CPC vs CPM Bidding: What’s the Difference in 2024?

CPC vs CPM Bidding: What’s the Difference in 2024?

CPM and CPC are pricing options that define how much money an advertiser will pay for an ad campaign on a website. Advertisers bid on ad networks according to these pricing options toon get the best placement for their ads.

As an advertiser, which one should you choose? As a publisher, which option pays better? Here at CodeFuel, we prepared this guide to walk you through the nuts and bolts of CPM vs CPC bidding.

What Is Cost Per Click

Cost per Click definition: It refers to the amount you get paid every time a visitor clicks on an ad on your website. For advertisers is the cost they pay to the publisher per every click.

For example, if the advertiser’s campaign generates 1,000 clicks at a $3 CPC, you will get paid $3000.

Example for advertisers

Advertising budget: $100

Pricing model: $0.07 CPC

Number of clicks/budget:  ($100/$0.04) = 2500 clicks

Takeaway: You get the number of impressions necessary to reach 3000 clicks regardless of the CTR

What Is Cost Per Mille

Cost per Mille definition: It refers to the amount advertisers pay per a thousand impressions of their ad. For publishers is the price they charge advertisers per thousand impressions of their ad on their website. 

For example, if CPM is priced at $2 per thousand impressions and generates 10,000 impressions, the advertiser will pay $20.

Example for advertisers

Advertising budget: $100
Pricing model: $2 CPM
Number of clicks/budget:  ($100*1000/$2) = 50,000 impressions
Takeaway: You get the same number of impressions regardless of your CTR.

What’s the Difference Between CPC and CPM?

Since CPM refers to how many times the ad appears on the website, advertisers use this option to build brand visibility. By choosing websites related to their business, brands can drive awareness of their product or service.

The downside of CPM is that the advertiser pays for impressions regardless if they get clicks to their site or not.

CPC refers to how many times visitors click the specific ad. Brands choose this pricing option to drive conversions in the form of website visits or sales. When a visitor clicks on the ad, is taken to the advertiser’s site which pays the cost of that click.

The downside of CPC is that they are fewer impressions. However, the ads are targeted, and the advertiser pays when a user clicks on those ads.

How the Bidding System Works?

Advertisers bid at ad auctions managed by publishers and ad networks like Facebook or Google AdSense. Let’s clarify some basic terms of online advertising auctions:

Ad bid: The bid is how much an advertiser proposes to pay for an ad published in a network or website.

Ad budget: The budget refers to how much money a company or brand wants to pay for ads for that campaign. 

Why Do Ad Networks Use Auctions to Determine the Ads That Appear on Website Pages?

Networks use the auctions to select the best paying and more relevant ads for a website. In a typical ad auction, advertisers state the price they wish to pay for clicks on ads or impressions served in publishers or platform pages.

The auction ranks advertisers according to their bid and (in the case of Google Adsense, the quality score). Then, the platform assigns the ad unit to the highest bidder. Therefore, publishers get high-paying ads and brands get their ads placed on relevant sites.

Cost Per Click (CPC) Bidding

In this model, the advertiser only pays if someone clicks on one of their ads. Usually, brands use the CPC bidding model when working with search ads as it increases conversions. CPC bids are ranked according to Click-Through-Rate, Quality Score, and other factors.

You have two main options for ad bidding:

  • Automatic Bidding

In this option, you set a budget for how much you are willing to pay. The ad network then presents you with as many clicks they can offer for your budget. Some networks let you set a maximum cost per click so you can control your costs.

Automatic bidding can save you time and allow you to plan your budget. If you use this option, we recommend you set a maximum CPC. 

  • Manual Bidding

In this option, you can control your maximum bids. For example, you can set what is the maximum you want to pay, be it per group, keyword or placement.

This option gives you more control over how much you spend per click. The downside is that it can be time-consuming. 

Cost per Thousand (“Mille”) Impressions (CPM) Bidding

This bidding model is more common for advertisers looking for Display ads. As we mentioned before, Cost per Mille helps you increase your brand awareness.

The advantage is that display ad bidding focus on the price. Therefore, the highest bidder ranks at number one. The downside of this method is that you can pay for a thousand impressions, but those impressions result in zero clicks. 

When CPM Is Your Best Option

CPM is the best option when your goal is to make your brand known. It is the best choice to maximize your exposure and engage your audience for the awareness state.

When CPC Is Your Best Option

A CPC model is better to encourage conversions or acquisitions. This helps you maximize your ROI.

CPM CPC
You ensure your ad will get the impressions you’ve paid for Drives revenue based on an action
It increases visibility Gets higher intent interaction
Good for starting advertisers that need to create exposure to measure CTR It is transparent (you only pay when you get results – clicks)
Great for A/B test strategies Great for retargeting campaigns

CPC and CPM Pricing for Publishers

CPC and CPM Pricing

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We explored CPC and CPM models for advertisers but how does it work for publishers?

CPC vs CPM for Programmatic Advertising

Choosing CPC or CPM model will depend on the goal of the advertiser for the specific campaign. However, for programmatic advertising CPM offers some advantages:

  • Reduced risk of ad fraud: Models like CPC and CPA can be subject to fraud like click-injection and click-spamming. Because CPM focus on the times the ad is viewed, it doesn’t offer so many incentives to fraudsters.
  • Cost-efficiency: CPM, especially dynamic CPM, allows marketers to automate their bidding budget so they can control the advertising budget.

CPM vs CPC Bidding by Platform

Every platform has a different model for ad bidding, let’s take a look at the most popular:

Facebook

Facebook

Facebook gives you two tiers for pricing options consisting of four internal options:

  • If you want to use the CPA (Cost per action) model, you should choose: “Ad result/ Website Conversions”.
  • CPL (Cost per Like) is only available if you choose: ”Ad results/ Page likes”.
  • Facebook offers CPC as a default option for bidding. This option is good for the beginning if you are a small business.

Google AdSense

Google

  • Google AdSense allows advertisers to bid according to the following types: CPC, CPM, Active View (cost per 1000 visible impressions),and CPE (Cost per engagement) 
  • Advertisers participate in an ad auction through which AdWords selects which ads will appear in what order and placement.
  • Besides CPC and CPM, advertisers can bid per Active View CPM. Meaning, the percentage of viewable impressions. What’s a viewable impression? When at least 50% of the ad is visible in the visitor’s browser window and the ad was viewed longer than a second.
  • Google AdSense also allows advertisers to bid according to the cost per engagement. The engagement action is defined by the advertisers. In this type of bidding the advertiser pays when the visitor interacts with the ad in a predefined way. Examples may include hovering over the ads for a certain length of time, taking a poll, starting a video ad, signing up for a newsletter.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn

  • LinkedIn is the platform most used by  B2B advertisers. But there are a number of LinkedIn bidding options, including Enhanced CPC and CPM.
  • Enhanced CPC is billed on a per-click basis, therefore it gives you more control over the performance of the ad.

eCPC Bid = Historical Conversion Rate * CPA Goal 

  • Implementing a CPM bid works better when the CTR is above LinkedIn’s average (>1%) resulting in more impressions and clicks.
  • On LinkedIn, you can opt for automatic or manual bidding. However, manual bidding is better on this platform because CPC on LinkedIn correlates with the CPC bid itself. In LinkedIn automatic bidding you get charged on an impression basis.

Instagram

Instagram

  • For Instagram, CPC ads are more consistent, since you know exactly how much you pay per click and can manage your budget around it. CPC is better in the Instagram context when you want to reach a specific number of clicks. The Instagram algorithm will then show your ads to the users more likely to click.
  • If you don’t have a large followers base, then CPM can help you perform better. If you know our audience, you can test your ad visibility by running a specific number of impressions. CPM works great to A/B test Instagram ads.

FAQ’s About CPC and CPM

1. Which is better? CPC or CPM?

If you are an advertiser, the pricing model you choose will depend on your campaign goals. If your campaign goal is to ramp up conversions and generate actions, then the CPC model is more effective. If you want to increase your brand awareness, then the CPM model works best.

2. How do publishers get paid on an ad exchange?

Ad exchange publishers are paid based on a metric called “effective Cost per Mille” (effective cost per thousand impressions). This rate measures the ad revenue of a campaign per the number of impressions.

3. How do you calculate eCPM?

eCPM =Total ad revenue
           (Impressions/1000) 

4. What is CPA?

This model involves paying every time a user takes an action, for example, a purchase, on a website after clicking the ad.

CPA = Advertising cost
            Number of actions

5. What is CPCustomer?

Some platforms allow companies to calculate the cost of acquiring a customer. While CPA tracks how much it costs you to get a customer to do the first action if the action is not a purchase you need to add another variable.

Cost per Customer = CPA x (Number of Leads that Buy
                                                     Total number of leads)

How CodeFuel helps Reduce your Costs

CodeFuel is a complete monetization solution that leverages search, ads, and news monetization options. CodeFuel allows advertisers and publishers to manage the costs by balancing different monetization channels, such as contextual advertising, display and search ads.

CodeFuel helps you get the most for your bid and reduce advertising costs. For publishers, the holistic monetization solution allows them to maximize their ad revenue while enhancing the user experience.

Learn how you can manage your advertising costs the smart way today. Contact us.

