How much can I earn from AdSense?

[Fit-Track]

Hi guys,

My name is Lynden, owner of www.weightlossdiary.com.au. I recently updated this website to target women in Australia who want to lose weight. The site offers a free online weight loss diary so women can test their fitness and track their progress online. My next step is to monetise the site.

I would like to hear from people who have experience with AdSense. I know based on past experience that I can get women signed up to the site for about 33 cents per person on average. I do expect to get a relatively small amount of free organic traffic once the site gets listed on Google...still waiting.

So, I need to find a way to generate 50 cents PLUS (on average) per person to make the business model work. I have researched various affiliate offers out there (comm monster, dgm etc), but there is a lot of crap and I don't see huge finanical potential there. Maybe I am not looking hard enough.

If I was to place AdSense blocks throughout the website (viewable only when women log into their account), what is this likely to achieve in terms of revenue? How much (on average) can I expect to receive "per click" from AdSense adds? Is AdSense alone likely to generate 50 cents PLUS per person, or are my expectations too high.

I'm still learning and would appreciate hearing back from people with experience in this field. Any other ideas on how to best monetise my site would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Lynden

[newbie]

Originally Posted by Fit-Track

Hi guys,

My name is Lynden, owner of www.weightlossdiary.com.au. I recently updated this website to target women in Australia who want to lose weight. The site offers a free online weight loss diary so women can test their fitness and track their progress online. My next step is to monetise the site.

I would like to hear from people who have experience with AdSense. I know based on past experience that I can get women signed up to the site for about 33 cents per person on average. I do expect to get a relatively small amount of free organic traffic once the site gets listed on Google...still waiting.

So, I need to find a way to generate 50 cents PLUS (on average) per person to make the business model work. I have researched various affiliate offers out there (comm monster, dgm etc), but there is a lot of crap and I don't see huge finanical potential there. Maybe I am not looking hard enough.

If I was to place AdSense blocks throughout the website (viewable only when women log into their account), what is this likely to achieve in terms of revenue? How much (on average) can I expect to receive "per click" from AdSense adds? Is AdSense alone likely to generate 50 cents PLUS per person, or are my expectations too high.

I'm still learning and would appreciate hearing back from people with experience in this field. Any other ideas on how to best monetise my site would be much appreciated.

Thanks
Lynden

Welcome Lynden ,

I do not think anybody will comment on Adsense, non-disclosure is part of the Adsense agreement.

My suggestion would be to add both Adsense and Affiliate marketing banners (and yes, you did not look hard enough).

I do not why you do not want to display advertising until they join. Advertising with content has been an acceptable practice since Gutenberg.

[El Craigo]

Hi,

You have a great looking site (even with the corny images, but you don't stand alone in that dept.), but you're not making a cent out of it at this stage.

Agree with Jim, you haven't looked anywhere near hard enough. There is a ton of relevant offers available through the networks.

Vitamins, sports gear, pampering ...........

Good luck with it,

Craig

[HarveyJ]

Adsense is for schlubs that don't know how to monetize.

Get their arses onto something that's got a decent kick back.
I'm personally against free weightloss supplement trials. They don't work, and they're impossible to get out of once you've stupidly signed up.
That said, there are plenty of other things you can pimp to them, from the obvious gym equipment, to things like bootcamp holidays.

There's plenty of that kind of stuff on CJ and ClixGalore.

[ikonic]

Using the tool here (https://adwords.google.com/select/Tr...timatorSandbox) I can see the average PPC is $1.58 - $2.28 for the term 'weight loss'. Therefore it would be reasonable to expect around 75c - $1.50 pc* at a minimum on your ads.

*because for every dollar google brings in through AdSense and other places that distribute its ads, it pays roughly 78.5 cents back to sites ... that display the ads.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/16/te...ecom.html?_r=1

but... on average the CTR is generally low (I hover around 2-3% CTR) on adsense ads so you need to take that into account as well as the fact they they don't pay until you account reaches $100.

Also, like HarveyJ said, Adsense is useless for monetization and in a site like yours you don't won't to be advertising your competitors products which is going to take away long term users.

[newbie]

Originally Posted by HarveyJ

Adsense is for schlubs that don't know how to monetize.

