a million page impressions

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 (chris@e-consultancy.com).

Cheers,

c.