indieclick, mog, or something else for ads?
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hey guys,
i'm setting up advertising on my site at http://www.indieshuffle.com/ as it's actually getting some good traffic now. i've done some searching on these forums, but most discussion are outdated. i was looking at MOG, but their restriction on ad sizes is killer -- i've worked hard at my site design, and i'm not about to ruin it all for a 728 x 90 ad.
what are you guys using? what's worked the best?
jason -
What kind of traffic are you getting?
Your comment on the ad issue is very on-point. Ad formats place impressive limitations on what you can do with your design. We struggle with that quite a bit.
Indieclick routinely delays payments while MOG uses unsold inventory to funnel traffic to their site, the choices are tricky, careful. -
TBW doesn't get the traffic for Indieclick so I can't really comment on them but MOG is working fine for us. Just make sure to use your own defaults otherwise as Anthony says they promote their own sites. You could always try Google AdSense as well or affiliate programs - Amazon/iTunes/etc
I use the defaults to advertise other blogs, HypeM, Elbo.ws
All the images are over at - http://drop.io/blogads if you fancy doing the same (and obviously add your own ads). -
i have yet to find a solid affiliate that's honestly worth your time - Indie Click has been good but Anthony's dead on, payment is always at least a month late. For a while I was tempted to say f-it and give MOG a try, but I never trusted the system for some reason or other
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just curious.... what kind of traffic do you need at your site to make it worth while to run ads from indieclick & MOG?
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My understanding is to apply to indieclick you need 75k pageviews a month (or over) - and then they decide if they want to accept you. MOG has a much larger range (many blogs with considerably lower traffic can be on MOG - because they're getting content out of it, etc.)
In terms of "worthwhile," that's in the eye of the beholder... -
Yeah - MOG has pretty low traffic standards. You have to post pretty regularly and have a decent blog, but actual impression volume is less important.
As to worthwhile - ads are generally paid on a CPM basis (or a certain fee per thousand impressions), and for those that MOG sells it can be somewhere around $2/CPM (everyone's seems to be different). And their sell-through is a long way under 100%. With low traffic it might pay your hosting bills but definitely don't expect to get rich. -
I don't do ads and don't plan on it. Hell, I've got an adblocker, so I didn't know you guys had them! I prefer to sponsor local art & design (and charity bike ride) events and make a little side money with my photography and with my wife's designs... I tried ads once but it just felt weird and definitely not for me.
But I am genuinely curious how people do with Mogs and what nots. How would someone with a wildly popular blog, say Bikesnob, make with the google ads he's got on there? But now I hear he's working on a book, got some book deal. I think HipsterRunoff does indieclick, but now he's pimpin' tees or something.
It's kinda like cycling, I know I'll never be a pro nor do I intend to try to be one, yet when I watch the Tours, I wonder how fast they are really going, how far from me they are. That kinda thing...
Anyway... sorry for hijacking. -
Haha no worires on the hijacking Tsuru. I think we're all just as curious as you are as to what each other person is making. Unfortunately, no one's very willing to share that. Take for example Anthony's question about just how well my traffic is going: it's all relative :-D. I'm exceeding my own goals by quite some expectations, and have yet to get myself listed on elbo.ws (which is driving me nuts!). Not sure what kind of traffic you guys get from elbo.ws, but I don't expect it'd be insubstantial.
That said, I applied for indieclick, but I'm not sure I'll be making that 75k cutoff just yet -- I'll need about 6 months of this blog being out there for that to manifest.
Mog's still there as an option, but those ads are just not going to fit. The footer is the best I can give them. My biggest issue, in the end, is keeping these ads relevant. I don't want to dirty things up with crappy ads. -
Here's another question - rather than rehashing MOG/Indie Click stuff...
If you were to sell your own ads, what would you charge for them? I've sold my own ads (local stuff, for the most part) in the past, but am pretty lost in terms of valuating what ad space is worth. -
Ah cb.... now that's a good suggestion/question/etc. I think if I were to do ads, that's the way I'd go. Screw the Mog/Indieclick stuff, set your own price and pitch it to local events/record stores/shops/etc. Support your local folks and you make a few bucks (probably more than the MOG stuff).
