I'll compare the tool with two of my sites that run advertising.
#1. The tool estimates 1.5 million a month in revenue. Actual earnings are 6,000.
#2. The tool estimates 6,600 per month in revenue. Actual earnings are 400.
I get those numbers while using conservative prediction options. With the first site, the estimate is 250x higher than actual revenues. It's hard to even call it an estimate at that point.
I'm confident my sites are well optimized. I run header bidding with most of the major ad networks (Google, AppNexus, AOL, etc). I've done countless A/B tests. I've sold direct campaigns to Fortune 500 companies. I frequently Skype with other well known people in my industry (they're pulling in millions annually on advertising) and we talk numbers for our different projects.
In short, I just want to caution people these estimates are likely incredibly inaccurate.
Hmm - mind sharing the settings behind your calculations? Surprised the error is several orders of magnitude. (PM is fine, if Hacker News has an option like that)
The model behind tool was based on a decently large / diverse data set of small websites; it lines up well with public information from sources such as site brokers.
(and of course, I run sites as well and plugged my own data through the tool during the validation process)
What kind of traffic are you getting on those sites?
Probably also worth asking if there are site design or traffic factors that reduce advertising interest? (for example, forums and downloads may have lower intent)
Looks good. I don't do anything on the publisher side but one thing I see people always misunderstand is this: You don't just put some ads on your site and then you're done. You need to analyze performance and optimize accordingly. Try different ad sizes, vendors, locations, frequencies etc.
Ads are not a great way to monetize many things - it's better to have some kind of product/service that people actually pay you money for. It creates a much shorter feedback loop between you and your customers.
It makes me want to ramp up my efforts to get my friends and family members to install ad blockers, and also makes me even happier about the piholes I gave to several people as gifts the other day.
IMO we need a good micropayments solution where I can pay/tip a few pennies per good article or site instead of having to subscribe for dollar amounts or view tons of ads.
[+] [-] Guest9812398|8 years ago|reply
#1. The tool estimates 1.5 million a month in revenue. Actual earnings are 6,000.
#2. The tool estimates 6,600 per month in revenue. Actual earnings are 400.
I get those numbers while using conservative prediction options. With the first site, the estimate is 250x higher than actual revenues. It's hard to even call it an estimate at that point.
I'm confident my sites are well optimized. I run header bidding with most of the major ad networks (Google, AppNexus, AOL, etc). I've done countless A/B tests. I've sold direct campaigns to Fortune 500 companies. I frequently Skype with other well known people in my industry (they're pulling in millions annually on advertising) and we talk numbers for our different projects.
In short, I just want to caution people these estimates are likely incredibly inaccurate.
[+] [-] sixtypoundhound|8 years ago|reply
The model behind tool was based on a decently large / diverse data set of small websites; it lines up well with public information from sources such as site brokers.
(and of course, I run sites as well and plugged my own data through the tool during the validation process)
What kind of traffic are you getting on those sites?
Probably also worth asking if there are site design or traffic factors that reduce advertising interest? (for example, forums and downloads may have lower intent)
[+] [-] unknown|8 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] soared|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davidw|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] styfle|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] geoffreyhale|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 659087|8 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CryoLogic|8 years ago|reply
I am hoping IOTA can bring this.
[+] [-] Jack000|8 years ago|reply
sessions per month: 43000
pageviews per session: 2.3
predicted ad rates: 7.5cpm
actual ad rates: 0.72cpm
actual ctr: 0.27% (280 clicks)
predicted revenue: 742
actual revenue (november): 73.87 (carbon ads)
wonder if it's really possible to 10x ad revenue with a tracking ad network. I suspect this might require much more intrusive ads though.