Generating Revenue with On-Line Ads?

ratajik asks: "In my continuing quest to generate revenue from my open source project, I've been attempting to use on-line ads. What are other Slashdot users' experiences with on-line ads? Which are the best methods (presentation, click-through, purchase, etc.), and which are the best companies that you've deal with?" "I've tried several at this point, and have had the best result from Google's AdSense - but even that hasn't been great. I've gone the user-most-purchase route with Connection Junction, but with 498,000 impressions in 1 month, have had zero sales. AdSense has worked a lot better (as users just need to click through), but I'd like to see a higher Clickthrough rate. What other companies have you dealt with and what has your experience been? What have you found to be the best type of Ad and Ad placement on your site? What management and tracking tools have you found that work best? If you've rolled your own web ads (e.g., not using an aggregator), what did you use to do it and how did you find advertisers?I've personally tried staying away from ads on my web sites, but some of the AdSense-type ads are minimally annoying, and seem like a good way to generate a bit of revenue off of free software, especially considering Internet advertising revenue was at a record 2.3 billion in the first quarter of 2004."

Comments

Software and Money

[ratajik]

I've actually considered embedding Ads in the main StationRipper window... but don't' know if that would be overly annoying. And showing something like Google ads may be against the rules...

What I would really like to find is an aggregator that pays per impression... but DOESN'T do pop-ups, unders, animated ads with sound, etc. While most people use pop-up blockers these days, I refuse to do something that annoying.

Is there some OTHER way other open source developers are making money off of smaller products like this, besides donations and ads? I doubt the pay-for-support route will work for something like this. While I wouldn't ever expect to make a lot, it would be nice to cover costs + have a bit left over to invest in the next development machine.

I'm actually a bit of a cross-roads with the software. I've got some ideas to expanding it a lot, fix a lot of things users want fixed and add a lot of new function - but is it worth continuing down that path, or start working on something else that may be a bit more sales-oriented? So far I've done it 'cause I love programming and it was something interesting and useful to work on - but it's mostly been (lots) of support, and very little code as of late.

-Greg

Only way to go.

[dtfinch]

Put a donate button on your web page and in the about box of the program (if it has one). Braham Cohen, author of BitTorrent, was very successful going one step further and giving users a one time popup reminder to donate. Something like "Have you made a donation yet?" and it sends you to a donation page if you click no.

it don't work

[stonebeat.org]

trust me. you can not generate revenue from online ADs. Take Eric Raymond advice and sell mugs, t-shirts etc with your logo. That is better way to generate to revenue then to put AD banners. I used cafepress.com to create a online store to sell mugs and tshirts and it was pretty easy and effective.

Adsense is darn accurate, but sometimes funny ...

[xmas2003]

I run Adsense on my personal web site ... and am generally pleased with it - pays the hosting bills ... but I'm not retiring early, since on my good days, I can "Super-Size" it at McDonalds! ;-)

I don't pay too much attention to the ads since it kinda runs by itself, and my experience is that Google does a pretty darn good job targetting 'em ... but I sometimes get a bit of a chuckle out of what shows up - for instance, I have some Lunar Eclipse Pictures and one of the Adsense ads was some place selling real estate on the moon! ;-)

google

[austad]

I use Google Adsense on my site.

I tried a couple of others in the past with some other sites and made a big fat zero. But google is actually decent. I get one or two clickthroughs a day, and depending on the ad, I get anywhere from $1 to $7 PER clickthrough. I know this seems a bit high, but given the content, the advertisers stand to make a lot of money off a sale.

In any case, it comes close to paying my hosting costs each month, but not enough to actually buy me a new server or turn a profit of any kind.

Affiliate Programs

[Fished]

Consider doing an affiliate program with Amazon or someone like them. In the past, I did fairly well doing book reviews with affiliate links.

Re:Old school

[lambent]

For an example of the donation button, check out:

The Donation Box at E2

Can anyone think of any other large, donation based projects that publish their revenues?

Also, Jonathan Rosenberg of Goats seems to have the whole 'pay me, pretty please' thing down pretty well. Just perusing his site should be a 101 course in internet capitalism.

It might help to describe what kind of project you're working on, to get a better sense of what sorts of commercial options would be most appropriate.

Avoid Connection Junction

[TheWanderingHermit]

I have a site in a field totally unrelated to computers. It was ranked as an "Editor's Choice" (or something like that) on AOL at one point. From my server logs, I KNOW it gets a fair amount of traffic (I also have free downloads, logs show these files are downloaded -- and the pages linking to the files are viewed).

I wanted to see if I could make enough to at least pay for hosting, and looked around and settled on trying Connection Junction. I don't remember for sure, but I think I was supposed to get paid on click-throughs.

For the next few months, I was getting a good number of page views, but according to Connection Junction, their banners received 4-6 impressions per month, way off from what my server logs showed for page views. Maybe they're honest, but after that experience (seeing my logs showing hundreds of page views per month and CJ showing 4-6 impressions/banner views for the same month), I don't trust them.

Re:Avoid Connection Junction

[Zerth]

Conjunction junction doesn't pay by impression, they pay, depending on the ad, by clickthrough or by number of "actions", which is usually either an actual sale or the viewer filling out a form. A company I just interviewed with uses them and they only pay per sale.

As it was explained to me, it's not entirely as assholish as it sounds, the sale doesn't have to come by clickthrough, it just has to be within a certain time of the impression. Well, unless all your site's viewers block the cookie, then you're screwed.

Re:I work for an advertising company...

[Enfors]

Uhmm, I think you're misunderstanding. He doesn't want to advertise his product / service - he wants to put other people's ads on his web site.

Get on Slashdot's front page maybe?

[Wee]

You're there, man. You got news of your project posted to Slashdot's front page. That's a pretty well-targeted market, if you ask me. Plenty of OSS geeks here, many of whom would surely donate. Well done, man. Seems like you've had some pretty good (free) advertising already. And luckily you've got your project's name figured out, the online marketing strategy all whiz-banged up, and finally you're on Slashdot's home page, telling the world about your project, asking how to best market it and get a little (well-deserved) slice of the e-commerce pie for all your hard work. You're in the catbird seat now. The sales are sure to pour in now.

Um, wait: What was your project called again?

Huh? You mean I had to click on the link for the submitter's screen name in order to find out what was actually being talked about and, hopefully, sold? Brilliant idea!!!1! Step 3: Profit!

Seriously though, one idea: Try telling people about what you would like them to buy from you. Just try it one time or two. See if it works. I think you'd be surprised.

-B