Make money with advertising
There are 3 way to make money advertising : Join an Ad network, Sell your own advertising space or Sell your own advertising
Join an Ad network
One easy way to start earning extra money right away is to join an Ad network.First you'll need to know that there are different kinds of Ad networks :
Pay Per Click Advertising Networks
Google AdSense is the most popular option under this category, but there are also others. Basically you need to sign up with the network and paste some code snippets on your website. The network will then serve contextual ads (either text or images) relevant to your website, and you will earn a certain amount of money for every click.
The profitability of PPC advertising depends on the general traffic levels of the website and, most importantly, on the click-through rate (CTR) and cost per click (CPC). The CTR depends on the design of the website. Ads placed abode the fold or blended with content, for instance, tend to get higher CTRs. The CPC, on the other hand, depends on the niche of the website. Mortgages, financial products and college education are examples of profitable niches (clicks worth a couple of dollars are not rare), while tech-related topics tend to receive a smaller CPC (sometimes as low as a couple of cents per click).
The source of the traffic can also affect the overall CTR rate. Organic traffic (the one that comes from search engines) tends to perform well because these visitors were already looking for something, and they tend to click on ads more often. Social media traffic, on the other hand, presents terribly low CTRs because these visitors are tech-savvy and they just ignore ads.
List of popular CPC advertising networks:
Google Adsense
Yahoo! Publisher Network (YPN)
BidVertiser
Chitika
Clicksor
Cost Per Mille Advertising Networks
CPM advertising networks behave pretty much as PPC networks, except that you get paid according to the number of impressions (i.e., page views) that the ads displayed on your site will generate. CPM stands for Cost per Mille, and it refers to the cost for 1,000 impressions.
A blog that generates 100,000 page views monthly displaying an advertising banner with a $1 CPM, therefore, will earn $100 monthly.
CPM rates vary with the network, the position of the ad and the format. The better the network, the higher the CPM rate (because they have access to more advertisers). The closer you put the ad to the top of the page, the higher the CPM. The bigger the format (in terms of pixels), the higher the CPM.
You can get as low as $0,10 and as high as $10 per 1,000 impressions (more in some special cases). CPM advertising tends to work well on websites with a high page views per visitor ratio (e.g., online forums, magazines and so on).
List of popular CPM advertising networks:
Casale Media
Advertizar
Value Click
Advertising.com
Tribal Fusion
Right Media
Text Link Ads
After Google declared that sites selling text links without the nofollow tag would be penalized, this monetization method became less popular.
Many website owners are still using text links to monetize their sites, though, some using the nofollow tag and some not.
The advantage of this method is that it is not intrusive. One can sell text links directly through his website or use specialized networks like Text-Link-Ads and Text-Link-Brokers to automate the process.
Text link marketplaces and networks:
Text-Link-Ads
Text-Link-Brokers
LinkWorth
In-text Adverting
In-text adverting networks like Kontera and Vibrant Media will place sponsored links inside your text. These links come with a double underline to differentiate them from normal links, and once the user rolls the mouse over the link the advertising will pop. Should the user click on it the site owner will make some money.
Some people make good money with this method, but others refrain from using it due to its intrusiveness. It is also interesting to note that very few mainstream websites have experimented with in-text advertising.
Pop-ups and Pop-unders
Pop-ups are a common yet annoying form of advertising on the Internet. If you are just trying to make a much money as possible from your website, you could experiment with them.
If you are trying to grow the traffic and generate loyal visitors, however, you probably should stay away from them. Just consider the hundreds of pop-up blockers out there: there is a reason why they are so popular.
Ad networks that use pop-ups:
Tribal Fusion
PayPopup
PopupAd
Adversal
Audio Ads
Also called PPP (Pay Per Play), this advertising method was introduce by Net Audio Ads. the concept is pretty simple: play a small audio advertising (usually 5 seconds) every time a visitor enters into your website. The user should not be able to stop it, creating a 100% conversion rate based on unique visitors.
