Are Ad Placements Worth It?
Many customers ask us if it's worth redesigning their websites so they can host ads.
When I first started in development, I worked at a company called EyeWonder. There I was exposed to all the ins and outs of building ad units for websites. We distributed video ads, Flash ads (yes… I’m dating myself), expanding ads, and everything in between. We were also responsible for serving optimized content for viewers, automatically generating multiple versions of a video to serve users a file sized for their detected bandwidth speed. We even built a Flash plugin so all those advertising agencies could develop and distribute their glorious creations directly from the Flash IDE. I am happy to say that the advertising game has changed, and “sigh"… Flash is no more. But I digress…
The point of advertising is to expose users who might buy products that should interest them. As a transaction, your website provides users to companies who want to reach users that match your website demographic. To provide a compelling offering for companies to advertise on your website, you need to have a few prerequisites:
Know your demographics: Age groups, genders, regions, etc. The more you know about your users, the better position you will be in to make a compelling offer for prospective advertisers.
Know your traffic: All advertisers will want to know how many eyes will be on their promotions and how often those eyes will see their offers.
Know your industry/sector: This may seem like a nonissue, but many websites struggle with choosing a single industry representation, thinking they will reach a broader user base by creating a larger marketing net. This is a deep topic we won’t be exploring in this article. However, I believe that less is more. If you are doing work with blockchain and NFTs and have a game for your users… pick one and amplify the messaging around that.
These measures take time to collect. Unfortunately, you won’t be able to install Google Analytics or signup for Semrush and be able to have the answers. The longer you’ve had these tools set up to collect data, the better. I’m hesitant to give you a minimum amount of time, but three months is a good starting point for understanding your users.
Yeah, I have all that… So Are Ads Worth it?
If you’re still reading, then you’re in luck. The answer is as simple as 1 + 1 = maybe?
The Question Of Traffic
If your website produces a lot of traffic (ex: 500k page views), then you are leaving money on the table, so our answer would be yes. If not, I would recommend focusing on building your reputation and recurring site visitors. I realize that 500k page views can be a tall order for most smaller websites, so I’ve broken down some math to help put this in perspective.
I will use Google AdSense for this example because it is probably one of the most affordable and straightforward options with the lowest barrier to entry for companies looking to introduce advertising on their websites. Here are a couple of high-level notes to consider if you have your mind set on selling ad space on your website:
Google’s AdSense Calculator starts at 50k monthly page views. The reason for this is because that is where their offering becomes compelling.
Google is the most accessible and straightforward system to set up. You probably won’t find an easier or less expensive approach. This is literally what they do. They have years and billions invested in streamlining this solution. Use their experience to your advantage.
Page Views: < 10k
If you have fewer than 10k in monthly page views, I recommend focusing your budget on increasing followers, page views, and positioning. You run a business and you know that keeping your enthusiasm up, is the hardest part of running your business. You will make more progress focusing your energy (and budget) on more rewarding efforts.
Page VIEWS: 10k - 50k
If you fall into this category, then yes. I think now is a good time to start looking into planning your website’s advertising approach and strategy. Google AdSense calculator says that if your website (in North America) has 50k page views per month in the industry of news , you COULD potentially make $2k a year.
If you are running your website on your own, and don’t need any support, then sure, this makes sense because you’re leaving money on the table. However, if you need to hire an agency or expand your team so there is someone who is going to be responsible for everything needed to make the necessary changes to your website, set up and implement the systems, and be available for ad-hoc administration, $2k is a tight budget. Here’s are the estimates:
Design and Development will run you approximately $7k-$15k
System administration and set up and maintenance: $60 per hour with an average of 2 hours a week = $3,120 annually
At the bare minimum, you will be spending approximately $10k to make $2k the first year. We recommend looking into Google Adsense when you are in that 10k - 50k range. On the low end of this spectrum, you will still be spending that $10k even if you only have 10k page views monthly, dramatically decreasing your profits the first year.
Page Views: 50k+
Congratulations! Now you are in the area where you can consider the revenue generated from the advertising on your website as passive income. This is where you want to be! You may be tempted to expand your advertising reach by including more customizable and sophisticated platforms. These solutions tend to have premium costs and require a more knowledgeable team to set up, maintain and administer. We recommend investigating these systems when your website traffic exceeds that 500k page view per month mark.
Below we’ve provided some benchmarks so you have a reasonable expectation on pageviews to expected income.
Thank you for reading!
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