$100 for top banner like I have for Craftin Outlaws on my front page at http://tsururadio.com seems pretty reasonable. Say, for a month or two or three? Test drive something like that and see what happens...
The flip side, I spent $100 bucks to be a sponsor of Craftin' Outlaws (I put the banner up for free), and I will be on their flyers and on their website. Seemed fair trade for supporting local artists & designers.
I guess my question then is.... how much money do you think or hope you can make on a music blog? -
I'd love to make back my hosting/bandwidth costs. Anything beyond that would be icing on the cake. But I'm like you, Tsuru. I had ads but disliked them, so I just ditched 'em. But if I could have greater control in selecting them (like if they were for other blogs, artists, etc.) I'd have no issues with it.
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I did consider contacting small record labels which I particularly like and offering them a good deal on advertising. They get a better-targetted audience and I get to advertise stuff I genuinely like, but I never got round to it.
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don't do ads
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lol, bryon. get right to the point, eh?
I think I'll stick to using my "popularity" to sponsor local art & design events. If I do go to ads, I'll keep it local and inexpensive and for my etsy folks, record shops, and art community. I don't think I want to make a living off of TSURURADIO, unless we start hosting art/design/vinylswap/cycling events (which is a very real possibility).
Now TSURUFOTO and TsuruBride? fuck yeah! Bring in da moneys! Buy my photography! Buy baby's purses! NoW!
;) -
indieshuffle: I don't agree. there is lots of public data about website traffic out there. I think your commitment to having a specific site experience and style that you shape is badass.
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So lets do some math on how much money a blog that gets 75k page views per month can make, by setting up some assumptions based on what I've seen.
Assumptions about depth of visitor base:
- On average, each unique user to the site comes twice a month.
- Each time they visit, on average, they view 3 pages of the site.
- So in total, each average unique user is responsible for 6 pageviews per month
Remember, these are averages, so the real usage is likely to look a little different. (Example, each note secure: http://www.quantcast.com/eachnotesecure.com#traffic)
This means that in a month, the site is likely to receive visits from 12.5k unique people. This doesn't generally influence how much money you'd make but most ad campaigns do have frequency caps for how much they are shown to the same unique user. So if someone loads your page 20x, they may run out of paid banners to see. Overall, this is nice to keep in mind.
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Assumptions about revenue, by looking at Indieclick's work, with 75k impressions.
Lets say you just have one banner on the top of the page, that's a 728x90
Lets say that Indieclick sells 15% (this may sound like little, but it is not that small, turns out) of your inventory for an average of $6.50 CPM (this is decent for some high quality campaigns). They typically take half, so you get $3.25CPM (CPM refers to cost per 1000 impressions) on 11.25k pageviews. Multiply that out, and you've got $36.56/mo.
If Indieclick sells 30%, it's $73.12, 60%, $146.24/mo. This is neat but gets a little less exciting once you wait about 90 days for it.
The question, as always, is whether the $100/mo is worth altering the template to accommodate the banners, dealing with occasional bad ads that sneak through (have to say, Indieclick is good at keeping these at bay) and paying taxes on; or whether all that time is better spent elsewhere. -
To follow up too, if making money with a blog is overly important, don't do a music blog, it's a pretty crap way to make cash.
Now, real estate, insurance, loans, is where you are really talkin... -
Just to say the same thing but without the rigorous sums and so on, I am not against advertising or anything like that, but I would have to be able to make a lot in order to make it feel worth fucking up the look of my site and I can't really imagine anyone valuing space on my page as highly as I personally value it.
I get nothing like 75k/month (although Analytics tells me I get a good few more uniques than Anthony's example) and I would expect at least a couple of hundred a month to even consider giving anyone that kind of real estate. -
Toad: You can adjust the math for your own numbers by looking at the number of pageviews GA reports to get an idea of what to expect
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Anthony, thanks for that phenomenal feedback.
The more and more I think through this one, the more it seems it'll be appropriate to hold off on this question until I'm hitting those 75k/month numbers. At that point, it might be nice to go with the personalized ad approach--but I can think about it then.
Out of curiousity, would anyone using MOG be willing to disclose what kind of traffic you receive from them?
-Jason -
That'd be really interesting as I doubt anyone receives much traffic from mog. It's more of a one way street :)
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Yeah, I never quite understood the appeal of MOG, from a blogger's perspective.