The company is still rolling tests, but some users are reporting to get from a $4 to a $6 CPM. Regardless of the pay rate, though, this is a very intrusive form of advertising, so think twice before using it.
The following is a list of desirable affiliate/publisher features that you should look for before agreeing to "rent" out your prime advertising space to an agency:
Targeting
Does the network provide ads that are relevant to your subject area or that would appeal to the users of your web site? Irrelevant ads will not only fail if you are participating in a CPC campaign, but they may annoy your visitors.
CPC, CPM and CPA options
A good ad agency will give you a mixture of CPC and CPM ads. CPC ads pay when a visitor to your site clicks on a banner through to an advertisers web site . CPM advertising is based on $X.XX per thousand views (impressions). Another variation is CPA - a visitor clicks a banner, passes through to the advertiser's web site and either purchases (a sale) or expresses interest (a lead) in the companies products or services. CPA pays the highest but usually has a much lower conversion ratio.
Control over ads displayed
The better ad networks have comprehensive publisher administrative interfaces where you can preview a banner and decide whether you want that particular campaign displayed on your site. This is particularly useful if you (or your visitors) object to certain kinds of advertising - such as those wonderful flashing ads that we have all grown to love - an interesting and amazing fact is that those flashing ads do draw high clickthrough rates - figure that one out! If your agency is really on the ball, there will also be visual flags in your administration area to indicate that the ad contains references to adult material, gambling or tobacco related products etc.
Default ad control
Most agencies have quotas on the number of ads appearing to particular users. After that quota is filled for the hour or day etc., "default" ads will be displayed. These banners do not earn you any money - but they do tend to display community oriented ads, so you can also be promoting positive social messages - but be sure to check this out before signing up. Quality agencies will also give you control over these default ads allowing you to display your own offers instead. This gives you further opportunities in making money from this prime advertising space. If the default banner rate is too high in proportion to paying banners, and those non-paying banners promote other businesses, then these networks are well worth avoiding.
Rates
The days of the $10.00 CPM ads are pretty much well over, unless you find advertisers yourself by direct marketing, but there are still great payment rate differences between networks. Shop around carefully. You should aim to receive on average US$1.00 - $4.00 CPM or at least US$.15 - $.20 CPC.
Payout Schedule
Look for an Ad network that pays promptly. There are a couple of agencies that pay up to 4 months after the end of month! A common pay schedule is anything from 15-30 days after the end of month.
Terms and Conditions
Before joining any ad network, ensure you read the terms and conditions carefully. The advertising industry is well known for its share of fraud - perpetrated by all parties. Some agencies combat this with Draconian rules, which gives publishers and affiliates very little flexibility - look for an agency that takes fraud seriously, but still gives you some room to move. It is also EXTREMELY important to read the terms and conditions carefully, otherwise you may be breaking the rules without even knowing it. This usually results in termination of your account and forfeit of any money that you have made.
Selling your own advertising space
This is admittedly a more difficult route for a small business site wanting to earn advertising revenues.
The first step is to target potential advertisers for your site. Make a list of sites that may potentially be interested in the kind of demographics your site serves. If your site focuses on work-at-home mothers, potential advertisers may include jewelry stores, fragrance sites, furniture sites, baby products and many others.
Tap your partner sites, or sites that you may have worked with in the past. Generally, advertisers with whom you have established previous business relationships, and are already familiar with your site and your audience are more likely to do media buys from you.
Know the right contact person. Visit their web site to see if they list the name of their marketing manager or media buyer. Or better yet, call up their office to check the name of the person responsible for buying ads for their site.
Oftentimes, big companies utilize advertising agencies to handle media buys for them. Some advertisers will refer you to their agencies. If you have already established a relationship with the advertiser, you can inform the agency that you have already discussed the potential media buy. If the advertiser has already expressed interest in an ad buy from your site, tell the agency about it.