47 Essential Video Marketing Statistics for 2024

47 Essential Video Marketing Statistics for 2024

Video marketing is here to stay. Companies that want to engage, entertain and capture the attention of users should think of adding video content and ads to their marketing statistics. If an image is worth 1000 words, a video is worth much more. To be sure you get the most accurate information before you start your video campaign, here at CodeFuel we’ve collected a list with the most important video marketing statistics you should know for 2024​, and some tips to create a great video campaign.

Is Video Marketing More Effective? 

Video marketing gives marketers an attractive and shareable medium to reach their audience. A study recently showed that online video is 6 times more effective than other marketing tools.

Here are some statistics about how effective is adding videos to your marketing strategy:

What is the ROI of video marketing? 

Video marketing requires production, planning, and investment. Because of that, it is important for marketers to know their video strategy is going to be successful.

Video can produce a better ROI, than traditional marketing methods. Let’s check what marketers think about it.

  • 86% of marketers say video increased traffic to their website.
  • 83% of marketers say video increased their visitor’s time-on-page.
  • 84% of marketers admit videos helped generate leads.
  • 78% of marketers say adding video to their pages increased sales.

In order for the video strategy to be effective, you should be able to measure success. How are your videos performing against your goals? To help with that there are certain metrics that can help.

Metrics You Should Know

Every marketing campaign will have different metrics according to the campaign goals. But, when measuring the performance of your video campaign there are some common metrics to take into account.

Video Engagement Metrics

Engagement is the measure of how your video content impacts the user. How much do your viewers interact with your brand?

  • Likes: the “likes” in social media and positive reactions to your video content.
  • Dislikes: this is an option on YouTube, Facebook, and other platforms. People can express their disagreement with the subject or the content.  
  • Comments: comments give you an idea of how impactful is the content for the users. You can check sentiments toward the videos, feedback on the content. They also create a conversation with the viewers.

Conversion Metrics

If your goal for your video campaign is conversions, you should always include a CTA in the video. While it could be at the end of the video, some companies will repeat variations of the CTA through the duration of the piece, in case the viewers don’t watch it completely.

  • Click-through-rate: CTR is relevant for video campaigns focused on conversions. You’ll like to know how many people clicked on your video CTA or follow through with the desired action.
  • Conversions: You should track not only the number of people that click on your video CTA but the ones that actually purchase or convert on your website. This will give you a more accurate idea of whether your campaign was successful until the end.

Awareness and Reach 

Well, conversions and engagement won’t happen without people being aware of your brand. Here are the metrics that you should track to know where you stand on brand awareness:

  • Views: How many times your video gets watched. What is considered a view? It depends on the platform. On YouTube is 30 seconds, on Facebook and Instagram is 3 seconds.
  • Play rate and replays: Play rate measures how many times a user clicks the play button on your videos. Replays measure how many times the user played your video again.
  • Shares: Shares can be the ultimate uplift. That means a viewer liked your video so much that they want to share it. This impacts your campaign since the more people see your videos, the larger audience you can reach.
  • Impressions: Impressions mustn’t be confused with views. An impression is when your video is displayed, whether someone clicks on it or not. You can have a ton of impressions but very few views.

47 Video Marketing Stats

You cannot ignore video content as part of your marketing strategy. Here are some statistics that show this:

Online Video Usage and Consumption

1. Online video usage is increasing

Online Video Usage

2. People are watching online videos more than ever, on any device. According to a report by Statista, the number of people watching online videos worldwide will reach close to 3 billion in 2021.

3. In the U.S the number of users watching online videos is over 80%. At least 85% of American Internet users watched an online video last month.

4. Almost 300 million U.S residents watch videos regularly.

The global weekly time watching online videos also increased.

5. According to a video viewer survey, in August 2020, almost 30% of online viewers watches more than 10 hours of online video weekly, and 20% watched one or two hours of online video weekly.

Online Video Watching Stats

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6. In the U.S, 78% of people watch online videos each week, and 55% of those watch on a daily basis.

Consumers demand more online video content

7. According to a study by HubSpot, 54% of consumers want to see more online video content. Consumers not only want to watch entertainment videos. According to that study, customers would like to see more video content from brands they support or follow.

This demand is one of the reasons influencer video creators are on the rise. Video content catches the users’ attention. Therefore, brands looking to expand their brand exposure should add video content to their strategy.

8. Consumers especially like videos on social media platforms

Videos on Social Media

Top Video Platforms

YouTube

YouTube Video Statistics

YouTube has grown in an unstoppable way since its launch in 2005. The platform is the go-to place for longer video content, specifically tutorials (on almost everything) and educational videos.

Here are some statistics that show why should you consider YouTube marketing:

YouTube usage

9. 48% of business YouTube users think the platform enhances PR communications.

10. 82% of viewers use YouTube for entertainment.

11. 18% of people follow brands and companies on YouTube.

12. 37% of 30-49 years old use YouTube as a news source.

13. 72% of YouTube viewers used YouTube to exercise in 2020.

14. The average YouTube visitor checks 8.8 pages per day.

15. 40%  of viewers watch YouTube on their mobiles.

YouTube marketing

16. YouTube’s ad revenue as of 2021, reached over $6 billion.

17. YouTube’s ad business is close to Netflix in revenue. YouTube’s parent company revealed the data for the first quarter of 2021, and it is expected to reach over $20 billion in ad revenue this year.

YouTube Ad Revenue

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18. 70% of YouTube viewers, purchased from a brand that they saw on YouTube.

19. YouTube intent-targeted ads perform 100% better than those targeted by demographics.

TikTok

TikTok Video Statistics

The TikTok (or Douyin as it is called in China)  app is one of the most popular applications for creating video content in 2021. Users can create short musical videos based on lip-syncing, dancing, workouts, or comedy. Thus, in 2021, TikTok is an app that is tough to beat.

20. There are about 689 million active TikTok users every month, according to the platform.

21. The platform has 600 million active users in China.

22. TikTok 2020 revenue was estimated at $1 billion.

23. 18% of global Internet users use TikTok.

24. In the U.S, there are 100 million TikTok users.

TikTok Statistics

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25. In Europe, the U.K is the country with the most TikTok users, and Norway is the one with the fewer.

26. U.S users spend an average of 14 hours a month in TikTok.

27. 48% of TikTok users will share a funny video.

Video Conversion Statistics

The ultimate goal for a video marketing campaign is to convert. Videos can generate effective results for campaigns. Here are some statistics that show how video influences positively your conversions:

28. The average conversion rate for websites with video is 4.8% instead of 2.9% for sites without.

29. Branded video content increased over 200% on Facebook and 100% on YouTube.

30. Facebook, partnering with Nielson,  found out that video ads increase conversions by 20-30%. 

How Effective Is a Video for Brand Awareness

Videos can create and increase the awareness of your brand. Video marketing can give your viewers information that a regular ad cannot. It shows your audience that your brand is aligned with their values.

31. 86% of businesses use video as part of their marketing strategy.

32. 76% of marketing professionals use video to increase their brand awareness.

33. 80% of people say they use online search and video search when researching something to buy.

Does Video Affect the Sales Funnel?

To be truly effective, your videos need to align with your sales funnel. Regardless of your campaign goals, creating them to cater to the right stage of the sales funnel will increase your chances of converting. For instance, if your goal is to raise brand awareness, your video content should show your brand values.

If your campaign goal is to convert, the ad should align with the buyer’s needs at the consideration stage, ending with a CTA. Check this example by Uber:

Posting Video on Social Media

Social media is key when we talk about video marketing. Videos perform better in social media channels and people actually like more video ads and content on those platforms. Here’s a quick view of how videos perform on each of the big social platforms:

Facebook Video Statistics

34. Facebook video posts have a 0.26% engagement rate.  That’s higher than the overall engagement rate for text posts (0.18%).

35. 1.25 billion people visit Facebook Watch every month. To be able to publish on Facebook Watch, you need to have more than 5,000 followers.

36. 70% of marketers will include Facebook in their video marketing strategy.

Instagram Video Statistics

37. The most popular Instagram video content is how-to tutorials. Following are interviews and behind-the-scenes posts. So, plan to add short instructional videos that can relate to your business.

38. Instagram TV videos are larger than the pictures on the Explore page. Use IGTV videos to draw your audience’s attention.

39. Reels get more engagement than video posts. Take, for example, the NFL team The Patriots. They get an average of over 121,000 engagements per reel, vs 21,000 engagements per video.

Twitter Video Statistics

40. Video arrived on Twitter for staying. Video views on Twitter reached 62% in 2020.

41. Video is the most shared media type. Tweets with videos get retweeted 6 times more than photo Tweets.

42. Twitter videos usually get created or shared on mobile. 93% of Twitter video views happen on mobile.

43. Twitter videos start conversations. Twitter has a new ad format called Conversational Ads. The video ads may include CTA buttons and customizable hashtags.

Linkedin Video Statistics

44. LinkedIn launched video ads to help grow their customer’s businesses.

45. Users at LinkedIn are 20 times more likely to re-share a video post compared to a text post.

46. LinkedIn ads can increase purchase intent by 33%.

47. LinkedIn Live streams generate 7 times more reactions than a regular video.

3 Tips for a Perfect Social Media Video Strategy

1. Videos perform better when they are short. 

If you want to succeed with your social media videos, short and sweet is the way to go. That is even more important for B2B. Videos shorter than one minute, get viewed completely 68% of the time, unlike videos 10 minutes and longer, which has a 25% completion rate.