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Hey Anthony.... great post up there man. Finally, some helpful info! And if there were any question or doubt whether or not to add ads to TSURURADIO, they are gone. You've helped settle any lingering questions for me. TSURURADIO will continue to be a celebration and promotion of all the things I love! <3
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Posted by: anthony@hypemTo follow up too, if making money with a blog is overly important, don't do a music blog, it's a pretty crap way to make cash. Now, real estate, insurance, loans, is where you are really talkin...
...now you tell me...
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MOG has been good to me, I've been making some decent dough out of it. Nothing amazing but as a broke college student, I sure as hell aint complaining.
I may be able to get into indieclick, but I have not applied yet. -
Mardybum90, how do your earnings fit into the model I described?
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MOG sucks... seemed like 99% of the time it was to head over to their site so ditched em.
As Anthony said dont expect to make a heap of money from your blog unless its a scam or a meme eg Hispter.
Be nice and support brands/bands/artists/things you like and get chummy that way. Will help overall image and respect in the long run that in turn could end in a kewl financial situation. -
As for getting traffic from MOG, I get maybe 1 person/day. Really.
But I don't run any of their headline or news widgets, so TBW isn't listed on them either which is fair, so others may be getting more. -
-anthony
My earnings sit somewhere near the 30% that you describe. Some day/months are better than others, but I have been doing alright with it. This is why I am baffled with everyone's unsatisfied comments with it.
The payments are very slow sure, but hell I am blogging about something I love, and I eventually make some side cash for food and gf expenses lol.
I'll wait.
I don't know if I will get accepted to indie click, but it's worth a shot right?? -
I encourage every one to utilize a design that encourages tons of 'clicking thru' to content. This makes your site look like a 'real site' instead of 'just a blog', making it more attractive to advertisers.
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how are your shirt sales?
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Hipsterrunoff:
How do you go about doing the "clicking thru," are you suggesting like snippets of articles, which say "to read more.." -
Also, I noticed indieshuffle that you went with MOG. What was your final reason? I think you did a great job incorporating your design with their banner rules. Did they approve you putting the big banner at the bottom?
For me I chose to use MOG not because of the money, but because of the potential traffic. They definitely provide you with a huge outlet. Also, my page design is pretty shit anyhow, so it's not really messing up my "chi," yet.
Anyone have suggestions on help/how to redesign a layout better? I'm in classes currently, but any suggestions for the immediate makeover? -
Hey guys,
I haven't fully settled on MOG. I'm still waiting for them to approve the fact that the banner is at the bottom. I figure after their initial look, they're never going to bother checking again. Problem is that they specify that it needs to be in a "prominent place" that "doesn't require scrolling." While it's certainly the most (only) prominent ad on my site, it's all the way at the bottom. I think it integrates well -- now it's just a matter of whether MOG approves or not. If they say no, then I'll go ad-less until I've generated sufficient traffic to reconsider.
Still hoping someone will disclose what kind of traffic they get from MOG and how hard they have to work for it. -
i get very little traffic from mog, but i really dont think i fit mog's demographic particularly well. when i say very little, i would put at it about 10-20 visits a day. if you have time to visit mog, and interact with the folks there you may do better, but i dont so thus the anemic mog visits. if you can configure it properly, adsense actually pays pretty well. that is if you think well is a couple bucks a day, but then again it all depends on click-thru and traffic.
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As I've always understood it, you probably end up giving more traffic to MOG than they give back.
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the ads really come in waves, but i typically make 4 bucks a day with mog. i dont pay that much attention to what ads are running, in all honesty. im in a different position though, cause im guaranteed a certain payout a month, good, bad or indifferent. if my hosting wasnt so much a month, i prob wouldnt have ads.
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cause im guaranteed a certain payout a month, good, bad or indifferent
How'd you work that? -
interestingly, i was one of the original sites that they asked to come on board and thus the guarantee. i dont know if they did this with any of the other original sites, but they did with me. other than the payout issues and lame hit count, it hasnt a bad deal, at least for me. if you have the traffic and dont mind random ads, then mog isnt a bad gig, but if youre making pennies a day and have to look at said ads, thats a different story.
