Running a website nearly entirely on advertising revenue

hairyslug

Not sure if this is the correct area or would it be better in a web design forum.

I'm currently getting about 10k monthly views on my own site, selling to a niche with what I would consider minimum advertising.

Has anyone or does anyone have a site where they depend on the advertising revenue and clicks for income. What sort of numbers would I need to come across my site and clicks for the income to overtake costs. (Domain and hosting are minimal, website design would be my main costing) This is mainly a labour of love so I would be happy to break even.
I'm coming at this nearly blind so even if I could be pushed in the right direction that would be great.

Its difficult to explain but what's on offer on the website is a service/different variant of product that is available on many Facebook pages but only one poorly maintained site. I would be looking to add all the products from which ever FB pages sign up (I won't say why but I believe it would be in their interest to sign up). There would be a store on the site as well but I don't believe that this will take in much.

I apologise for the lack of information in the post, I am still in the early stages.

Graham

You're not going to get much in the way of useful responses with the information you're sharing.

Much (everything) will depend on the value of the eyeballs you're getting.

If you're attracting 10,000 views a month from people that are interested in buying fidget spinners for €2 each, your traffic is for all intents worthless.

If you're attracting 10,000 views a month from people interested in mortgages, a new ferrari, life insurance then it's likely to be of a higher value to advertisers.

hairyslug

Sorry but trying to keep it vague while giving as much info as possible.
Also, please, if any cops what's my plan is, please keep it to yourselves, this isnt really about making a profit but helping people.

The item/service provided is in over 60% of Irish homes. It would financially be in the lower end of the spectrum, I paid 120e for what I got recently but the accessories/add ons really add up and need to be constantly updated for the life of the product (avg 10 years). These accessories range from very low to "you're kidding me, you are really paying that much"
The market share for these accessories is in the region of 200m a year in Ireland.
I would not be taking a cut from the service provider, I would purely be the middleman but the site would have plenty of ad space and a small retail section.

antoinolachtnai

You are selling a mass market item. You are only reaching a few thousand people for a market of maybe a million people in Ireland.

Why would sellers not be better off taking an ad on TV3? They could reach 65,000 people for not a whole lot of money.

Or why would they not take ads on Facebook?

I am not trying to be negative, but this is the problem with advertising models on the Internet.

Digital_Guy

What Graham and Antoin said...sounds like you are talking about a very mass market product and to make any ad revenue you'd probably need 100 times the traffic you currently have.

Totally all depends though and not enough info to give any actionable advice! For example, we don't know what kind of traffic you have, where it comes from (as in what channel), etc.

I wouldn't worry about someone 'stealing' your idea, if you want some good feedback here you'll have to give more details.

ironclaw

As has been said before, your site is as valuable as the clients who visit it. If you were the organic number one search result and had a strong presence on social media e.g. If someone wanted that product, they'd find you, then you can name your price from advertisers. That of course is if you are in a market where an advertiser needs to advertise. You mention the product has a market value of 200m in Ireland, I'm guessing its fairly established then? It also, no offence, sounds like a Multi Level Marketing scenario?

If you want to make money from a site, you should either work on commission (affiliate marketing) or straight retail. You'll only make money from advertising if you have seriously high, targeted traffic and those days are dwindling given the precision of facebook Pixel and other such tools. Anyone can find a market for very little these days. €20 will get your direct impressions on 20k people on fb, all day long.

Digital_Guy

Affiliate marketing could definitely be one route. You could use Facebook ads to target a very specific audience and bring them to your page. Have you looked into Facebook ads at all yet? I take it maybe not but I have been seeing great results with them!

Trojan

Options at a high level:

1. Sell your own product (highest margin)
2. Sell affiliate products (quick to get started)
3. Sell targeted advertising directly to companies (lot of management in this)
4. Sell display advertising via networks (low revenue)

I'm not a fan of display advertising, I'd be exploring every option in terms of product creation and affiliate products.

StupidLikeAFox

Approach a bigger player with a view to becoming an agent/distributor. If you worked out some sort of a drop shipping model you wouldn't even have to worry about any stock.

Pivot Eoin

Is your site a .ie? Is it a product that is used the world over?

TBH man, Lots come on here thinking someone is gonna steal their business idea, reality is people here are just going to help and are looking for little tips on how they can help their own business.

10,000 views a month is not a whole lot. How much work are you putting into new content for the site? Aligning it with an SEO and Social Strategy?

If your site discusses products that 60%+ of people need, then there is going to be a lot of organic search traffic, so try to get a bigger slice of this.

In terms of monetization, really focus on a product, or group of products that people can research or learn more about on your site, then design a funnel to either a) sell it to them yourself, or b) Send your visitors into other sites sales funnels and take a referral fee (Affiliate Products as mentioned Above).

The feedback you would get here would be 10 times more helpful if you just posted up your site or at least divulged what the product is. Nobody is going to be arsed stealing it.

Mrs OBumble

OP fwiw I have a range of sites in different niches that between them get 5000 Adsense impressions (ie views not counting ones with ad-blockers) per day.

Adsense pays for health insurance for the two of us each year with a bit left over.

I'm not going to be giving up my day job anytime soon.

Also results are very variable netween niches and depending on whos advertising todsy