Why is this important? Consumers want fast-paced content. So, you can create short videos using trending platforms like Instagram Reels and TikTok to promote them. A short video gives you also the possibility to re-share them as Stories, adding special effects, filters, stickers, etc, to attract more the attention of your viewers.

2. Use YouTube for educational videos

YouTube is the default channel for video tutorials and How-To educational videos. Since tutorials are a must on your video content strategy, take advantage to show and instruct your users about how your solution work. Explainer videos work wonderfully for that.

3. Dare to live stream 

Audiences engage 3 times more with live videos than other types of videos. It can be because the experience feels more genuine and direct with the content creators. Live streams show the human side of your brand, helping customers relate more with your values and goals. So, if you want to reach directly to your users, run a live session on social media.

4 Top Video Marketing trends of 2024

1. Video marketing will be a standard part of marketing strategies

According to research, 99% of marketers plan to use video in their strategies in 2021. The most popular forms of video content are explainer videos, testimonials, and video ads.

2. Everybody goes live these days

The average U.S consumer has more than 9 video streaming apps on their smartphones. Global streaming marketing is growing steadily over the last few years, reaching over $160 billion in revenue in 2020, from $104 billion in 2019. According to analysts, the sector will continue to grow in 2024.

3. Shorter is better

If you want to catch your user’s attention,  keep your videos short and entertaining. That’s behind the success of short-form streaming solutions like Reels and TikTok. According to Design Shack,  this trend will continue, including monetization opportunities — already present in Instagram and in development in Tiktok—.

4. The top star: User-Generated video content

According to Econsultancy, users that find user-generated video content in an e-commerce platform are almost 2 times more likely to purchase. The reason is simple. Users want to know the personal experiences of people that already bought the product. This is very popular in fashion and homeware sites for exactly this reason. It provides a “live review” that is authentic and relates to the buyer.

Wrap Up 

Wow, that’s a handful!. When thinking about ramping up your video marketing strategy, getting the proper stats is key for a successful campaign.

Here are some of our recommendations for a great video campaign:  Start with a plan, choose carefully the channels you will use for your video campaign. Even better, choose a complete ad network solution that can maximize the impact of your video ads. When launching the campaign, track the metrics, measure performance, rinse and repeat. 

Crafting the perfect video campaign is not easy. Hopefully, with this post, we provided the key stats to get you started.

Resources:

Wyzowl

Wordstream

Hootsuite1

Hootsuite2

Bloomberg

Aberdeen Research

Tubular Insights

Google

Inc

Twitter

LinkedIn

How to Monetize a Website? The Ultimate Guide for Beginners

How to Monetize a Website? The Ultimate Guide for Beginners

Can you actually make a living from your new website? Yes, but you need to know how to do it right. Website monetization requires a lot of work and the right tools. That’s why here at CodeFuel, we prepared this guide.

Why Should You Monetize Your Website?

The popularity of successful bloggers and content creators may seem that making money on the Internet is simple. Most people think all it takes is to build a website or blog, choose how to monetize it, and sit to reap the earnings.

In reality, more than half of bloggers make less than $5000 a year. And most bloggers quit even before the year. Why?

It is easy to create a website or blog; What is hard is keeping it consistently valuable so you can make money from it.

To make money from your website, first, build your audience.

Attract them with great quality content that answers their queries.  Remember to be consistent when publishing your content and integrate a social media strategy. If you do this month after month., there is a great chance you will succeed.

Blogging can be a lucrative business, with some bloggers earning six figures a month. Other sites use a combination of strategies from paid advertising, e-commerce sales, and sponsored deals.

Sure, those websites and bloggers spent years building their audiences, authority, and traffic. Some websites and bloggers fail to make money because the site is not going to make money by itself.

It requires creating content, optimizing for SEO, growing your social media base, and engaging your audience. Once you have all this in place, then the money may start coming.

Best Strategies to Monetize a Website in 2021 – 2023

This section is not a get-rich-quick guide, but following some of these monetization strategies can help you achieve a nice ROI.

Related content: Monetization Guide for Beginners in 2021

1. Pay-per-Click Advertising on Google

Pay Per Click advertising on Google

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In this model, you sign up with a monetization platform or ad network. The network displays your website. You get paid a small fee every time a visitor clicks on the ad.

An example of a monetization platform is CodeFuel, which serves relevant ads based on user intent. The advantage of a monetization platform is that it can work with other ad networks and further extend monetization options.

In this model, the ad network or monetization platform is a middleman, bridging advertisers and publishers. They take out the hassle of finding advertisers to present ads on your site. But not only that. Working with CodeFuel – you enjoy smart optimization so your pages perform even better. Curious to find out more? Contact the CodeFuel monetization experts today.

2. Selling ad space

The marketing concept of selling ad space on a website refers to the practice of publishers generating income by offering advertising slots on their web pages to interested buyers. Publishers can directly start to sell ad space to brands or use ad networks. To take part in this form of website advertising, publishers need their own ad server to deliver completed as creatives to their website, or they can use the ad network delivering server.

Monetizing your ad space is one of the easiest and most popular ways of monetization. If you want to sell ad space, your layout must be kept in mind, so you don’t clutter the space with ads. Too many ads can push visitor’s back instead of attracting them to your site.

Selling ad space

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You should keep in mind the layout and placement of your ads because a cluttered site may put off visitors that may feel too salesly. Keep your website interesting by mixing different ad space. Also, different placements have different rates, so you can charge a higher rate for a larger ad space, such as a leaderboard, than for a small square on the side.

Selling ad space on a website focuses on the needs of businesses, defines their goods and services, and targets anyone who can buy them, ultimately improving advertisers’ sales and increasing the website’s revenue.

Learn more about how to choose the right ad placements with our guide

3. Add an Affiliate link: Use Affiliate marketing

How Affiliate Program works

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Affiliate marketing is a type of online advertising that involves a company paying compensation to third-party publishers or affiliates to promote their products or services to their audience. In this form of marketing, affiliates earn a commission for each successful sale or lead generated through their unique affiliate links.

This form of marketing is helpful for affiliate partners and companies. It helps affiliate partners to generate income without having to invest in creating products or services, while businesses can reach a broader audience without having to spend a significant amount on advertising. Affiliate marketing is easy to set up and requires only a website to promote products or services to the audience.

To succeed in affiliate marketing, one needs to choose relevant products to promote, find the right platforms to promote the products and follow ethical practices.

How does this work with a website?

When you sign up with an affiliate network, you get affiliate links to the advertiser’s site. For instance, if your website is about books, you earn a commission every time a customer buys a book by using your affiliate link.

Affiliate marketing sometimes gets a bad reputation. You must comply with disclosure regulations to succeed with affiliate marketing without risking your good name. Here are some recommendations for affiliate partners and websites: 

  • Be transparent: disclose any affiliate link or referral relationships you have.
  • Target to your audience needs: only recommend products that give value to your audience.
  • Don’t be too promotional: over-promoting annoys your visitors. And never promote a product that you didn’t check or know.

Where can you put the affiliate links?

The links are most effective when they are part of valuable content. Some examples of content you may produce include:

  • Product reviews
  • Product comparisons
  • Tutorials

Steps to create an affiliate marketing strategy

  1. Do your research: Try to find products or services that would solve a pain point for your audience and would complement your niche brand.
  2. Join an affiliate program: There are numerous affiliate programs. Some pay you per lead made, while others pay you per sale. Learn how to choose the right affiliate network for you. Some examples of affiliate programs are ClickBank, Commission Junction, and ClickBank.
  3. Update your content: the content should be relevant and high quality to encourage your viewer to click on the affiliate link. Good content doesn’t limit to blogs. You can also write reviews, how-to articles, resource pages, and landing pages.
  4. Remember to refresh your links: Affiliate links expire after a few days, so set reminders to refresh them.
  5. Keep your eyes open for offers: Sometimes, affiliate networks and companies will have special offers to earn extra money. 

4. Sell a product or merchandise on an e-commerce store

Sell a product or merchandise on an e-commerce store

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You may already have a physical product to sell. If not, creating and selling a digital product can be a great monetization strategy. A digital product is something that falls under the approach of “create once, distribute forever”, which enables you to generate income without having to create products all the time.

You create the product and promote it to your audience. Some examples of digital content you may sell:

  • E-guides, e-books, and audiobooks: if you are an expert on a subject, put your expertise to use in a book and sell it. You don’t need to send them to print and distribute your ebooks in digital form. You can also offer printing on-demand or turn your e-guide into an audiobook. Audiobooks offer users the convenience of following a book from anywhere, in the car, on the bus, or while working out. That’s why they are very popular.
  • Build an app or extension: an application can extend the reach of your website. For instance, adding a workout tracking app can increase your earnings if you run a fitness website.
  • Sell merch:  popular bloggers and content creators also make money by selling merchandise. While you can see this more with YouTubers, bloggers and niche websites also sell merch, adding an extra income stream.

5. Start a Paid Membership website

Paid Membership website

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Setting up a paid membership sittes can bring you a steady income. You can create a paid gated community where users can engage in forums, discussion boards, and workshops. If you are geared towards online learning, you can create a paid membership that gives access to varied educational material, like courses, webinars, and podcasts. 

