How much Adsense in this scenario?

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I'm working on a proposal, and it requires that I get a sense of the Adsense revenue of the following scenario:

4.5 million visitors site per month (unique visitors is uncertain). Adsense ads are 2 prominent image ads (about 200x200) in the middle and bottom portion of each page.

Can anyone provide a very general range of possible Adsense revenue? I don't monetize my sites with Adsense, so I'm having trouble making this estimation.
#adsense #scenario
  • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
    Originally Posted by Freeman77 View Post

    I'm working on a proposal, and it requires that I get a sense of the Adsense revenue of the following scenario:

    4.5 million visitors site per month (unique visitors is uncertain). Adsense ads are 2 prominent image ads (about 200x200) in the middle and bottom portion of each page.

    Can anyone provide a very general range of possible Adsense revenue? I don't monetize my sites with Adsense, so I'm having trouble making this estimation.
    Whats the niche market?
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    • Profile picture of the author Freeman77
      Humor -- just a popular site with humorous content.

      I realize I'm being vague here, but I'd appreciate any estimates people may throw out.
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      • Profile picture of the author Fernando Veloso
        Originally Posted by Freeman77 View Post

        Humor -- just a popular site with humorous content.

        I realize I'm being vague here, but I'd appreciate any estimates people may throw out.
        No worries, but with Adsense, niche market is EVERYTHING.

        And Humor is not a high paying/high converting niche - as opposed to credit or holidays.

        So really can't help you there

        Edit:

        Why don't you give a go at some CPA's? Bet your income will be way higher.
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        • Profile picture of the author Freeman77
          Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso View Post

          No worries, but with Adsense, niche market is EVERYTHING.

          And Humor is not a high paying/high converting niche - as opposed to credit or holidays.

          So really can't help you there

          Edit:

          Why don't you give a go at some CPA's? Bet your income will be way higher.
          Well, it's not my site. I'm putting together a proposal for an offer, and I don't want to ask outright how much he makes with Adsense. I want to buy his ad space for more than he currently makes, but I'm not sure what that number is...
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        • Profile picture of the author Crew Chief
          Fernando is right and I concur, this niche brings in low converting garbage traffic... no matter how many visitors. As he stated, you'd be better off using well thought out higher converting and higher paying CPA offers for such a site.

          And I would add, don't even waste your time running a test market with Adsense, that would be a complete waste of time. You will be lucky if you see a Page CTR of 1.1% no matter how great or funny the content and no matter how or where you place the ads.

          Secondly, your Adsense income on such a site will be around $1.15 to $1.25 on the Page eCPM. Meaning you will make about a buck and some pennies for every 1000 page impressions. That my friend is a joke!

          Originally Posted by Fernando Veloso View Post

          No worries, but with Adsense, niche market is EVERYTHING.

          And Humor is not a high paying/high converting niche - as opposed to credit or holidays.

          So really can't help you there

          Edit:

          Why don't you give a go at some CPA's? Bet your income will be way higher.
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          • Profile picture of the author paulgl
            Originally Posted by Crew Chief View Post


            Secondly, your Adsense income on such a site will be around $1.15 to $1.25 on the Page eCPM. Meaning you will make about a buck and some pennies for every 1000 page impressions. That my friend is a joke!
            Okay. Let's take your figures. At even $1.00 CPM, That is still $4500 a
            month on adsense, which is right in line with what I proposed.

            $1.25 would be $5625

            That's some $4500-$5625 joke!

            Paul
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            • Profile picture of the author All Night Cafe
              I think you will not get a deecent return on your
              advertising dollar. I don't know anyone who is
              making money with a humor site.

              You seem to know how to find sites that have
              good traffic, I think you should look at a different
              niche.
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              • Profile picture of the author paulgl
                Originally Posted by All Night Cafe View Post

                I don't know anyone who is
                making money with a humor site.
                That's a poor reason. I don't personally know anybody who makes
                any money off of many sites, student loans for example.
                Does that mean none make money off of student loan sites?
                Hardly.

                Obviously you have not heard of failblog and things
                like that. failblog.org is PR7 I would imagine they make
                quite a bit of money.

                Paul
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                • Profile picture of the author Crew Chief
                  Paul, I have bevy of Adsense sites, all of which make money. My overall CTR hovers around 8.39%. My average Page eCPM hovers around $33.55.

                  On my heavy hitter sites, that Page eCPM is between $155.00 up to $212.00. That's a far cry from a buck and some change.

                  If I have a site that is performing poorly on Adsense, I move it to a more profitable monetization medium. You can press those numbers all day long, but that's poor performance no matter how you slice it or dice.

