How To Triple Your Current Adsense Income
How many of you have Adsense ads on your site?
You know, those little ads you proudly display, hoping to earn an amazing $0.04 each time someone clicks on them…
What a joke. Granted, when Google first came out with adsense, it was a great idea. The payouts were high (I used to get over $2 per click in some niche markets). The click through rates were high because novice web users didn’t know they were ads. Many website owners got rich, and Google’s success stories flooded the media.
Then reality set in. Advertisers started paying attention to the lack of ROI they were getting. Click fraud started taking over and advertisers were getting fed up.
They dropped their bid prices as a result. This began hurting Google’s pocket, so Google reduced the percentage split they were paying to their publishers like us (just my theory, no actual proof on this, but it makes sense).
The result: A couple years later Google has millions, maybe billions of websites serving their ads for them and they can hand out a few pennies per click and get away with it because of their saturation.
It was a brilliant plan on Google’s part. They used the power of first mover’s advantage and took over the market of contextual ads. Other companies tried to get a piece of the action, but it was too late. Change is difficult for many people, so removing the adsense ads and trying a new company is just too much work for most people, so they settle for whatever money Google wants to throw their way.
Publishers like us are now feeling the pain. The websites we put so much effort into are now earning $20 a day from adsense, down from the $200 a day they used to make.
But don’t worry, I have a solution that works like pure magic. I’ve been secretly using it for months, and now I’m going to share it with you. Can you keep a secret?
Ok, here it is…
As you probably know by now, I’m not a huge fan of using advertising as a monetization model because of what I just explained above. But, if your site DOES depend on advertising to make money, especially via adsense or Yahoo Publisher’s Network, here’s something you need to test (here are some action items you can put into use immediately).
Selling advertising can be tough sometimes, well at least it used to be. This is a super sneaky way of finding an unlimited number of advertisers for your website.
- Step 1 – Put Google Adsense on your website.
- Step 2 – Wait.
- Step 3 – Write down every URL of the advertisers that shows up on your site (you can usually keep hitting refresh on your page to get new ones)
- Step 4 – Contact these websites and sell them direct ads instead.
Here’s why this method works.
Website owners want to get the most bang for their buck. When they advertise through Google, they are paying both Google and you to display their ads on your site. Why not cut out the middle man? This also works with Yahoo Publishers Network or any other contextual ad program.
Here’s an email I use to convince website owners on the idea…
Hi (name of contact person I find on website),
I see you were placing Google ads on our website www.mywebsite.com. I hope you were having great success with these ads.
The reason why I’m writing is to let you know we are in the process of removing the Google ads from our site. We’ve had websites contact us asking if they could put an “adsense like” ad on our site directly rather than going through Google. It makes sense considering Google takes their cut of your advertising dollars, which is an extra cost for you.So, aside from getting the same high quality traffic from our site that you are getting now, you would be able to write better ads (not limited to whatever number of characters Google limits you to). Plus you get the search engine optimization benefits of have a direct text link. In other words, you get three times the value you are getting now, for probably less than you are currently paying Google.
Anyway, we’ll be pulling off the adsense ads shortly, so I wanted to touch base to see if you wanted to continue advertising with us. We are limiting the number of advertisers we can accept because we will be displaying the ads in premium locations on our site, and obviously there’s only so much room available.
Let me know either way if you would like to stay on our site. The spots are available on a first come, first served basis.
Thanks for your time and wishing you success with your business.
Yourname
When they write you back asking what your rates are, you can give them a breakdown of different options. For example, you can write a paid review of their site which will give them a permanent link from your site. You can offer a monthly “inline” text link that is part of your website’s content and doesn’t look like an ad or a paid link. Or you can setup a Sponsored Links section very similar to the google ads they were using on your site previously.
So how do you determine how much to charge for advertising? Easy, just look at your adsense account and view the report from the last full month of earnings.
Let’s say you made $202 last month from adsense by selling 3366 clicks @ $0.06 per click. This means you need to make at least $200 to “break even”.
In this case, I’d try to sell the private ads for $40 per month. Getting 15 advertisers to take you up on the offer is fairly reasonable, which will triple your income compared to what you were making from adsense (15 x $40 = $600).
