFusion or ValueClick?

[Fuzzyfish1000]

Aren't they US only? From my (admittedly bad) memory, the Tribal fusion ads are the annoying Smiley ads that talk when you hover over them...

We don't just run AdSense; we run some direct sold stuff, and another niche network - AdSense is set as remnant, so it competes at a certain value; ie, if there aren't higher value ads to show instead. It's just when it is shown, the CTR isn't very high. Very frustrating. One factor may be that we have a lot of repeat visitors; and I'm pretty sure that first time visitors are more likely to click.

Cheers for the suggestions!