                  The other variable is - once Google tags a site you own as being in the bad/terrible traffic category, (You get thrown there when your CTR stays under 2%) they put that site on Google's Smart Pricing Plan .

                  Which means they arbitrarily reduce your commission per click. So instead if getting say fifty cents a click, they will only pay you around one or two cents a click. That's designed to make you bring your CTR up to speed or either drop Adsense from that site.

                  Its overall very bad advice to put Adsense on a humor/joke site. No matter how you toss the numbers, it's not going to pay.

                  Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

                  That's a poor reason. I don't personally know anybody who makes
                  any money off of many sites, student loans for example.
                  Does that mean none make money off of student loan sites?
                  Hardly.

                  Obviously you have not heard of failblog and things
                  like that. failblog.org is PR7 I would imagine they make
                  quite a bit of money.

                  Paul
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                  • Profile picture of the author paulgl
                    Let's take you at your word. Perhaps you missed this, since
                    you did not address it above:
                    Secondly, your Adsense income on such a site will be around $1.15 to $1.25 on the Page eCPM. Meaning you will make about a buck and some pennies for every 1000 page impressions.
                    Or do you want to change your own figures now?
                    4.5 million page views would get between $4500 and $5600 a month,
                    using YOUR figures. If you really have expertise with your
                    bevy of knowledge, then let's take your word for it! You seem to
                    contradict your own statements.

                    I would beg to differ that making $5000 a month off of a website is
                    called "not making money."

                    Paul


                    Paul
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                    • Profile picture of the author Crew Chief
                      Originally Posted by Freeman77 View Post

                      I'm working on a proposal, and it requires that I get a sense of the Adsense revenue of the following scenario:

                      4.5 million visitors site per month (unique visitors is uncertain). Adsense ads are 2 prominent image ads (about 200x200) in the middle and bottom portion of each page.

                      Can anyone provide a very general range of possible Adsense revenue? I don't monetize my sites with Adsense, so I'm having trouble making this estimation.
                      As you've read, many WF members are advising against using a Joke/Humor site for Adsense and for good cause. But since some people want or need incontrovertible evidence as to why not, here ya go...

                      (Step #1) Check the estimated CPC Cost Per Click for this niche. In Google Adwords, it hoovers around a measly $0.05 to $0.32 per click. Sane people would stop right here because they realize if Adwords is saying the CPC is estimated between $0.05 to $0.32 per click, its paying peanuts to whoever is running Adsense ads.

                      (Step #2) Go and check out the current competition. In this case, the top tier joke sites for some of the popular keyword phrases are listed below. Next to their URL is the type of advertising income stream they are using to monetize their sites.

                      - Stand Up Comedy and Funny Joke of the Day | Comedy Central's Jokes.com (This is a MTV Web Property)
                      - Aha! Jokes: Clean Humor and Funny Pictures! (Using Adbrite and Amazon.com)
                      - Jokes & Humor - Yahoo! Kids (Yahoo Web Property)
                      - Funny Jokes (Running Burstnet.com CPA Ads)
                      - Funny Jokes, Funny Stuff, Stand Up Joke Search | Comedy Central's Jokes.com (A redirect to Stand Up Comedy and Funny Joke of the Day | Comedy Central's Jokes.com)
                      - Stand Up Comedy and Funny Joke of the Day | Comedy Central's Jokes.com (Running Doubleclick.net CPA Ads)
                      - Jokes Gallery - Huge archive of free jokes! (Running fastclick.net CPA Ads as the primary with Google Ads in the info bar)
                      - Lots of Jokes - Jokes and Funny Pictures (Running Google Display Ads)
                      - Jokes Galore ... Non-Stop Humor (Running fastclick.net CPA ads, Affiliate Links and one block of Google text ads)
                      - Funny and Jokes | Unforgettably Stupid Joke Site (Using Clickbank, Amazon.com and Google Ads)
                      - Jokes - 101 Funny Jokes (Using Google Ads)

                      Did you notice the top sites primarily use CPA programs? On sites like lotsofjokes.com, that do use Google display ads, check out the actual sites and you'll notice they have a poor showing of ads. You can confirm this by simply refreshing the page and see what type of ads come up next.

                      All you're going to see is the likes of: Hostgator, Capella University, Cook it Frozen, Nexus One, Kaplan UNiversity, Tiger Direct and similar type ads that just keep recycling.

                      All of those companies and institutions have CPA programs that pay handsomely. So why collect peanuts when you can opt for one of the many high paying CPA programs?

                      Here's why most of these types of sites don't run Google Adsense.