If your first point of contact is the ad agency, request the media buyer's permission first before contacting the advertiser directly. There is nothing to gain from infuriating the media buyer.
Present your offer succinctly and clearly as soon as you make contact with either the advertiser directly or the media buyer. You can send an initial email message describing the range of online advertising available (e.g. whether sponsorships, banner buys, etc) and your advertising fees. Make sure that you emphasize the benefits the advertisers will reap with their exposure from your site. You can send the complete media kit (with your site description, demographics, traffic levels) once the potential advertiser has expressed interest in your site.
Tirelessly follow-up your advertising prospects, without being a pest. A day or two after sending your email message, call the person to discuss the potential ad buy and whether they need additional information. As soon as the ad buy is approved, you will be presented with an Insertion Order (IO) that specifies the commitments of each side guaranteed number of impressions (if any), make-good strategies if you fail to reach the guaranteed number, rates and billing instructions, who will be responsible for tracking statistics, cancellation policy, and other specifics of the ad buy. Carefully review the IO, checking whether you can really deliver what the contract entails. Remember, the goal is to establish a long-term relationship with the advertiser.
Soliciting advertising buyers for your site is a tedious task. However, the benefit of selling advertising directly is that you can negotiate a much higher CPM or sponsorship fees for your site. You don't have to settle with the miniscule $0.25 CPM rate the some advertising networks give. You can also negotiate a shorter payout rate: many ad networks pay only 45-90 days after the campaign ended. With you at the negotiating helm, you can require advertisers to pay-up before you install any of their banners, or immediately at the end of the campaign.
Sell your own advertising
Without wishing to throw a dampener on your enthusiasm, we will tell you straight out that selling advertising is hard, particularly if you don't have established contacts with possible advertisers.
If you do, decide to try to selling advertising, here are a few basic steps:
- Take a look at your competition. Remember advertisers have a huge choice of web sites on which they could advertise - so ask yourself why they would choose yours? A review of your competition can also help you with the next step...
- You will need to work out your advertising rates:
- Your advertising rates could be based on per-click charges, in this case you will (at least) need software which can count the number of clicks each ad. Do remember that in this case, the number of clicks is not under your direct control - for example, what happens if one of your advertisers comes up with an advert which none of your visitors wants to click?
To implement this idea, you will need some kind of software to count these clicks. For banners you can use an ASP, CGI or PHP banner rotation script.
- Your advertising rates could be based on the number of times each advert is displayed ("impressions"). This is a popular method with larger web sites, which often charge per thousand impressions ("CPM"). In this case, you will (at least) need software which can count the number of times each advert is displayed.
To implement this idea, you will need some kind of software to count these impressions. For banners you can use an ASP, CGI or PHP banner rotation script.
- Your advertising rates could be based on weekly or monthly fees for displaying the advert. While this method is fairly popular with smaller sites, it can put advertisers off, because they simply wouldn't know your site's level of traffic - and therefore couldn't determine whether the advertising fee was for a few advert displays (a low traffic site), or millions (a high traffic site).
- Advertisers (like most potential customers) like to know precisely what they will paying for, before handing over any cash. Therefore, you ought to be able to provide them with this information, either directly on your web site, or when asked. Some web sites even put together a "Media Kit" which contains these kind of information:
- What your web site is about (brief summary)
- How many visitors you get, and your main sources of traffic
- Demographic (nationality, sex, job status, income bracket, etc.) information about your visitors (you might consider conducting a survey)
- Your track record - how long your site has been running. past advertisers, possibly testimonials from previous advertisers, etc.
- Advertising options and rates on your site
- Any statistics or other information that is provided to advertisers (example: will they be able to see how many impressions and clicks that their advert got).
- Finally, you ought to be realistic, and think about what happens during the periods when you don't have enough advertising customers to fill all our ad space.
What will you do?
Will you be able to afford to continue running your site during such lean times?
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