6. Build an email list

Email lists are essential for lead generation. But did you know that you can monetize access to your email list? If your newsletter gives value to your users, you charge users to access it. Examples of paid newsletters include The Economist and VeryGoodCopy. You can charge directly or use Patreon to set a sponsorship model.

7. Generate ‘Leads’ for Other Companies

If you promote other businesses’ products on your website, you can use that to generate leads for them. Through content pieces like product reviews or comparison articles, you can direct interested users to a business landing page with a form. There they can opt-in to the business offers. Lead generation services can add revenue to a website. Keep in mind that running a website specializing in product reviews and comparisons can work better.

8. Accept sponsored posts and publish product reviews

Publishers often think that adding sponsored content or sponsored posts can negatively impact their own brand. But in reality, sponsored content adds more value and options to your offer. When you give your users sponsored reviews on recommended products, you give them answers to their queries.

This strategy also helps you grow your site authority as you provide expert advice for a product or service. In addition, you can offer sponsorship opportunities for your live streams, which is one of the latest trends in content marketing.

Why publish sponsored posts and content? Why is it valuable to readers?

Sponsored content can be valuable for website owners looking to increase engagement and revenue as well as web traffic. By partnering with sponsors to create premium content that aligns with their brand, website owners can offer their target audience informative and engaging content they might not otherwise have access to.

Sponsored posts and content can help build trust and loyalty with dedicated readers while generating revenue for the website through sponsored content deals. Additionally, sponsored content can provide website owners with an opportunity to showcase their expertise and thought leadership in their industry, helping to establish them as a go-to resource for their audience

9. Put content behind a paywall. 

You can create exclusive or specific content and charge for it. This allows you to give them premium content that they cannot get from other sites. This model is popular among research firms (Statista premium) and business publications like the Harvard Business Review.

content behind a paywall

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10. Monetize your expertise

If you are an individual blogger and an expert in your industry, you can offer your services directly from your site: one-on-one consulting, speaking engagements, or any other service you may like. Your site can be your personal portfolio.

What services may you offer?  This will depend on your expertise niche, but in reality, the sky is the limit.

Some examples may include

  • Photographers
  • Life coaches
  • Writers – Copywriters
  • Web developers
  • Graphic Designers
  • Personal trainers
  • Fashion stylists

11. Ask for donations

The practice of asking your website visitors for donations to support your site has become more popular in the latest years. It may seem unusual, but when you think about it, it gives you a monetizing option without having to fill your site with ads.

Gamers, artists, video and comic creators are among the types that adopted this method successfully. Photographers on free stock sites would usually add a donation button.  Other examples include non-profits and social campaign sites.

12. Launch a dropshipping store

dropshipping store

If you want to enter the world of e-commerce online store(s) without hassling over inventory, shipping, and production, then dropshipping can be a solution for you.

When you set up a dropshipping store, your supplier keeps the stock until you made a sale. The supplier also takes care of the packing (with your brand) and shipping to your clients.

That seems easy, and it can make you about $5000 a month,  but you need to put in an effort. A successful dropshipping online store involves finding reliable suppliers, setting up an attractive e-commerce store, giving good customer service, and promoting the business.

13. Launch and offer online courses & memberships

Online courses are a very popular way to turn your expertise into money online. You create the online course once, and then you can earn a recurring income every time a user signs up for the course. During the pandemic, e-learning became almost essential, and with the market expected to reach $325 billion by 2025, it is a very lucrative opportunity.

You can launch a certification program for sites that are suitable for e-learning. You must be an established authority in your niche for this strategy to work. Your brand should be recognized with a solid customer or fan base.

By launching a certification program, website owners can give users actionable knowledge they can relate to your brand. If you already offer e-courses, you can offer an advanced training program. This method will also strengthen your brand and your authority in your industry.

An example of such monetization strategy is Copyhacker’s Copy School. While you can do many of their courses for free, they have a specific certification program for conversion copywriters.

Offer Subscription-based membership

Besides offering paid courses, you can also add a premium membership tier, subscription-based. Premium users can unlock new or exclusive content, reference materials, or specific tutorials that are not available to regular users. For example, while HubSpot courses are free, the company offers Bootcamps for users of their solution.

14. Flip and Sell Websites

Website developers can make a good income by investing in websites that are monetizing but require a boost. Then improving them by growing the traffic, raising their value, and selling them. That is called website flipping.

To be successful, you need to select the right website according to the potential of selling it. E-commerce, financial, and drop shipping sites usually get the highest price, according to Empire 

Flippers.  You should check metrics such as traffic, SEO, conversion rates, audience, and monthly revenue.

If you are good at building websites, you can opt for building and selling ready-made websites. Of course, this is not that easy. You need to find a suitable niche, promote it, grow it to make it attractive, monetize the website, and put it for sale. Hopefully, you’ll find an interested buyer.

15. Start using Google Adsense.

Google AdSense is Google’s offering for an ad network that enables publishers to monetize their websites with ads. Google AdSense is a great opportunity for site owners that want to monetize with ads because of its massive reach. In 2022, Google’s ad revenue reached 224.47 billion US dollars, mostly from search advertising.

Using Google Adsense

Source: Statista

This solution works programmatically, which means an automatic bidding system selects the best ads for the website. Google uses different types of targeting to select the ads for your site.

Learn more about monetizing with AdSense with our  How to Make Money with Google AdSense guide.

How Many Views Do You Need to Monetize Your Website?

For your website monetization efforts to be effective, you need a large number of views, starting from 10,000 organic views a month, especially if you are monetizing through an ad network.

Ad networks like Google Adsense pay, on average $5 per 1000 views. Therefore, if you want to make a full-time income (around $5000/month), you should increase your views to 1,000,000.

But don’t get discouraged because if you have a niche website, there are strategies that can make it work with a smaller audience. Small site owners can work with niche ad networks, for example.

RANK
1
2
3
4
5
WEBSITE
Amazon
Google
JD.com
Facebook
Tencent
ANNUAL REVENUE
$107 billion
$74.98 billion
$28 billion
$17.93 billion
$12.89 billion

These sites use varied strategies for monetization. If you want to monetize with ads, look at the following sections, where we’ll explain more in detail.

What Type of Ads Should I Use to Monetize My Website?

There are many types of ads for monetizing your website. If you wonder how to choose the right type of ad for your website, continue reading. Here are the most popular types of adverts, you’ll surely find a type that is right for your website.

  • Banner Ads: These are the most popular form of advertising and monetizes the site by inserting an ad into the webpage. However popular, banner ads are not the most effective conversion-wise. Monetizing with banners requires that your website be attractive for advertisers, with a large base of organic traffic.
  • Video ads: Video can be more effective than static ads. It engages the user easily and, in general, may convert better. Adding video ads can be a good source of revenue if you do it smartly. Avoid interrupting the user experience or start playing automatically as the user enters the page. You can set it up to play when the user reaches related content.
  • Interstitial Ads: These types of ads cover the interface of the host app or site. Since they are interactive, they are designed to appear between the content without disrupting the user experience. Their higher impression rates usually result in higher click-through rates.
  • Native Ads:  these are ads that blend with the content, resulting in a higher visual engagement than other types of ads. Since they complement the content, enhance the user experience.

Optimize Your Website’s Ad Experience

Giving your users a great ad experience will make them more likely to click on the ads. Here are some ways you can make your users’ ad experience more enjoyable: 

  • Optimize for mobile

Your website visitors will come to your website through different devices, therefore you want them to enjoy the ads from anywhere.

Ensure your users can see the ads properly also from mobile without the need for squinting or zooming. 

  • Optimize the layout

As we mentioned above, a page that is cluttered with ads can actually annoy the user. Experiment with the placement and number of ads until you find a rate that brings the most impact without being too busy. 

  • Give users a unique ad experience. 

Even when you cater to a specific audience, your users are all unique. Publishers should customize the ad experience according to different user categories to optimize results. You can do this by using monetization software that displays ads according to user intent.

The Best Tools for Testing Ads

You should test the ads to make sure you have the winning combination in your hands. Typically, publishers and advertisers will use A/B testing to choose the more effective ad version. You should check the usability, reach, and engagement of your ads. 

If you are not an expert on ad testing, you can use tools that make your life easier. Here are some of the most popular:

Google Optimize – Free

Google Optimize

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This online split-testing tool from Google works as a plug-in for your website. You can test several versions of your as or conduct A/B testing. It is simple to set up and free. To use it, you open Google Optimize and connect your Google Analytics account. The caveat is that it is not automated so you have to do everything manually, taking time and effort.

Optimizely – Paid

Optimizely

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If Google Optimize is not enough, Optimizely is a good paid option, which is also very popular. It is a low-cost option and easy to use. To use Optimizely, you add the code to your site and can start optimizing in a few minutes. This also works for other digital products like as.

Unbounce

Unbounce

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This tool specializes in A/B testing. With Unbounce, you can compare multiple variants of the same ad by website visitors and conversion rates. You can try the multiple versions on an equal number of users or use the “smart traffic” feature, which lets you learn which pages work for different user categories.  You can learn more about how to use this tool for A/B testing by consulting the documentation.

How to Balance UX and Monetization Effectively

Balance UX and Monetization

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If you choose to monetize with ads probably, you’ll think that more ads mean more revenue. In reality, using every available space in your webpage with ads can have exactly the opposite effect.

To have great revenue potential from ads, your visitors need to want to click on them. That means you need to ensure your users have a great experience.

