I am averaging 60 million page views a month...no ads tho..how much am i missing out?

[conceptart]

Hello,

I am the founder of a large online digital art and entertainment art community which is averaging the following stats:

1. 60 million page views per month
2. 1.2 million visits per month
3. 700k uniques per month

75 percent is american traffic the rest is europe mostly.

the demographic is mostly 16-35 year old males (the video game crowd with a creative education) very tech savvy...most educated and highly talented.

we have extremly high quality and unique content including tons of exclusive art for major video game and movie projects that go up in our community.

nearly every major entertainment corporation has members on our website, from microsoft to sony to ea to nintendo to ILM to Weta Digital...you name it, they are on there.

we run the site as a non-profit organization and have always spurned ads. we fund the community through training workshops which bring out most the big companies and about 300 art school students each shot at about five hundred bucks a head. We also have dvd educational content and downloadable art education content for sale that does very well.

Now, today we were pushed to do advertising by another company due to our traffic numbers and I am seriously wondering...how much are we missing out on by continuing down the "no way do we sell out" path. It seems that CPM advertising is the best way to go but it also seems like rates have gone way down over the years.

Most the sites I am finding with sixty million page views a month are claiming a 20k-70k a month revenue stream. This is not possible is it? It seems way bloated to me for just having some banners up.

Any advice is appreciated. We give all our money back to the community in form of scholarships, educational programs, and improved technology (the galleries are currently down for updates).

Are we making a mistake by not doing ads? Is there really significant revenue to be had with traffic numbers like ours? It is of note, that our traffic has doubled every year for five years in a row. We are about to undergo a major expansion into other niches and we are reconsidering our biz model.


Best,


CA

[viswablr]

A 10000 page views per month normally earns a minimum of $10 per month in adsense.

So 60 million page views per month can approximately earn:

10/10000 * 60000000 = $ 60K

But, after running ADs, your site may lose some loyal visitors. So page views per month may come down.

[janhvizdak]

@viswablr : wrong. No real calculation.

@conceptart : Everything depends on unique vists. CPM ads are not worth it, use CPM (adsense for example) instead. You claim to have 700K unique visits. Now, say that every 10-th visitor clicks on the ad. This means 70K clicks every month because it is proven that returning visitors don't click on ads as much as new ones do. With average $0.1 per click you can get $7000 per month.

[viswablr]

Originally Posted by janhvizdak

@viswablr : wrong. No real calculation.

@conceptart : CPM ads are not worth it, use CPM (adsense for example)

You may want to rephrase the above

[janhvizdak]

Originally Posted by viswablr

You may want to rephrase the above

Yes. CPM -> CPC.

[BWDir]

if you use adsense you have great chances to earn up huge amounts! if they pay you high PPC

[CodeR]

Gosh i never actualy knew how to earn money from trafic, anyone care to explain

[cldnails]

ConceptArt, how about going a different route and not necessarily 'Selling Out' because it sounds like you do have a loyal community that would appreciate traditional BANNERS and Adsense. What about doing some well placed affiliate links, that you yourself endorse.

The demographic you describe should be perfect for affiliate sales. Perhaps instead of embedding it on all your pages, try baby stepping in, to gauge the reaction. For example, setup a 'yoursite' store page, where you contain affiliate links targeted at video game enthusiasts, etc.. Hell, even a nice ebay affiliate link should generate some good revenue for the amount of visitors you receive.

[jerdei]

cldnails said it best. I would use related affiliate product links and graphic that are not intrusive and blend well with the site. Try that first before slapping adds all over.