Think $40 per month is too high? Let’s see how much that comes out to for the advertiser.
Assuming the number of clicks is the same, take the 3366 clicks you got last month and divide it by 15 advertisers. Each advertiser would get about 224 clicks each give or take. $40 divided by 224 is about $0.18 per click.
But wait, $0.18 per click is more than $0.06, so it would cost more to the advertiser, right?
Wrong. The $0.06 per click was YOUR CUT of the income the advertiser was paying. The advertiser paid google much more, exactly how much more nobody knows. Some say Google keeps 50%, others say they keep 25%, I’m guessing it’s probably around 70% to keep their shareholders happy.
That means the advertisers are paying google about $0.20 per click and you are getting $0.06 of that.
So, by having 15 websites pay you direct for ads, you will triple your income, your advertisers will save an average of $0.02 per click PLUS get a static text link AND more flexibility with their advertising message. Looks like a win-win to me…
As long as your site gets reasonable traffic for your niche market, this should be an easy sell. You may have to provide some traffic stats to the advertiser to convince them to go direct with you.
If you know your site gets weak traffic and the click volume to the advertiser is going to be low, then be reasonable with the pricing. Provide value to the advertiser and you will have a customer for life. Then you have a guaranteed income each month, no matter what kind of changes Google makes with their adsense program in the future.
Oh, and an even more important benefit of having direct advertisers vs an adsense site is when you try to sell your site (you are planning to sell aren’t you?).
What sounds better to a potential buyer?
We have a strong relationship with advertisers who pay us $600 each month consistently.
-or-
We have adsense ads on our site, which make anywhere between $90 and $250 each month, depending on the mood of Google.
Makes sense?
Let me save some time for the skeptics and critics real quick. I’m sure someone will say “Doesn’t this violate Google’s terms of service?”
I have no idea. I haven’t had my attorney read through their thousands of lines of legal jargon. It may very well be, probably somewhere in the same section where they state they can close your account at any time for any reason and you forfeit any money accrued in your account. Yup, it sounds like they play pretty fair too.
If you still have issues with putting adsense on your site and writing down the ads that show up, then don’t do it. You can just as easily do a search for a keyword related to your site and get advertisers from there. Or go to your competitors sites and see which ads are showing up on their sites. Or see who is advertising on Yahoo’s network, or MSN’s network, or…ok you get the point. Just find websites that are already paying for ads. You know they have at least some kind of ad budget.
PS – Only use this method if you want to make more money…
Has anyone else been doing this, or is it just me?
Comments
Tony April 3rd, 2008
This is great stuff max. Where you do come up with these ideas?
You are giving away ideas I have never seen before and I buy lots of ebooks.
Keep it coming, I’m hooked now.
DazzlinDonna April 3rd, 2008
I’m pretty sure it’s against Google’s TOS to directly contact advertisers, so that’s a great way to get yourself banned if even one of the advertisers lets Google know.
Lane April 3rd, 2008
Hi Max,
What a great, simple, logical idea?!
But how do you determine what your ad rates will be in the future? My site is less than a year old. I have not been doing all that well with Adsense — it’s been terrible. Let’s say I go down this route and get several advertisers on board. Then, say a year from now, my site has considerably more quality, niche-specific traffic than it does today. I will certainly want to charge more for the ad space than I would today, However, I will have no longer have Adsense as a metric to determine pricing. How would I go about negotiating, logical, reasonable rates?
Thanks again for this and the other ideas that you have presented to us already! I look forward to your subsequent posts.
Lane of VeganBits.com
Max April 3rd, 2008
@ DazzlinDonna – Adsense is not a real business model. The point of this post was to show people how easy it is to get away from adsense and make more money. You don’t have to have an adsense account to use this strategy, just tweak the email a bit to match your situation.
This is exactly what newspaper ad reps have done for years. They flip through the Yellow Pages, find companies that are obviously spending money on advertising, then try offer them a better solution.
@ Lane – You can always adjust your ads rates as you get more traffic or if demand picks up. It simple supply & demand. If you have 50 advertisers wanting to throw money at you, you’re probably priced too low.
