PublisherSpot Earnings Updates: August
August 6, 2007 Posted by Tyler CruzHere is an update on the type of numbers PublisherSpot is pulling in.
It’s very difficult when charting these numbers. Unfortunately most ad networks put very little work into their affiliate systems, and most have little-to-no access to anything but the most basic affiliate stats, and some don’t differenciate between your publisher earnings and your affiliate earnings, which really makes tabulating this data difficult!
As a result, these numbers may not be exact, but are as close as I could get them.
One thing I realized while updating my spreadsheet was that it’s only going to take longer and longer to update these stats with the more reviews I have. What will I do when I have 75 networks for example? What about 150? I guess that I’d have to start doing the updates once every two-months, then quarterly, then eventually yearly. Oh well, I’ll cross those waters when they come.
Anyhow, as you can see, the site is still basically making nothing. Sure, I’ve made nearly $200 from it so far, but I’ve spent far more on the programming, design, and marketing of it. But I’m still not concerned…. even though the site is, believe it or not, over a year old. Because the site has made steady progress in terms of development and content, and I haven’t really done all that much marketing with it yet.
However, I do expect (hope) that it will start to pick up, due to the recent improvements and the upcoming marketing I have planned for it. Once I add more reviews to it, it will definitely be the undisputed leader for ad network reviews.
It will be very interesting to see the numbers when I post an update a month from now, after I market and advertise it…
The beauty of PublisherSpot is that it will only grow. As it gains more exposure and covers more publishers as they emerge, it will only generate more traffic and a greater readerbase. Additionally, you will be fine tuning the optimization of your aff-link placement and such to get readers to use the buttons to go to the website.
I think it’d be really interesting to see the amount of clicks you get per network. From that you can figure your conversion rate and see which networks aren’t doing very well and plan accordingly. Of the users that click on your aff link, how many become a referral? Are you getting a whole lot of people to click but few convert? Or are you just not getting much traffic to end up clicking on the button. I think that’s a very critical thing to know.
Either way, I like seeing your earnings. Regardless of whether or not you’re even earning a lot, they really authenticate your blog as a whole. I can read blogs all day but if the bloggers are just regurgitating concepts and theories all day, it gets pretty repetitive. I JUST launched CommunityRise.com today and I’ll be using a niche forum to back up what I have to say and openly experiment on for my blog posts. By no means is it my only forum and definitely not my most successful one (no way!) but I think using it as a tool of experiment and instruction can really accompany what I have to see and provide a sort of visual showcase of the topics that apply.
Man, some nice long comments you’ve been making so far… even if it is to help plug your new site a little 😉
Regarding your comment with PublisherSpot – I sure wish I could track conversions, etc. better. But really, the majority of ad networks really do have horrendeous reporting/tracking when it comes to referrals.
Another little issue is that pretty much all networks don’t have any tracking systems in place for referral systems, so I’m not sure if some of those sign-ups are coming from my blog here….
What I would do is simply track clicks per outgoing network link myself. You could set up a seperate tracking system to count outgoing clicks per each link or maybe even use a funnel for the network page and a goal per click with Analyitics which will show you which networks even get the most clicks.
If you feel particularly industrious or curious, you could also track the outgoing clicks from your blog’s aff links and get an aggregate total of aff-link clicks a month so you can get a conversion total for each network.
However that’s a little more work than you’d probably be interested in, especially since your numbers are pretty young and low. I still think finding out at least what PublisherSpot aff-link clicks would be useful in seeing where you may need to reoptimize to get better clicks. Then see direct results and disparities should you decide to experiment with placement and aff-link baiting. Keeping track of aff-link clickouts is more accurate than just viewing affiliate signups when signups are already so low. If you can get 20 clicks on an aff-link a month and increase that to 200 clicks the next month and still get the same conversions, then I’d definitely call that progress.
Yeah, I’m just a long winded guy with a lot to say regardless of whether or not I have something to plug. 😉
Yes, that’s all good advice.. but I most likely won’t be optimizing the site for conversions until after there are a lot more reviews. That’s my focus for now.. to populate it with many more reviews of other ad networks. I think the sign-up/links are prominent enough to yield at least a half-decent result.
Will publisher spot eventually have reviews on affiliate programs as well? Or is it for advertising networks only?
It already has several reviews of affiliate networks…
Copeac, AzoogleAds, and Millnic Media.
I think this website is a great idea. While it only generated ~$40 this month, a lot of the revenue model for the site is residual income.
Your biggest earner was from a one-time payment with Text Link Ads, but minus that $25, you can count on that other revenue stream month after month.
Worst case scenario, the site “goes under” and you make $20 a month or so for life.
Well, the worst case scenario is that I make nothing. While I certainly agree that the residual/passive income potential is there, and what I’m aiming and hoping for, the fact is that you can’t depend on publishers to keep earning money, or to stick with the ad network(s).
It’s a lot similar to signing-up poker players. Once those poker players stop playing, or switch to another site, you stop earning from them.
What’s even harder with ad networks is that most only pay for 12-months, but it’s of course the pay-for-life networks that I’m dpending on.