                      (a). The payment per click is peanuts
                      (b). The CTR is always low
                      (c). These sites are almost always forced into Google Smart Pricing
                      (d). Your CTR could easily put you in the $0.01 cents a click dungeon
                      (e). It's virtually impossible to optimize the site or any page on the site for high paying keywords

                      One of my free Download sites that I started off with Google Adsense about four years ago gets similar type of traffic as the joke humor sites. The CTR to that site never rose above 1.0% percent no matter what I did.

                      Not even with my "Peak and Tweak" process. This is where I'd monitor a site, make changes to the design layout, Ad placement, header, footer, navigation, etc., until the CTR rose to my minimum 7% CTR.

                      Nothing changed on that particular site until Adsense was removed and replaced with CPA ads; then it started making money. That site stayed in the Google Smart Pricing dungeon!!!

                      On the back side you have to understand the demographics of the people visiting these types of sites. It's primarily high school kids, teenagers, tire kickers, lookie lou's and people seeking to be entertained; not your buying types and that's why the CTR is so awfully low. But if you stick the right CPA offer in front of their faces, you'll constantly make a sweet stream of income.

                      Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

                      Let's take you at your word. Perhaps you missed this, since
                      you did not address it above:


                      Or do you want to change your own figures now?
                      4.5 million page views would get between $4500 and $5600 a month,
                      using YOUR figures. If you really have expertise with your
                      bevy of knowledge, then let's take your word for it! You seem to
                      contradict your own statements.

                      I would beg to differ that making $5000 a month off of a website is
                      called "not making money."

                      Paul


                      Paul
                      Paul, four years ago there were a slew of companies selling scripts for lyrics sites and joke sites. The lyrics sites came loaded with upwards of 10,000 songs and the joke sites came loaded with upwards of 20,000 or more jokes. Almost all of these sites were Adsense ready sites.

                      Nobody is selling these scripts anymore because the theory sounded good and the numbers impressed the heck out of everyone but they just never brought in the income promised by the promoters. Why Not? All they could see were the numbers, not the demographics.
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                      • Profile picture of the author paulgl
                        So, are you saying your numbers were BS as well now?

                        Again, I can't see how you can say a site that according to
                        YOUR calculations, (I am repeating myself to no avail) makes
                        between 4 and 5 grand a month, and that's not worth it?

                        For some reason even you are ignoring your figures. Oh well.
                        I'm done.

                        I wish I had 4.5 million visitors and made a buck eCPM.

                        Show me one of your sites that makes $5,000 a month from
                        adsense.

                        Let me AGAIN quote you:
                        Secondly, your Adsense income on such a site will be around $1.15 to $1.25 on the Page eCPM. Meaning you will make about a buck and some pennies for every 1000 page impressions. That my friend is a joke!
                        That's a $5600 joke!!!!

                        I'd laugh all the way to the bank.

                        Paul
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                        • Profile picture of the author Crew Chief
                          Originally Posted by paulgl View Post

                          So, are you saying your numbers were BS as well now?

                          Again, I can't see how you can say a site that according to
                          YOUR calculations, (I am repeating myself to no avail) makes
                          between 4 and 5 grand a month, and that's not worth it?


                          For some reason even you are ignoring your figures. Oh well.
                          I'm done.


                          I wish I had 4.5 million visitors and made a buck eCPM.

                          Show me one of your sites that makes $5,000 a month from
                          adsense.

                          Let me AGAIN quote you:

                          That's a $5600 joke!!!!

                          I'd laugh all the way to the bank.

                          Paul
                          Paul, what we have here is, "A FAILURE TO COMMUNICATE!"

                          You're looking at the numbers he put up. I own Adsense sites and make considerable income with them. If a humor joke site could be profitable with Adsense, I wouldn't be on that bandwagon, I'd be in front of it!

                          Did you look at the top joke sites in the previous post? Don't you think that if Adsense was the best route to monetizing that type of site, more of joke the site owners would opt for Adsense as opposed to CPA offers?

                          People who are versed in Adsense understand that there are essentially three categories of Adsense keywords:

                          (a). High paying keywords
                          (b). Bread and butter keywords
                          (c). Low paying keywords

                          People versed in Adsense STAY AWAY from LPKs, PERIOD and END OF STORY! Low paying keywords yield little or no return on the person's time, efforts or the money they have invested. No matter how much traffic a humor site gets, when it comes to Adsense - it falls into that low paying keywords category.

                          In addition, no Adwords Advertiser is going to pay money for that traffic; they never have and they never will. The estimates I used in the example that you are pointing to, were just that - an example to show the difference between a Category B keyword and a Category C keywords.