Your adsense income (per click price anyway) isn’t based on how much traffic you have. The earnings per click will stay pretty much the same, or will likely decrease even further as time goes on.
An easy way to validate price increases is to take your starting point and increase your price based on how much more traffic you get.
For example:
If you are charging $40 per month now and you are getting 5000 visitors per month, then how much should you charge when you get 10,000 visitors per month? $80. You’ve doubled your traffic, so you double the cost.
How To Triple Your Current Adsense Income - Max Davis April 3rd, 2008
[...] If you’ve got some free time and some sales skills, Max’s post shows you a long-term alternative to Adsense. Most people don’t have the time or the skills to do the direct selling he suggests, but I love the creativity and analysis of the facts. Top notch. Bravo! [...]
redwall_hp April 3rd, 2008
I think Google’s cut of the deal was discovered once, but it wasn’t really publicized beyond making it to the Digg front page. If I remember correctly, you get 70-75% of the money.
Caroline Middlebrook April 3rd, 2008
Max, I really like the way you think. I don’t use AdSense on my blog at the moment but I like the essence of what you are saying – its all about maximising the revenue from a portion of real estate. You don’t *need* to put an on-page ad in that spot.
Max April 3rd, 2008
“you get 70-75% of the money”
If this was on Digg 3 years ago, then I would agree with that statement. Today, I don’t think that estimate is close. Our adwords costs from the last business we ran kept going up, while adsense publishers’ earning kept going down. (Which is why we started buying private ads on the sites we used to use the adwords content network on).
The post above was targeted towards selling ad space, but the reverse also works very well. Find websites that have adsense on them and offer to buy private ad space in premium locations on their sites. You’ll typically save money plus get the search engine optimization benefit of a text link.
andy April 3rd, 2008
Top notch article. The best ideas are always the most simple. I have just launched another site – http://www.savingtoinvest.com – and I will try this theory out there as I am not using Adsense on the site.
Andy.
Alex at Net-Entrepreneur.com April 3rd, 2008
Hi Max,
I’ve been following your last several articles and I’m very impressed both with the content and your style (voice?).
This blog is going back to my RSS reader!
Cheers,
Alex
redwall_hp April 3rd, 2008
@Max the problem isn’t entirely the cut. It’s that advertisers can spend however much they want. They can set their minimum bid at five cents, and a maximum of something that’s still not very good. You end up with not very much because most of the advertisers don’t want to spend much. In other words, AdSense: Good for advertisers, bad for publishers.
mike huang April 3rd, 2008
Oh wow Max, you’re already making a difference
To tell you the truth, I actually enjoy the posts you make more because of the titles. It actually makes me read 
As for this technique, it is very smart. I have never thought of this before, but I do know that dealing with advertisers yourself rather than with a middle man/company is the way to go
-Mike
Chris Jacobson April 3rd, 2008
Good information here. Thanks!
Robert Paulson April 3rd, 2008
Disclaimer: I haven’t read any part of AdSense’s TOS on contacting advertisers directly.
I don’t see what Google could ever do about it (re: Donna’s comment about getting banned). How could Google ever discover that you weren’t contacting advertisers as a normal part of finding advertisers? I have a lead list that’s far more comprehensive than the stable of advertisers Google has for my niche, and yeah, I probably have every single one of their advertisers as part of my list. They probably advertise via Yahoo as well. So I think that’s a non-issue.
However, making it sound like it’d be easy to sell 15 new clients just because they already use AdWords is a very big stretch. You should plan on contacting and being rejected by several hundred prospective advertisers to find those 15 (probably varies by niche). And that’s after you’ve tracked down the correct person to contact. And if you only use email to contact them, your response rate will drop to probably 20%. Make 5-10 phonecalls to the right person and you might get to talk to them. After that, you might get them interested enough to look at your media kit. And from there, just maybe, you can sell them. At that point, if you start putting a dollar value on the time you’re spending chasing down all those leads, you’re probably getting paid the same rate as just slapping AdSense up there and being done with it.
I think a better plan is to spend your efforts continuing to drive greater volume of traffic, get some media attention for your industry, then make sure your “advertise with us” link is easily found on your site. They’ll find you.
My $.02.