Here are three keys you should keep in mind to balance user experience and ads: 

1. You don’t need all the ads

Focus on the ones that actually drive engagement for your website. Choose the ads that will give more value to your specific audience. People tend to scan the page looking at what is relevant for them. That is why ads that are contextually relevant are more effective.

2. Yes, you can personalize the ads.

Your audience is made of different individuals, and everyone has a particular intent when visiting your website. How can you ensure your ad’s offering relates to each visitor? That’s where monetization platforms based on user intent come to help. CodeFuel, for instance, displays ads based on the user intent, therefore keeping the offer relevant to the visitor.

Can You Monetize a Free Website?

Monetize a free webistev

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The short answer is yes; you just need to find the right monetization method. Most websites online offer their content for free. How can you make money online from your free website?

Let’s say you have a free WordPress website with a paid hosting and a custom domain name. In this case, you can monetize it by using some of the methods we mentioned above. Here are some monetization strategies for monetizing a free website:

  • Affiliate marketing 
  • Display ads
  • Newsletter to a product:  where you promote to your email list outside of WordPress, for instance, through a Shopify store.

You can also apply sponsored posts, sponsored content to sell your own products. You can do almost everything as a paid website. Keep in mind that some advertising networks like AdSense don’t work with free websites.

FAQ About Website Monetization

How do you monetize a website without ads?

Website monetization is the process of generating income from a website. While ads are a common way to monetize a website, other methods can also be used. One way to monetize a website without ads is through affiliate marketing. This involves partnering with companies and promoting their products on your website, earning a commission for any resulting sales.

Another website monetization method without ads is selling your products or services, including physical goods or digital products like e-books or online courses. Both of these website monetization methods offer alternatives to relying on ad revenue.

Other methods of website monetization may include:

  • Flipping websites
  • Accepting donations
  • Gating content
  • Accepting donations
  • Holding paid webinars, workshops, and e-courses.

How much does AdSense pay per 1000 views?

Google pays 68% of its AdSense revenue to the publisher. The commission you get will depend on the Cost per Click in your niche. These days the commission per click ranges between $0.20 and $15, depending on how profitable is the niche.

How to monetize a website? 

Having a profitable website is the goal of every site owner. You can reach this goal by using some proven ways to monetize your website while using your site’s content. There are several ways to make money from your site. Here is a short list of the best ways to monetize a website include:

  • Affiliate marketing
  • Display ads
  • Native ads
  • Review products
  • Sell digital products.

Optimize your monetization efforts and Optimize your website with CodeFuel

Monetize Your Digital Properties

CodeFuel is a complete monetization platform that helps you generate revenue from your digital properties, such as your website, extension, or application.

You can monetize your website with ease by leveraging user intent to display text ads, shopping and news. Increase conversions and click-through rates by serving contextually relevant shopping ads on your search result pages or website. This ensures your ads are served to match high-intent visitors, encouraging purchasing decisions.

CodeFuel is a free monetization platform that smoothly integrates into your existing solutions, offers end-to-end account management and business intelligence reports to track your monetization progress.

Are you ready to monetize? Contact CodeFuel and start monetizing the smart way today.

Related Content To Read

How to Monetize your Browser Extension: 9 Proven Tips to Make Money

How to Monetize your Browser Extension: 9 Proven Tips to Make Money

Browser extensions make your work easier and quicker. That’s why there is an extension for almost everything under the sun. There are currently over 188 thousand extensions on the Chrome Web Store. Creating a browser extension can be a steady source of income if you monetize it right. In this post, we’ll show you ways to monetize your browser extension.

What can you find in this post?

How Browser Extensions Make Money?

Browser Extensions

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Digital products help you get more exposure for your brand while generating a revenue stream. Creating a browser extension gives you a product you can market to your current clients and target audience. Since extensions are meant to make work easier and solve problems, they enhance the user experience and build loyalty to your brand.

Generally speaking, extensions make money from selling the extension, adding advertising, or affiliate marketing. The right monetization method will depend on your target audience. Before choosing a monetization method ask yourself these questions:

  • What problem does the extension solve?
  • How people will use the extension?
  • What is the target audience demographics?
  • Which browser do they use the most and for what purposes?

Keep in mind that some people may use a browser on their personal devices and another one for work purposes. According to what your extension is for, you should align the extension to the browser your users are on.

Once you know who is your user and how will they use the extension you can plan how to make money from it.

Below you can find some ideas for how to monetize your extension.

How Does Mozilla Make Money?

Maybe you have heard about Mozilla. It is the parent company of the Firefox browser. The company was started in 2003 as an alternative to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Having add-ons and extensions was one of the reasons Mozilla had 26% of the browser market in 2008 and, by 2009, surpassed IE as the most popular browser.

Since Mozilla Firefox is open-source and distributed freely, how do they make money?

How Does Firefox Make Money?

Most of the revenue generated by the company comes from search royalties through search partnerships and distribution deals. That means the percentage of advertising profit Mozilla receives when someone uses the built-in search engine. They also earn money through sponsored tab tiles and donations.

For publishers, developing a Firefox add-on can generate revenue through selling advertising space, bundling with other downloads, and more.

How Does Chrome Make Money?

Google’s main source of income is by showing ads on Google’s search results page. For Chrome, Google uses a similar business model to Mozilla Firefox but with a twist. Instead of paying out search royalties, Google transfers the money received from advertisers to the Chrome part of Google. Additionally, Chrome collects user data that is used to target personalized ads.

If you add your extension to Chrome, you can monetize it by adding advertising, offering in-app payments, paid features, and other methods we’ll explore.

So, let’s start. Below you can find some ideas for how to monetize your extension.

Top 9 Tips To Monetize a Chrome or Firefox Extension

Firefox Extension

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If you did your homework, you’ll know by now what browser you should use for your extension. Let’s explore some ideas for extension monetization:

1. Sell Advertising

This is one of the most common ways to monetize your extension. It involves displaying ads when the user uses the extension. You can sell space on your extension. Also, instead o selling space for static ads, you can rotate the ads, maximizing your revenue potential. This enables also them to reach other potential customers.

Display advertising is one of the most common methods to integrate ads into your extension. It includes displaying different types of ads, such as interactive, pop-up, video, and interstitial ads.

If you want to add adverts to your extension, you have two options: you can look for the advertisers yourself or you can sign up for a service. Looking for your own advertisers requires a lot of marketing efforts, negotiating the rates, and type of ads.

A monetization platform like CodeFuel is much easier since it gives you access to a large range of ad networks. The service displays relevant ads according to the user intent, maximizing the chances for conversions. This also increases your opportunity for selling more ads and gain access to high-paying advertisers.

2. Charge for the Extension

Your browser can be a source of income by itself. Charging a small fee for it can generate a lot of income by selling many copies of your extension. While most extensions in the Chrome Store are free, don’t be discouraged. Instead, you can use a freemium.

Freemium is a monetization method where you encourage downloads by offering the extension for free for a period of time. If you want to go this route, you have a couple of options here.

  • Offer a free trial of the whole extension for a month or two weeks.
  • Offer a free version with limited features

Keep in mind that Google is discontinuing paid Chrome extensions. That means developers can no longer charge for the extensions via Chrome Web Store payments.

3. Offer subscriptions

Instead of charging a one-time fee for your extension, you can offer it for a monthly fee. For this to work you will need to offer more value. For example, the VPN extension I use has a basic free package but if you want full service, you paid the subscription. Other examples are productivity extensions, like Grammarly which offers a basic free service and a premium paid option.

Be sure to include the best premium features into the paid package and improving the extension along the line. This will help justify the subscription expense to the user.

4. In-app payments

With this method, you offer the extension for free but there are certain features you charge for. In this case, the user can choose which feature wants to add. This is very common with gaming extensions that offer in-app purchases.

5. Affiliate marketing

Affiliate marketing

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This method is very popular and involves earning a commission by promoting other companies’ products. Extensions can display banners or ads that direct the user to the advertiser’s product or landing page. You get paid a commission when a user completes a purchase using the link displayed in your extension. 

Although popular, this method can put off users if the banners are not related to the extension’s features. Displaying contextual ads can solve this problem. Since they blend with the extension, they enhance the user experience rather than interrupting it.

6. Paid features

You can offer your extension for free and reserve some features to sell individually. That way your users can purchase.  If you are working with a donation scheme, you can unlock certain features after the user donated a certain amount via PayPal.

7. Search advertising

This strategy places ads on search engine results. Search advertising is not interruption marketing, therefore is less intrusive for the user experience. Search ads can be customized according to user intent, thus the ads are relevant to what they are searching for.

How does this work for an extension? This is one of the most popular methods for monetizing extensions since it generates revenue while enhancing the user experience.

8. Bundling

Bundling

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When users download your browser extension, you can take advantage and offer related apps or other software. If you have several apps, you can promote your own products to increase your sales. You can also promote other companies’ applications. In this case, you can charge a flat fee for advertisements or a commission for every download.

Ensure the products you bundle relate to your extension, so they increase the value of the offering. Besides being selective, don’t overwhelm your users with more than a few apps. More than three would be too many.

9. Ask for donations

Donations

Donation is a strategy that has become popular in the last few years. While not what you typically expect from monetizing, it can be effective. Asking for donations gives your customers the choice to pay for your extension. Sure, you risk giving away the extension for free.