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@indieshuffle,
MOG will get you traffic if you post on more well-known material, and if it's a major "news" item. As in, the title of your post must be similar to a news headline (like on their widget), and deal with popular artists to get a bunch of hits. Though, very little of our traffic comes from MOG because we don't write our blog like that typically, so I honestly don't know how much traffic MOG delivers to blogs that get highlighted more often.
If you take a quick look at MOG's homepage you can figure that this would be the case. They hype the stuff that we would expect to be hyped. So it goes. -
I disliked MOG and removed their ads after a few months. If you care what you are advertising, or if you are on the fence - MOG is not for you. If you want ads for Warner Bros. movies and scion cars and such - go for it. Because I chose to only have fairly independent and music oriented content in the ads, there were very little and mostly ended up being MOG ads for MOG. Traffic from MOG is very low - I get about 2 or 3 a day at best. If you aren't posting the newest Death Cab For Cutie exclusive movie track for a Wes Anderson movie - it ain't getting picked up. I think I am a bitter niche blogger ;-)
Payments are very slow and I believe have a minimum of $50.00 in ad revenue is required before they will issue a payment - to get an idea (for my clicks and content) this meant about 75,000+ pv on my blog. At least if I remember correctly it was around there.
I keep their headline widget in my sidebar: you never know what readers might want to catch up on... -
Yeah, I got fed up and removed it. I'll work on generating my reader-base, and then hopefully I'll be able to integrate an ad system by which those wishing to promote can actually buy their space.
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I've been satisfied with MOG. We've been with them a year now (time flies), and here's how our stats have looked:
Date % sold eCPM
September, 2008 88.92% $2.40 USD
October, 2008 72.06% $2.44 USD
November, 2008 64.88% $2.32 USD
December, 2008 79.34% $1.94 USD
January, 2009 55.40% $1.82 USD
February, 2009 58.13% $1.88 USD
March, 2009 37.87% $1.85 USD
April, 2009 34.62% $1.00 USD
May, 2009 10.33% $1.66 USD
June, 2009 30.02% $1.98 USD
July, 2009 50.94% $1.75 USD
August, 2009 38.39% $2.07 USD
September, 2009 31.14% $1.47 USD
Total 46.36% $1.93 USD
Not bad. We don't get a ton of traffic from them, but that's not what we're looking for from an ad server. -
We just got accepted into MOG, have to send them an email back letting them know when we are ready. Everyone OK with Bopper Nation MOGing it up? MOG and Elbo.ws ftw..Anyone wanna give us some advice before we respond and begin our journey :-)
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I'm going to give one more shot at integrating MOG by modifying my theme a touch. This is why it's good to have a test-dummy website up that you can completely slaughter in the name of science :-D
Gah, web-designing/maintenance is a never ending process!
Still waiting on getting admitted to elbo.ws. )-:
Brandon is MIA? Hoping that elbo.ws can bring some additional traffic...kind of expecting it's the best aggregator? -
BTW i went to Jakes blog and couldn't find his mog ads..either they are perfectly placed in or I'm blind. I kinda wanna see some blogs with MOG on it to get an idea of what we are in for.
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hate to say it but, you're blind ;)
his main leaderboard banner next to "glono" is a MOG ad. also on his right sidebar. the ads are in constant rotation. -
Alright...well shiii-otsu.
a. hopefully the web tech can figure out a clean solution that works best for us.
b. i hope they have electronic music related ads..even some stuff like 'Jose Gonzalez, Little Dragon' etc would be fine by me. But i refuse to stick up something irrelevant to our site and our readers interests.
Tsuru does have a nice route of doing things. Best to all Elbo.ws people, very helpful and kind.
thank you. -
Alright. After talking with Bryon, having some time to think, and rereading Tsuru's input I've decided to not go the MOG route. If we are going to do ADs i think going locally is the best bet and not choosing someone like MOG who demands a big ass header and a sidebar-widget. Its unconventional and greedy. (in my opinion).
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Yeah, I opted out of Mog. Lack of versatility. I think I'm a few months away from putting up ads. There are a couple sections of my site I would like to develop and make more robust, i.e., "Live Shows", "Interviews", etc. After that, I'm going to explore the opportunity of customized ads.
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