                          The point that most people were trying to get across (me included) is that for the joke/humor niche - Adsense only renders LPKs. You cannot just look at how much traffic he's getting, you must factor in:

                          (1). A low CTR, which leads to...
                          (2). Google Smart Pricing
                          (3). Low paying keywords
                          (4). Inability to SEO Optimize site

                          And one last point; no one sells GOLD for cheap. If the type of money you are assessing, could be made with Adsense on joke sites, people would not be dumping joke and humor databases for peanuts.

                          Not when the law of supply and demand rules. Google this search term, "joke databases for sale." You can pick up massive joke humor databases for pennies because tha's all they're worth!

                          Even if his joke site is getting that type of traffic, it WILL NEVER make that type of money, NOT with Adsense.

                          That's why I was ignoring the figures; I know better!!!!!
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                          • Profile picture of the author Freeman77
                            Thank you for the comments. I didn't realize that this thread took off.

                            I wasn't really looking for alternate advertising suggestions -- I wanted to know what the webmaster may have been making w/Adsense before I made him an offer. I'm happy to report everything is good now
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  • Profile picture of the author Terry Edwards
    I had a humor type site several years ago and added an adsense box to it and the CTR and income was just awful. It's a niche that doesn't seem to get much interest from users clicking on adsense. And those that did paid only pennies for each click. As Fernando mentioned, CPA may be the way to go. Sorry I can't help you anymore than that right now.
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    • Profile picture of the author MLD1985
      You could use keyword spy and type in one of the main keywords, the payout per click for adsense is roughly sometimes 50% or 40% of the Adwords cpc. I've found out a lot with that tool, gives you competition and such for the main keyword too.

      All the best,

      Matt D.
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  • Profile picture of the author nouseforaname
    - Find what keywords that site is being indexed high (Google's 1st page).
    - Look on other sites (Competition sites).
    - Go through if there are Adsense inside the competition sites, proceed to step below if Adsense is exist.
    - Copy the site name and use Spyfu.com to check the details.
    - Copy the "Paid Keywords" and recheck again with Spyfu.com, I think you'll be able to see the results there.

    Hope this helps
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    • Profile picture of the author paulgl
      If the site really, and I mean really has 4.5 million visitors a month,
      the site is not a normal adsense niche site.

      If you were to make an offer for the ad space, it would cost
      you an arm and a leg. The cost would be a staggering figure.

      If you have thousands of dollars to blow on advertising, there
      are alternatives discussed right here in this forum.

      Paul
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      • Profile picture of the author howinfo
        Well. If we take average click through rate for an image banner 0.5%
        Now the pay per click will depend on site's content which is humor as you said.

        Some niches pay lot more than others and humor is the one that does not pay very well so lets estimate 5 cense per click.

        So it should come out something like this: 0,5% of 4,5m is 22500 clicks x 0.5 cense per click = $ 1125 a month.

        This is all very approximate estimation and there is many factors that can influence the total earnings but I think that it would be rather less than more.

        Maybe somebody can give some ore accurate figures.
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        • Profile picture of the author paulgl
          Not bad, your math is right, just your decimals are not for
          what you did, but the end result (all things being correct) is
          right.

          The only thing I would question is 5 cents a click.

          Using your 22500 clicks, even 10 cents a click would
          make it $2250 a month, 20 cents a click would make it
          $4500 a month, 40 cents a click would be $9000 and so on.

          My guess the site makes at least $5,000 a month with adsense.
          If someone with 4.5 million "visits" does not make that, then
          there would be no need to even ask about buying an ad. I mean,
          come on, what type of click thru would you get? Very slim.

          But...I would not take the money up front. If I got $5,000 a month
          from adsense on a regular basis, you would need to offer substantially
          more for me to even think about it.

          Paul
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          • Profile picture of the author howinfo
            It could be slightly more than 5 cense per click but I do not think that it would be more than a 10 cense per click average.

            I was also assuming that the site is using some other source of revenue streams so these will inevitably take some clicks away from the adsense.

            I would agree on your 5000 monthly figure but it must include all the revenue streams including adsense.
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  • Profile picture of the author tijay
    Originally Posted by Freeman77 View Post

    I'm working on a proposal, and it requires that I get a sense of the Adsense revenue of the following scenario:

    4.5 million visitors site per month (unique visitors is uncertain). Adsense ads are 2 prominent image ads (about 200x200) in the middle and bottom portion of each page.

    Can anyone provide a very general range of possible Adsense revenue? I don't monetize my sites with Adsense, so I'm having trouble making this estimation.
    That's pretty hard to say. Pages optimized for different keywords will yield different results for you.
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