In reality, when people have the choice to make a donation, they tend not only to pay but pay more than the minimum. That’s why asking for donations appeals to people’s emotions. Asking for donations may not make millions of dollars in revenue, but you can have extra money while increasing your exposure.

Optimize your Extension Monetization with CodeFuel 

CodeFuel

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CodeFuel is a complete monetization platform that offers intent-based monetization for your digital properties, including app, search engine, or browser extension. By leveraging the power of search monetization, your users get served shopping and text ads customized according to their intent. It works with large ad networks including Bing and Google AdSense.

The free platform has an easy setup and integrates smoothly with existing software. You can keep your monetization efforts on track with our BI and detailed reports. Start monetizing the smart way with CodeFuel today.

Search & Traffic Monetization: How to Earn Money from Website Visits?

Search & Traffic Monetization: How to Earn Money from Website Visits?

There are many ways to make money from the internet. One of the most lucrative is turning traffic into money. Companies like Google make a lot of money by monetizing search. But what does search monetization mean? And how do you do it?

Search Monetization 101

Search monetization refers to a group of tools and techniques used to convert online traffic into producing revenue. 

Monetization is a term you hear everywhere these days. Everyone with an online business has the goal of producing money from that website, application, e-commerce site, or content.

All the efforts to convert visits, downloads, or clicks start from the premise of making money from traffic. “Monetizing traffic and search” sounds rather abstract, so let’s break it down by explaining what do we mean by traffic.

Traffic means potential customers.

Internet traffic consists of the online activities of people online. Search traffic means simply people like you and me querying search engines. When they are online looking for a product or service to solve a problem, they turn into potential customers.

Search monetization means providing users searching for a keyword with the right answer and making money from it.

The importance of search queries

One of the most effective ways to monetize traffic is by monetizing search. Users search for what they want, so every search query gives you an opportunity for monetization. For instance, if you have an in-site search box, every search can tell you about user’s needs, what they are looking for. You can then use this information to adjust your strategies and solve user’s needs.

If you have an application, you can add a search function and learn more about your user’s needs. This lets you adjust your app to meet users’ requirements.

Besides those benefits, you can actually make money from users’ searches.

How Do Websites Make Money from Traffic?

The most common way for a website to make money from the traffic that comes to it is via selling advertising space.  Search ads take a user already looking for a product and serve them relevant ads. When you put a search bar on your website, you help visitors find what they are looking for when clicking on the search ad, which results in revenue for the website.

How to Make Money From Website Traffic?

The secret: Give users what they want while getting paid on the way.

Let’s explain it with a well-known example. A user searching for “best pizza near me” in Google will get geo-targeted results (showing pizza places near the user’s location) and paid advertisements. These ads generate income for the search engine.

So, monetizing search implies giving users the best results for their queries and enhancing their search experience by including ads that complement their search.

The Search Advertising Market

Companies are spending more on search advertising than social media, video, and banner ads combined, according to the Statista Digital Market Outlook.

The greater part of Google’s advertising revenue comes from search ads, which are expected to reach $171.6 billion in 2021.

Advertising revenues

Source: Statista

Brands realize that investing in search can be profitable, so the spending in search ads increased from $142.98 billion in 2019 to $171.68 in 2021 and is expected to reach $211.4 by 2025. Of the total search ad investing, the bigger percentage is on mobile ads.

Ad spending statistics

How do you know which ads fit better your users’ search? By understanding the user intent.

What Exactly Is User Intent?

The term user or search intent means the reason behind a user’s query on a search engine. For instance, researching information, looking for a place, product, or service.

It may seem simple. In reality, discerning a user’s intent from a few words typed into a search box can be challenging.

Challenges of User Intent

Ambiguity: Humans are typically ambiguous in their searches. Therefore, computers can struggle to solve these ambiguities when defining what the user is looking for.

Fractured intent: This happens when a person types a generic term, for example, “marketing software.” The user could be looking for a) information about marketing software b) learning about the uses of marketing software c) looking to find the best marketing software.

Favored and explicit intent: Favored intent happens when the search engine prefers some type of intent. For instance, Google tends to favor queries that look for a comparison. An explicit intent is self-explanatory, happening when the user types exactly what they want.

Types of User Intent

Despite the challenges, user intents can be grouped into some general categories:

Local intent: these queries typically include the name of a location or the term “near me.”

Local search intent

Informational intent: For example, “What is a derivative.” Here the user is looking for information about a subject. This intent should be matched with informational content.

Informational Search Intent

Comparative intent: An example would be when the user adds words like “best,” “cheapest,” “top,” indicating they want to compare different products or services.

Transactional intent: Searches that start with “buy,” “get,” “find” describe the purchasing intention of the user.

Why is it important to understand the user’s intent?

When you match the user intent with relevant ads, you make sure the ad answers the user query. Therefore, there are more chances of the user clicking that ad. When you understand the user’s intent, you give them what they’re looking for. That’s why search monetization is so effective.

Increasing the odds by Improving the User Experience

Understanding how people search and what their intent is to improve the user experience. Most ads interrupt the user, getting in the way of the user activity. This type of advertising is not very useful because it may annoy the user.

A recommendation engine that operates with ad revenue doesn’t interrupt the user experience. On the contrary, it gives users exactly what they are looking for, enhancing the experience without feeling they are being marketed.

When you use search monetization in a mobile app, a website, or a browser extension, you’re improving the user experience.

Ways to Convert Traffic into Money

So far, we have explored what search monetization is and how people search. But what are the ways you can use to convert traffic into money?

1. Advertising

This is probably the most popular way to monetize a website or application. If, for instance, you have a website that gets traffic, you can sign up for an ad network. The network presents ads relevant to your visitors. When your visitor clicks the ad, you get paid.

Seems simple, right? Well, there are a few downsides to this type of advertising.

  1. To be profitable, you need to have lots of traffic and be in a highly competitive niche. That way, advertisers will bid top price on the ad network to place their ads on your site.
  2. In certain platforms, such as AdSense, once the user clicks on the ad, they leave the site, which means you lose an opportunity to continue marketing them.

If your site has a sizeable amount of traffic, you can always choose to place direct ads. By selling ad space, you get to negotiate directly with the merchant and set the price.

Related content: 

How to Monetize a Website

The best ad networks for publishers

2. Affiliate Marketing

We can define affiliate marketing as a form of commissioned sales. It connects publishers or influencers with brands looking to promote their products and services.

When you place a link to a product on your site, if the user clicks on the link, and makes a purchase, you get paid.

The publisher signs up to the network, choose which products or service they want to promote. The network gives them custom links that can track how many people are purchasing from their sites. Then, the publisher gets a small commission for each sale. Affiliate marketing networks act as middlemen between the merchant, the affiliate, and the customers.

Why join an affiliate network? The network can connect publishers to lots of brands, which makes it a popular way to monetize a website. Other benefits include:

  • You don’t handle payments directly.
  • You can choose products or services that relate to your audience
  • Some networks offer rewards.

There are also downsides:

  • Some networks offer very low commission rates.
  • The traffic requirements can be high for some sites.

3. Search Feed Monetization

One of the downsides of traditional monetization methods like advertising is that users leave the website when clicking on an ad or link. You can keep your visitors a bit longer by adding an in-site search feed.

A search feed is more than a site search bar. It returns results from all the web. By using a monetized search box, you can earn a commission each time a person conducts a search.

Search monetization software monetizes search results on a website, by matching target ads with the visitors’ search results by adding a code to the website. This software helps publishers monetize their digital assets by getting paid every time a visitor conducts a search and clicks on an ad from the search results.

Related Reads:

How Website Monetization Software Can Help Your Business

How to Turn Data into Cash

4. Sponsored Posts

Organic search can lead a user to a page on your website. If people are visiting the page, you can integrate sponsored posts to promote other people’s products. You can also write a review about the company’s products or services. If your site gets a lot of traffic, you can earn nicely for such posts.

What’s the catch? You need to have your SEO on top form to drive the right traffic to the post. This increases brand exposure and makes advertisers happy.

5. Email Lists

Your traffic is a great source of leads. Encouraging visitors to opt-in for your email list gives you an audience to market to on a regular basis. Consent is key to a successful mailing list. To get visitor’s email addresses, make sure you have a clear call to action on every page, which compels users to sign up for the email list. You can also add pop-ups and floating sign-up boxes. You can offer a freebie, like an e-book or guide in exchange for signing up.

Email marketing builds a relationship with your audience. When your audience is used to get valuable information from you, they are more likely to click through the affiliate offers or advertisements. The more your email list trusts your company, the easier is to convert them into paying customers.

How to Display Ads on Your Website

If you want to put ads on your site and monetize your website via display advertising and displaying ads, you have essentially two strategies:

  1. Do it yourself or 
  2. Join an ad network. 

Display advertising has many pros. Most importantly, start creating content, gain high-ranking digital product pages or landing pages, and then choose the space for ad placements. Display Ads have high conversion rates compared to other ads. You just have to ensure you will not allow too many ads on a single page because it looks spammy. If you join an ad network, you will probably not have that problem.

Place Ads Yourself

If you are a website owner, you have to choose to promote your ad inventory yourself. You’ll need to do all the work of contacting advertisers and negotiating with them the rates. You would also need to choose the ad space for ad placements. While this method could have been popular 30 years ago, since the appearance of programmatic advertising, almost all digital advertising nowadays is done via software.

