

Ask HN: How much can I make with 20k users - lerix

Hi guys,<p>I have a little side project that aggregates a small community of gamers. I am currently getting about 20k uniques per month, but can potentially grow much more<p>If i was to sell ads on the website, how would the revenue model work? How much would i make? Any suggestions for other revenue models?
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jeromeparadis
Well, it's a space with a lot of competition and the top paying ads go to the
sites with millions of pages views. Ads are paid by CPM (cost per thousands)
and the best paying ads are 10$ to 20$ CPM. So if you have 3 page views by
Uniates, you can expect to make 600$ per month at most. In reality it would
probably be a fraction of this. The ad market, especially in the US is
trending towards lower CPMs even if the overall industry is investing more
money.

Some models where you have a very targetted niche involve sponsoring content,
reviews, videos, contests or events. But usually, you need a niche advertisers
can't easily reach to make good money.

In general, don't expect to make a living unless you invest a lot of time in
deals and grow your page views.

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lerix
thank you, really appreciate the insights.

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illdave
While it varies from case to case, have you considered running affiliate
offers instead of just regular banner ads? Might be worth testing - if you
could get banners up advertising the next big game, you can earn a commission
if they pre-release through your ad. I've found that can often earn more than
regular display ads, but might be worth testing. (By the way, while Amazon
converts well, it only has a cookie length of 1 day, while most others have a
cookie length of around 30 days, so you could also try testing different
affiliate merchants).

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dieselz
This question can't really be answered as asked. Different industries yield
different CPC/CPM rates. Additionally, how your users interact with the ads
would also effect your revenue.

If you can monetize your user base through other means, such as creating a
paid Pro version of your service, or a SaaS app marketed to your users, you
have the opportunity to make more money than just advertising.

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revorad
You might make more money selling physical or virtual goods than from ads. As
jeromeparadis pointed out, you need millions of pageviews and a good CPM to
make even a decent sum.

