Ask HN: How much ad revenue you make from your side project?
Have a side project which is an analytics web application based on 100k+ records. I was initially thinking to get a small payment from each user. But it appears to me that - information provided can be easily scrapped from site (if someone really wants) and it won't make sense.
So I am thinking of revenue model based on ads. At its 'full' potential web application can draw a million visits per month (in 2-3 years may be).
Adrevenue calculators show adrevenue of $2000 dollars for a million visits[0] with 2 pages/visit and $1 RPM.
How realistic are these adrevenue calculators ?
Can anybody share their experience with real numbers and insights.
https://www.omnicalculator.com/business/website-ad-revenue\ ↗
edit: reformed sentence
An open Ask HN community consultation from 2017 where @samblr convened hundreds of developers and bootstrappers to share real experiences, hard numbers, and tactics.
Hundreds of active indie hackers contributed case studies, pricing heuristics, and pitfalls to avoid when moonlighting on side projects.
For some years, I got a check from AdSense about once a year or so. Then with the adblocker wars, I didn't see a check for about two years. Their payment threshold is $100, so I was making something like $100 or so a year-ish. With getting more traffic, my numbers in recent months are looking more promising than that, but it is still looking like "not enough to be obligated to report it on my taxes." (In the US, that means under $600 annually, which I am not on track to be anywhere near. But I might get a second check before the year is up?)
I have always done better with getting cash from my audience than with ads. I used to have donate buttons on my sites, but at some point I switched to a tip jar and my take improved. Instructions how to make a pay pal tip jar can be found here (on my website):
http://micheleincalifornia.blogspot.com/2015/11/how-to-make-paypal-tip-jar.html ↗
I can speak for the food blogging industry. This is my wife’s blog[1]
A good food blogger focusing on the US/High GDP audience can get CPMs from $1-4[2]. Where it gets interesting are the RPM numbers. If you can manage multiple ad networks, execute 100% fill rates, bid between networks and become a preferred partner, you can rake up to $12-15in RPM [3]. Here’s more of multiple revenue sources for a successful blog [4]
Caveat: Things take off once you cross around 700—800K US traffic. Until then it can be frustrating.
[1]: https://alittlebitofspice.com/ ↗
[2]: http://d.pr/i/bIBobD ↗
[3]: http://d.pr/i/Qvk1M ↗
[4]: http://d.pr/i/dEqpvA ↗
It varies greatly based on type of content. The most I have made was $20k per month on a TV show review site. We had Netflix and Hulu advertising on in through Adsense for awhile and their ads were specific to the individual TV shows we were writing about. The RPM's were amazing.
I also ran a Minecraft mods site for awhile with my son and at its top it made $9k/mo with about 130k unique visitor per month.
More tech content sites or other more general sites I have ran haven't gotten anywhere close to those #'s.
Games and entertainment content geared towards youth do well.
Ad placement also makes a difference. 1 well placed in-content ad can make you a lot more than 3 ads. That one well placed in-content ad can generate a higher CTR and CPC vs. if you place 3 ads. When you place multiple ads, the CTR on all of them even the well placed in-content ad is much lower as well the the CPC. I have tested this extensively.
I have couple of small side projects that which are monetised through ads. Portfolio of those web apps are 7 years old and traffic is growing linearly. The problem is revenue, which is basically cutting in half every 12 - 18 months: both CTR and revenue is going down.
There are a lot of people with adblock these days, but also mobile traffic is not that profitable and people learned to ignore the ads as a noise. I am also using just one small rectangle per page and not going for more aggressive tactics.
During those 7 years I am down from "these apps are paying my rent" to "I can have a one meal in a nice restaurant each month".
The point is: it is getting much harder to make money by having ads in your app. Also make sure that all the information are recent and comes from your market sector as is changing real quick.
I hate to hijack, but I'm facing the exact same issue you are. The rates that I've heard quoted for AdSense just aren't happening for me. My rates are very similar to yours, samblr.
I think that part of my problem (and it could be yours) is that I don't have a ton of written content around my free giveaways, which is the core of my site. Basically: plenty of cake, very little frosting.
Can anyone offer advice for increasing AdSense revenue for a site without much written content?
I run a site called Preset Love (http://presetlove.com ↗) which gives away free Lightroom presets (Lightroom is an image editor for Adobe). My ad rates are abysmal and I've thought of walking away as a result.
I welcome feedback.