Join an Ad Network

Start by joining an ad network so you can have access to potential advertisers who will bid on your site. Once you have access, you add the ad network code to your site on the specific ad placement. There are a lot of ad networks in the market, for example, Google AdSense. Many other online tools for website monetization can be found online.

Related content: 

Using an ad network is convenient, but if you want a comprehensive solution, you should look into a monetization platform like CodeFuel. With CodeFuel, you can monetize every digital property, sponsored content,  websites, apps, extensions with shopping and search ads, thus gaining more traffic and a higher monthly revenue.

CodeFuel works with top ad networks and premium advertisers, to maximize publishers’ ROI via a monetization strategy applied especially for your digital products.

How to Earn Money From Websites Traffic & Visits

Your website traffic is worth money. Here are some ways you can convert your Internet traffic into cash. 

  1. Ad a Search Feed to your site:  A monetized search bar increase pageviews and earns you money every time searches.
  2. Get paid for site visits: Some ad networks have a Cost-per-View option. CPV ads rate go anywhere from around 3 cents to 30 cents per view. However, prices for CPV ads vary baked on multiple factors.
  3. Ad affiliate links: If your site has engaging and relevant content, it can be worthwhile to ad affiliate links. When visitors click on a product link you place in a blog, you receive  commission. Keep in mind that the effectivenes of your SEO affects the success of your affiliate marketing strategy.
  4. Work on your SEO: All monetization strategies in the world cannot help if you have not enough traffic. Invest in your SEO so your website will be up in search results pages, and potential consumers can find you easily.
  5. Create paid membership website: A membership site is usually making his income from each paid membership that acquires. To give an example for such membership websites, you can think of a website for online courses that can be based on this monetization method. You pay a certain fee each month to gain access to that website and its content.

Optimize your Search Conversion with CodeFuel

Let’s summarize. To convert traffic into money, you need to give users what they are looking for, and present relevant ads that match the user intent. This allows you to monetize by adding advertising or sponsored links.

Different digital properties require different monetization methods. Are you an app developer? then you can monetize through in-app advertising, among other methods. If you are a website owner, then, maybe signing up for an ad network can do the trick.

CodeFuel search monetization solutions are geared to transform search into revenue. They allow capturing consumers at the moment their intent is the highest. By matching the publisher’s audiences to the right text, shopping ads, and premium news, you can enhance the user experience and earn a higher profit. Every search query returns a customized search results page optimized for the user’s query.

Desktop and mobile apps can also benefit from CodeFuel. The user intent-based search allows you to monetize your mobile app or browser extension. Context-based ads ensure a smooth user experience for your application, by presenting ads at key moments in the application usage. This encourages user engagement, increasing the monetization of your app. The solution integrates easily and offers detailed HUB reports.

Add the power of search monetization to your website, application, or browser extension. The more users search, the better their experience in your digital property, the more they convert, and the more you earn. There is a smart way to monetize your digital property.

Start monetizing the smart way, learn more about how CodeFuel helps publishers and app developers convert traffic into money. Sign up for CodeFuel today.

Maximize Your Google AdSense Revenue in 2023: 10 Earning Tips To Increase your Profit

Maximize Your Google AdSense Revenue in 2023: 10 Earning Tips To Increase your Profit

Your website can generate money outside your core business. After all, your digital real estate is worth money. If you wonder how you make money from publishing ads on your site, this article is for you. At CodeFuel, we constantly innovate and bring solutions to increase revenue for publishers. This post will give you an overview and tactics to make money with Google AdSense. Let’s begin.

What is Google Adsense in short?

To put it simple, Google Adsense is an ad network that enables publishers to monetize their content by displaying ads. It works programmatically, which means the ads are automatically selected according to a bidding system.

How does Google Adsense Work?

Google AdSense is a Google product that enables publishers to earn money by displaying ads on their websites, blogs, or YouTube videos. You get paid by Google when a visitor clicks on the ad or based on ad impressions, according to the type of ad.

The advertisements can be text, images, video, or interactive media. These ads are selected by an automated ad auction system. The auction selects the highest bidder among bidding users of Google AdWords.

Google selects the ads for your site by using different types of targeting:

  • Contextual targeting – they analyze the keywords used, the word frequency, and link structure to determine the webpage context and match the ads to it.
  • Placement targeting – this allows advertisers to choose where they want their ad to appear. These ads are selected by advertisers who think your site can be a match for their target audience.
  • Personalized targeting – advertisers can select sites that cater to a specific category, for example (musical theater lovers).
  • Run of Network targeting – this selection includes all sites in the AdSense network, but the explicitly excluded sites.

How Google Adsense Work

(Google)

Why does Google use an auction to select the ads? 

Advertisers on the Google Display Network bid to show their ads on AdSense. The ad auction ranks advertisers according to the bid and their Quality Score. Therefore, you get the advertisers who are willing to pay the most and have good quality.

Learn more about how Google AdSense works in this video:

How to Build a Passive Income Stream with Google AdSense

If you have a website with regular traffic, you can create passive income by selling ad space through AdSense. You don’t need to create a product or contact buyers directly because AdSense matches ads to your site based on its content and audience. 

AdSense in four simple steps:

  1. You sign up for Google AdSense and create an account.
  2. You make your spaces available by adding the code to your website or YouTube video. Advertisers bid to display their ads on your digital property via a real-time auction.
  3. The highest paying ad wins the bid and displays on the selected space on your website.
  4. You get paid for the ad clicks or impressions your website visitors generate.

Why is Google AdSense a good way to earn passive income? 

  • You leverage your existing website or YouTube channel
  • You don’t need to create ads or promote anything yourself.
  • The earnings will keep coming as long as you keep creating great content and driving traffic to your site

The average CPC in Google Ads is between $1 and $2. So, let’s calculate: 

Let’s say you have three ads displayed on your site: 

Ad A got 500 clicks = 500 * $1.5 =  750

Ad B got 1000 clicks – 1000 * $1.5 = 1500

Ad C got 250 clicks – 250 * $1.5 = 375

This is the amount the advertisers pay Google over the clicks.

From that amount, the publisher keeps a 68% according to Google. 

So let’s do the math:

  • 750 *68% =     510 +
  • 1500 *68% = 1020
  • 375 *68% =     255/1785

Are There Any Requirements for an AdSense Account? How do I apply? 

Google selects the sites that qualify for an AdSense account according to 12 eligibility criteria about you and your site:

You: 

  1. You must be over 18 years of age
  2. You must be the owner of your site and control it.
  3. You can’t use means that generate fake traffic

Your site:

  1. The content on your site must be unique and interesting
  2. The content must comply with Google Content Policies 
  3. If your site is inside a host partner, like Blogger or YouTube, you can apply for Google AdSense, but there are other eligibility criteria you need to meet.
  4.  The site must have clear navigation
  5. You cannot publish plagiarized content
  6. Your site should be at least six months old
  7. You need enough traffic.
  8. A site with a history of abusive experiences (fake messages, misleading practices) cannot apply.

Does it take long to get approved?

The time it takes for an account to be approved varies. Some sites get approved in 24 hours while others may take up to two weeks for approval.

  • The first thing you need to do is to verify your Google Account and your website ownership.
  • Please take in mind to fix any issues your site may have about the content, navigation, SEO, or traffic before you send your application. 

Types of Adsense ads

What types of ads are right for your site? Google AdSense provides a variety of ad types for you to choose from: 

1. Text ads

These are the ads in the form of simple text that often appear when you are searching for something in Google. They have a title, a short description, and a link going to the site. These ads can appear on your website or in Google searches.

For example, a search for women’s boots showed me two text ads from online retailers:  

Text ads

2. Display ads

These are the ads that you see typically displayed on web pages. Here are the basic three formats:

Horizontal

Display ads - Horizontal

Banner

adsense banner example

Vertical

Skyscraper

Skyscraper

Wide skyscraper

Wide skyscraper

Square

  • 250×250

Square -250

Small square (200 x 200) 

Small square (200 x 200)

4. Rich Media Ads

These interactive advertisements can be in image format, video or Html. There are three types of ads:

Dynamic image ads

These consist of animated text that appears when the user scrolls down the page. You can choose the size and type: vertical, horizontal, and square.

Video ads

This type of ads are presented by Google in several ad types:

Standard: non-skippable ads up to 20 seconds. This can appear in pre-roll, midroll, and post-roll slots.

Video ads

TrueView:  these ads let the user skip the video after 5 seconds. They can appear in the preroll and mid-roll positions, but require compliance to additional policies.

Creating Your First Ad Unit

What’s an Ad unit? One or more Google ads are the result of one piece of the AdSense ad code. Users can create, manage, and customize the ad units on their AdSense account. There are different types of ad units: 

  • Display ads – responsive and customizable.
  • In-feed – native ads that show inside a feed.
  • In – article – native ads that present between sections of an article.
  • Matched content  – ads that promote the content to visitors.
  • Link – presents relevant links that complement the content of the page.

So, how do you create your first ad unit? Let’s see

First, you need to sign in to your AdSense account and go to the Ads page. From your overview page, select the option by ad unit and Display ads. Give your unit a name so you can find it later.

You can select several options for your ad unit:

  • You can select the size
  • You can select if you want it to be responsive (we recommend you do!)

