if i was running a student website with a million page impressions... and i needed to generate revenue...

what would you recommend?

Hi Jonathan,

Depends very much on the site / subject / demographics, but you have four main options for generating revenue via advertising, broadly speaking, which I'll file under their typical charging models:

1. CPM - display ads, eg banners / MPUs / skyscrapers, you earn X per 1,000 impressions (ad networks, ad sales houses, direct sales)

2. CPA - affiliate ads / links, you earn a commission when you refer a sale or lead (check out Tradedoubler, CJ, Buy.at etc)

3. CPC - contextual text ads, you earn a fee per click (eg Google Adsense, MIVA, Kelkoo)

4. Sponsorships / tenancy deals - typically based on a flat (monthly) fee for a guaranteed period of time.

The key is to figure out the split between the above for options, and optimise for your website according to the mentality of the average visitor.

I own a celebrity news website, and we've found that affiliate ads don't work so well for us because of the mindset of the readers (celebrity gossip plays little role in the average consumer shopping cycle). So we focus on 1 + 3 + 4. In order of revenue generation it would be 1, then 4, then 3 (Adsense works best in a niche / vertical, and it doesn't pay out as much as it did six months ago).

So news and affiliate ads don't work so well. But if your site is non-news based and specific to one vertical, eg 'travel', then CPA may be the thing to focus on. Especially if 80% of your traffic originates from Google, since some keyword analysis will help you figure out reader intent.

Some questions to ask yourself:

1. What sector does the website focus on?
2. What kind of content does it host?
3. How often does it update content?
4. Where does the majority of your traffic come from?
5. What's the average bounce rate?
6. Which keywords are most popular (Google referrals)?
7. Do you have in-house sales people?

If you're running something specific to a vertical then take a good look at affiliate ads, though be cautious if all you do is news. 'Reviews', for example, are a real part of the consumer buying cycle, so if your site hosts lots of reviews then you can capture people just before they are about to buy and you have a chance of earning fees.

Ultimately optimisation of a website's ad revenues is trial and error. As a rule, the more niche it is the more money it should earn.

Hope that helps. Drop me a line if you need any more pointers ().

Cheers,

c.

thanks chris...

currently all the visitors are organic... 500k monthly visitors to 1.6m pages with 40k using 430k training pages.15 - 25 years old

the idea is to employ an individual to sell space... my head is telling me to aim for 1 main sponsor who would like to grab the attention of potential customers.

banks are the logical target... I heard, a few years back, that the banks would pay £3k for a student with an overdraft... is that still the same?

what wouid be a fair deal in today's market place £20 - £30 per thousand pages?

excellent. good article.

www.ewtc.cn

Hi Jonathan,

Half a million uniques is good going. It sounds like a property ripe for monetisation.

CPMs range from 25p - £180 (at least that's the highest number I know of), depending on ad format, placement, targeting, etc.

Anything over £10 CPM net to the publisher is considered pretty good, but it depends on the sector. If debtworthy students are worth £3k a pop to banks then it could be that £10 per 1,000 impressions is too low. You can only experiment.

You can look at the affiliate networks to see what banks will pay you as a commission on eg new loans, new accounts, credit cards. It won't be £3k CPA though. Again, you can run a trial to see which pays you better - CPM or CPA ads.

A sponsor / tenancy deal would be a good thing, but make sure you get the right valuation on that deal. if you *can* hit an average rate of £10 CPM then it will help you work out what a three month tenancy might be worth. Otherwise it's guesswork and blind negotiation. Don't undercharge! But if you only sell 5% of inventory @ £10 CPM and 95% of the ads come from a network, @ eg £1 CPM, then make sure you don't overcharge!

Pulling in a dedicated sales person might work, but only if you get the right person with the right contacts book. I'd be tempted to see what the ad sales houses can do for you. They'll take a cut, sure, but they already have existing relationships with the media buyers, so things might happen more quickly if you go down that route. Just don't lock yourself into any long term 'deals'...

Let me know how you get on.

c.

On 07:22:30 9 March 2008 JonathanDavey wrote:

thanks chris...

currently all the visitors are organic... 500k monthly visitors to 1.6m pages with 40k using 430k training pages.15 - 25 years old

the idea is to employ an individual to sell space... my head is telling me to aim for 1 main sponsor who would like to grab the attention of potential customers.

banks are the logical target... I heard, a few years back, that the banks would pay £3k for a student with an overdraft... is that still the same?

what wouid be a fair deal in today's market place £20 - £30 per thousand pages?