Originally Posted by ikonic

Also, like HarveyJ said, Adsense is useless for monetization and in a site like yours you don't won't to be advertising your competitors products which is going to take away long term users.

I cannot agree with you guys excepting only that I would not recommend using Adsense alone.

Adsense is good, steady, solid, reliable income. It is well-targetted and useful; it does not scare the horses. Our CTR is similar to yours, ikonic, but I wish we could get the equivalent of an Adsense payment for every click out of our sites.

[Marlnet]

Originally Posted by Fit-Track

website to target women in Australia who want to lose weight.

Is there a reason as to why you've elected to turn your back on the other half of the Australian population?

[Fit-Track]

Hi Marlnet,

I previously had a "fitness tracking" website that was targeting both males and females. Over 80% of the people who signed up were female. Why is a difficult question to answer...but it appears as though women prefer to set goals and track their progress more so than men. I therefore redesigned my website to be more targeted toward women so that I could advertise specific products/services that women are interested in.

Lynden

[ntmk]

Adsense is definitely good steady income and can work well in different websites. However you should not rely on Adsense alone, as it probably wont work for your site as it forum based site. Use a mailing list and send out email offers on different products, as I am presuming you collect there emails on registration. That is how I would approach it.

Adsense definitely works well on Diets!!! I have a new site slap up with blogger in 1 hour and now is making 20cents a day not much but it makes money.

[leadegroot]

50c per visitor? I can't see Adsense supplying that.
You might get it out of affiliate income, if you can find the products that your visitors particularly like.

Hope it helps

[Fit-Track]

Hi leadegroot,

I am on the hunt for some products or services to promote.

I am still a bit confused about how people are making money doing this.

For example, I can send a targeted email blast for $1,500 and get 500 sign-ups.

That works out to be 0.33 cents per person.

That means I need at least that in return from affiliate marketing just to break even.

All of the adds i have researched on DGM and Comm Monster pay between 7% and 15% commission, and everybody is telling me to expect a conversion rate of up to 5%. With these figures, I would have to be selling products valued at over $400 just to break even. I don't think so.

I can see how people make money when they have thousands of hits each day from organic listings in search engines...it aint so easy when you're starting out.

I'll keep searching.

Regards,
Lynden

[El Craigo]

Lynden, acquiring leads for 33 cents is good value, in a market that pays 80 cents to up to $3.00 or more.

I pay on average $1, and have an expectation of a 66% margin ($3 earned for $1 spent) for my business model.

Your problem, is once you have a new member you don't have any means to on-sell anything to them. Therefore, your conversion is nil, and your margin is equal to that.

You need to start trawling through the affiliate offers, and fast. For example, Amazing water is paying around $6 per lead on a free 7 day trial. This fits with your target market. 12 clicks for 1 sale, there's your 50 cents a click average.

Start using or developing some street smarts!

ECO

[newbie]

Originally Posted by Fit-Track

I am still a bit confused about how people are making money doing this.

For example, I can send a targeted email blast for $1,500 and get 500 sign-ups.

That works out to be 0.33 cents per person.

I must be missing something but I think that works out to $3 per signup.

There is also the question of the quality of those 500 signups. Are they genuinely interested in your offering long term or are they just fearless clickers?

I think the $1500 would be much better spent on banner placement and Adsense over an extended period as long as you are sure that your landing pages will convert your advertising spend into committed members.

Why an extended period? It is hard work, there is no easy path but you can be successful if you work hard enough. You have to keep experimenting, developing your strengths, dumping your failures. Relax and your opposition will pass you by.

I am not disagreeing with Craig. He knows what he is talking about. I am just offering an additional avenue to consider.

[newbie]

Originally Posted by Fit-Track

All of the adds i have researched on DGM and Comm Monster pay between 7% and 15% commission, and everybody is telling me to expect a conversion rate of up to 5%. With these figures, I would have to be selling products valued at over $400 just to break even. I don't think so.

A very, very good shopping cart converts at around 2%. The stats are more or less the same worldwide and across all segments.

For Australian merchants, we only use two networks, DGM and ClixGalore. Have you considered ClixGalore?

[El Craigo]

Originally Posted by newbie

I am not disagreeing with Craig. He knows what he is talking about.

Except when it comes to basic maths mistakes .... good pick up, you're right, that's an awful CPA