Once you save, you will get the code to copy and paste in the tags of your pages. If you are not sure how to do this, check Google’s code implementation guide. Click Done, and in a few minutes the ads will be on the page.

How to Earn Money From Google Ads?

Learning to make money advertising with Google Adsense may seem a challenge for beginners. You can display Google Ads on your website or your YouTube channel.

Here is a list of the top 10 tips to make money with AdSense:

  • Your website’s focus shouldn’t be on the ads. Ensure your website enhances the user experience and doesn’t look like you made it for AdSense. Of course, you want to monetize your website. But if you focus on delivering great content, the ads will add value to the site instead of cluttering it.
    • Improve your site’s loading time. Faster websites increase conversions. Several methods to optimize your site include reducing the number of images, optimizing the size and format, optimizing the cache, and reducing HTTP requests.
    • Be consistent when publishing content. While the frequency of your publishing will depend on the type of your website, you must publish consistently. Publishing new content attracts more visits to your website, which can translate into more AdSense clicks.
    • Choose the ad placement wisely. Where you place the ads can make all the difference in clicks and earnings. While it is better to have the ads above the fold, you should be careful not to clutter the space with too many ads. Google is punishing websites that show too many ads above the fold.
    • Use responsive ads First, it is better if you have a responsive website. That way your visitors can find you on desktop and on mobile. Once you made your website responsive, you can add Responsive AdSense units. With Responsive AdSense units, AdSense will serve the ad that best fits the available ad space in size and type.
    • Not all niches pay the same. Some industries will pay more for their ads than others. When you monetize with AdSense, there are two key factors to consider: the level of competition in your desired niche and how much you can earn from it. Big niches such as consumer goods, insurance, and finance compete hard. Some niches, such as Beauty, Health, Fashion, and Hobbies, offer innumerable smaller niches that can be profitable.
    • Standardize your ad sizes. When you set up the ads, you should use the sizes AdSense recommends as the most popular. The 728×90, 336 x280, and 300 x250 sizes have more demand.
    • A/B Test the ads. AdSense Experiment is a feature where you can test different versions of the same ad and check its performance. You may test different borders, colors, and formats. After a few days, you can see which one performed better.
    • Improve your AdSense Referrers. When you enter your Google Analytics account, you can check which referrers are generating AdSense revenue and invest more marketing efforts in them. For instance, you can get visitors from social media platforms to your website.
    • Follow the AdSense guidelines. Whatever you do to increase your AdSense earnings, don’t violate any AdSense guidelines. The full guidelines are here, but some highlights may include buying clicks or traffic, hiding ads, or inappropriate content surrounding the ads.

    What kind of websites work better for displaying Google Ads? 

    According to Google: blogs, news sites, forums and niche social networks, are the best options. Your website should comply with Google AdSense guidelines about appropriate content and traffic. While there is no minimum traffic threshold you need to meet, if you want to make money, you need decent traffic.

    Using different ad formats is also important if you want to keep the attention of your visitors. If you have a YouTube channel, you can also leverage ads and monetize your videos.

    How Much Can You Earn by Using AdSense?

    It depends on the competition and Cost per Click (CPC) of your niche. Google pays you per every click on your ads, but it takes a commission.

    Generally speaking, publishers get 68%, or 51% when using AdSense for reach. Depending on the niche, the commission can go from $0.20 to $15, with an average of $3 per click for publishers.

    Here are the most profitable niches in the US for 2021

    Best Adsense Niche
    Insurance
    Online Education
    Marketing and Advertising
    Attorney
    Internet and telecommunication
    Cost per Click (in US)
    $16
    $12.08
    $6.45
    $6.11
    $4.96

    Sources: SEMRUSH, Ahref. 

    How do you get paid? 

    Once you get your AdSense account and your ad units up and running, you should start getting payments from Google every month. Google pays you every month your earnings reach or are over $100. The company pays you directly, depositing to your bank account or via check (where available).

    What happens if you don’t reach $100 in earnings one month? The earnings accumulate until you do.

    How to check Adsense earnings? 

    Where can you see how much did you earn with AdSense? You can see the earnings in your homepage of your account. AdSense displays estimated earnings and finalized earnings.

    Let’s explain the terms: 

    • Estimated earnings: a ballpark idea of how much you’ll be going to earn according to your account activity this month so far.
    • Balance: Your earnings that have not yet been paid and it also shows the most recent payment.
    • Transactions: Here you can find the finalized earnings, what you will actually receive.

    Keep in mind YouTube earnings have a different homepage. Here is how to see the earnings of your YouTube channel:

    • Go to YouTube analytics
    •  Check the revenue tab

    The key metrics card shows the estimated revenue. You can also see which videos are performing well and earning more money.

    How Much Does Adsense Pay Per 1000 Views or Visitors?

    This will hugely depend on your niche, and your content. As a range, Google AdSense pays from $0.2 to $0.25 per pageviews.

    Here are some examples of earnings on sites targeting North America (Tier 1):

    Category
    Finance
    Home and Garden
    Health
    Food and Drink
    Beauty and Fitness
    Payout per 1000 pageviews
    $32.13
    $23.35
    $17.40
    $14.33
    $13.01

    How much do you earn will depend of your zone, (Tier1 websites earn more than others), and your site’s category. Check the AdSense calculator to know more. 

    The average Cost per Mille that you receive from your content can be $4 to $6 per 1000 views in developing countries.

    Pros and Cons of Monetizing with Google AdSense 

    Pros
    It’s free.
    You don’t need to create your ads, Google does it for you.
    You can monetize multiple sites from a single account.
    It is technically passive income, so in theory, you don’t need to put on a lot of effort.
    Cons
    You need to earn at least $100 to get paid.
    You cannot use another ad network if you are using AdSense.
    You can get your account blocked for policy violations.
    It requires a lot of traffic to make a reasonable amount of money.
    Too many ads may annoy your visitors.

    9 Tips for Making Money With Adsense (And What Not to Do!)

    Having steady earnings with AdSense requires a strategy and following the rules. Whether you are new or already have an account and want to increase your AdSense Ad Revenue, here’s what you should and shouldn’t do when monetizing your site with AdSense: 

    • Follow Google policies: read and follow the Google Publisher policies, AdSense program policies, as well as webmaster policies.
    • Don’t click on your own ads
    • Don’t pay per click: giving incentives for clicks, buying Pay Per Click (PPC) space or any other way to give rewards for clicks is against Google policies.
    • Provide valuable content: giving your target audience content they want to read ultimately leads to them clicking on the ads and making money.
    • Build organic traffic: optimize for SEO, optimize the content to attract organic traffic.
    • Make sure your site is responsive: let your target find you where they are.
    • Optimize the layout and format of the ad: having ads above the fold test ad types and placement, have a leaderboard ad next to your logo.
    • Use in-content ads: native ads that blend with the content has a higher chance to be seen and clicked on.
    • Monitor, analyze, refine: check your results and tweak your strategy accordingly.

    Alternatives to AdSense – Other Ad Network Programs

    Although AdSense can be a great option to monetize your site, it is not the only way. In fact, there may be other monetization alternatives that are better for your site:

    • CodeFuelour complete platform increases your revenue by engaging searches, text ads, shopping ads, and news on your website, blog, or search page.
    • Affiliate Marketing – these kinds of programs work when someone clicks on a link on your page. They are usually free to add to your website.
    • Sponsors – to attract sponsors, you need to have a decent amount of traffic and influence with your audience. You can get your entire site or a single page sponsored.
    • Sell your product or service – you can always sell your product, merchandise services.

    Mind-blowing Google Advertising Stats

    Which ad sizes are the most popular in Google AdSense? 

    Ad Sizes
    160 x 600
    468 x 60
    336 x280
    300 x 250
    728x 90
    % of publishers
    11
    11
    18
    24
    36

    It’s a Wrap!

    Well, that was a handle!. As you can see from this guide, there are many ways to earn income from a website, both with AdSense and with alternative sources. Keep in mind that most income sources require two key factors: great content and enough traffic to make money. This is where CodeFuel is a good option to monetize your site. 

    CodeFuel offers a complete solution to monetize your content, presenting relevant ads in searches, pages, and blogs. The ads increase user engagement and provide a great user experience to your audience. 

    Learn more about how to monetize your site with CodeFuel.

    FAQs

    How much does Google Adsense pay per pageview?

    The rate you’ll get from Google AdSense, will depend on the zone your website is registered, where your traffic comes from and your content category. The range can go from $0.2 to $0.25 per pageview. Tier 1 zone websites — with traffic coming from North America, Europe and developed countries—, get a better payout than countries in development.  How does Google Adsense pay in India? 

    With a decent amount of traffic, you can expect 800INR per 1000 pageviews on average. It will depend on your niche. Let’s have an example with 50,000 views per month in a food and beverage category. 

    Amount of pageviews/month= 50,000

    Annual estimated earnings = $7044

    How to earn money from Google Adsense without a website?

    Websites are not the only thing you can monetize with AdSense. You can also monetize a YouTube channel and incorporate ads to your videos. 

    How long does it take to get your AdSense Account Approved?

    It usually takes a few days but it can take up to 4 weeks. AdSense send you an email when the account is fully activated. 

    How Much You Can Earn With Google AdSense?

    This will depend on your traffic and niche, but generally speaking, publishers get 68% of each click. If using AdSense for reach, you get 51% .