I’d like a few hundred thou, Mr. Paulson, ‘kthanks!

by Sapphire (September 29, 2008)

I’ve been hard at work with my sites, and one thing that’s fallen by the wayside is keeping up with the internet marketing blogosphere. I have no idea what’s going on these days, and I haven’t even found time to come in here to post. That is hopefully about to change.

Last year, I was within site of making $400/month, and then text link ads tanked and so did my earnings. It wasn’t that I was relying on text link ads - I actually knew better than to rely on any one thing like that - but I hadn’t managed to get anything else to take off like they did.

This year, I’ve finally managed to get my earnings back up to a steady $250+ that’s not reliant on traffic spikes or anything unpredictable. I think I just did something that will bring that up closer to $300. Which is still nowhere near my goals, of course, but hopefully I’m building on a more solid foundation this time. I’ll be in trouble if BlogHer folds, but I guess somebody’s got to be your biggest earner.

Here’s what I’ve learned recently:

• I did a side by side test of AdSense and BlogHer on one of my fairly popular blogs. BlogHer won hands down, earning me about three times what AdSense did.
• I’m suddenly earning a little bit with AdBrite again, and if only I could see which ad units are generating the income, I’d have a better idea where to replace AdSense with them for a test there. Unfortunately, their tracking is so lousy that when I go into the view that shows you which zones are earning what, the total earned in that screen never comes anywhere near your actual monthly total. So you can’t tell where the clicks are coming from. That’s ridiculous.
• I make money with CrispAds by not running it. For some reason, they keep sending me checks for about $11 worth of earnings every three months, and their tracking stats indicate the earnings are coming from places where I haven’t run CrispAds in years.
• I still haven’t got a clue about monetizing or marketing sites. This sucks. I can build good sites and eventually get them some decent traffic. But I don’t know how to build on that traffic through advertising, and I don’t know how to turn the kind of money they should be turning with the traffic they have. I still feel so stupid about this.

And that’s where I’m at. Gosh, I hope the Treasury gives me some free money to prop up my failing business!*

*Little joke not intended to start political debate. I just figure if other people are getting hundreds of million, surely they can give me a little chunk.

Posted in Affiliate Marketing
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