Sources of Revenue & Percentages

[Cam]

As a webmaster, you want to diversify your sources of revenue. I'd say that's a no brainer. If you're 100% all in using an ad platform like Viglink, you don't want to be totally screwed one day if that platform suddenly becomes no longer available to you. I've seen that occur a lot with individuals being banned from Adsense for one reason or the other. Adsense had a reputation for banning people left and right back in the day, and you had website owners that were solely dependent on Adsense.

Anyways, let's say you create a circle graph of where your website's revenue is coming from. Between Adsense, another ad platform, direct ad sales, etc. What would you approximate as far as percentages go?

As far as FP goes, we've utilizing BuySellAds, AdClerks, Google Adsense, and even a few direct advertisement sales. BSA is where most of the revenue is generated, so we'd be in a world of hurt if BSA up and closed its doors one day. I'd say that at least half our revenue comes from BSA. Anyways, this is a very rough estimate:

BuySellAds - 50%
Direct Ad Sales - 25%
Google Adsense - 15%
AdClerks - 10%

What about you guys?

 

[overcast]

First time heard of AdClerks.
Also how do you get direct ad sales?
Through any external forums or people approach you for direct sales option?

 

[Katrina]

For Christianity Haven we opted to just have one ad displayed because a site I came from before that was plastered with ads and was so annoying without an ad block. Plus, I was hoping that members would help support the site and some do which is really nice to help pay the bills.

For my new forum I'd like to eventually get some ads up once I get traffic going to it. I haven't fully opened the site because I'm still working out the kinks but I'm filling it with content so that my crafter friends on Facebook can be tempted to join. Then maybe some of them will want to have a small ad for their own online shops even if it's $2 for the month. If I start small it could entice them.

 

[Cam]

First time heard of AdClerks.
Also how do you get direct ad sales?
Through any external forums or people approach you for direct sales option?

AdClerks was previously known as PublicityClerks, and the PublicityClerks branding is still shown in some places. I'm pretty sure it's actually a business that is registered as PublicityClerks Ltd as well. Not sure when they made the change to AdClerks. I only found out about it because @Nerdie owned PublicityClerks at one point in time and was advertising it here when he owned FP. It's basically just a knock off of BSA. It's great for those sites that BSA won't approve, as they can be very picky.

As far as direct ad sales, it's certainly easier said than done. When I purchased FP from @MasterA, I was fortunate enough to inherit a couple of paid advertisers that have kept advertising here at FP all this time. When it comes to my own personal methods, I literally went to Web Hosting Talk to find all of these different web hosts, and then I went to their websites and used their contact forms to let them know of the perfect marketing opportunity that I could offer. Basically I spammed them, but in a very professional manner. I'd say I contacted at least 100 different web hosts, received 30-40 rejection responses, and actually ended up with three web hosts that ended up purchasing an ad spot. I'd say I spent a good five or six hours doing this one night about a year and a half ago, maybe? As far as conversion rates go, I'd say getting 3/100 probably wasn't worth all that effort.

We also have plenty of potential advertisers that use our contact form to inquire about what paid advertising opportunities we offer. I ignored these emails for the longest time because so many of them just look really spammy, but some of them have turned out to be legitimate. These people are typically interested in publishing a guest article on our blog with a couple of dofollow link backs within the article.

 

[Nomad]

Frankly speaking, I haven't been able to sell ad space on my forums, I have sold ad space on my blogs, though. On forums, I have used Google Adsense and a few other ad networks, I haven't use affiliate ads or ad networks like Vigilinks.