Patrick April 3rd, 2008
Nice post, and great idea, sharing the example letter was suprising and generous of you. Thank you! Most people hold ideas/tactics like these to them selves. But, this is the reason I have failed on making an income on the internet,,it seems an inability to “think outside the box” on things like this. On the other hand, I am busy trying to build sites so time is an issue, I may stick with Google for a while longer just because they make it easy and continue to make 1/3rd of my capabilty….
But I can see how this would be a great move,
Patrick
Brett April 3rd, 2008
Really wasnt expecting to see this, but it makes perfect sense
Durkin April 3rd, 2008
Excellent idea. It definitely sounds like its worth trying.
Is that letter template available to steal?
thanks
The Best of the Blogosphere: April 4, 2008 | Super Blogging April 4th, 2008
[...] How to Triple Your Current Adsense Income at Blogging Experiment. [...]
Stefan Ashwell April 4th, 2008
Fantastic idea, and posting an example email is a big help too, adding a nice extra bonus to this post
AhTim April 4th, 2008
Ben, really a great idea!
But ONLY use this method if you are very confident to get advertisers contract continuously.
–blog for dream–
Tony James April 4th, 2008
Nice details. Will give it a try.
Thanks.
Ben Cook April 4th, 2008
AhTim, this wasn’t my post, it was Max’s. Remember to check the byline.
CompuWorld April 5th, 2008
isn’t this against TOS???
The Rebirth of a Blog | Net Entrepreneur April 5th, 2008
[...] How To Triple Your Current Adsense Income [...]
Gerri April 6th, 2008
Hmmm!!! Interesting idea that could actually work out very well.
trexpenn June 2nd, 2008
Really simple yet elegant. I like how you think out of the box. I will definitely give this a try.
Affiliate Marketing Guy Ron Davies December 6th, 2008
Adsense is undoubtedly the ultimate rip-off for both advertisers and publishers. When I first started blogging, I used Adsense only, and watched as sites went “over the peak”, meaning Google started paying me less per click because in their opinion, repeat visitors are not good candidates for advertising to, which we know is the OPPOSITE of what is true for site owners. We WANT repeat visits.
So, clicks went from $.12 from one of the sites down to $.05. Not to worry, the advertiser was paying the same price he always was to advertise on my site, just Google passed less on to me. How do I know this?
I bought advertising for one of my other sites in Adwords, and targeted a dozen and a half sites, one of which was my own, and watched what the costs were, and what I was getting paid.
Rip-off big time.
Pretty much Adsense-free now, and focus on rss fed Clickbank products, which is easy, as I am affiliate marketer, and context holds true.
I use context-senseitive RSS feeds from the ProfitMart.com system and just add the rss feed to my WP Wdigets down the left-hand side of my page (see http://www.ronalddavies.com at the bottom right for example)
I am done with Adsense, and done with Adwords. I even tried advertising on Facebook, but they are far too restrictive over what I can advertise. I couldn’t even advertise an ebook there. Sad.
Great blog!
Ron
James December 24th, 2008
Great article, thanks for the advice will definitely look at it for my next project.
ac January 2nd, 2009
This is pretty ingenious, but time consuming. The magic of Google Ads is not having to put any effort into the advertising sales part of your business…
Richard February 24th, 2009
While Google does say in its TOS that advertising is allowed (even on the same page as Adsense as long as it does not look like an Adsense advert) they make it clear that putting on paid links to other sites that are designed to improve the search engine position of the other site is not acceptable.
A number of websites / companies may approach you and offer to pay for advertising when infact they are aiming at improving their position in Google and other search engines using paid inbound links. If you have a website that is your main source of income then think twice about selling advertising space – one way is to use the horrible “NO Follow” tag on the link (suggested by Google which I hate) or use some form of javascript to deliver the advert.
Another issue is if you use javascript to deliver adverts it may get blocked by certain internet security software designed to block banner adverts. Life on the internet (for making money) was a lot simplier a few years ago.
analogstuff March 20th, 2009
This is one of the best idea on how to increase income from adsense.
Well done and very good work indeed.
I appriciate your help. I will try whether i can get success using your model.
Masud Rana May 20th, 2009
Nice tips. I’m trying to abide by.