Web sites generate direct revenue in two possible ways, either by charging subscription fees or selling advertising space. Subscription fees are straightforward, and so long as the web site provides something are people are prepared to subscribe to, they are effective. Subscription fees are most notably charged by erotic web sites, but also by some well renowned publications such as the Oxford English Dictionary and Encyclopaedia Britannica.
Selling advertising space is more complicated, but offers opportunities to a wider range of web sites, most notably 'free' web sites. Advertising space may be sold either directly, or through one of a number of third-party agencies who in return for a percentage of the revenue, act as a broker between web site publishers and those wishing to advertise. Advertisers generally wish to spread their advert over a wide range of web sites to maximise their exposure, and as such tend to use agencies more than direct advertising with a web site. There are a number of notable and reputable web advertising agencies including: Adtegrity.com, Adbrite.com, Casalemedia.com, Valueclick.com, and Linkworth.com. These agencies provide advertising to web site publishers, and pay after the adverts have been displayed, often between 30 days and 90 days after the end of the month. Larger advertising agencies will only accept web sites that generate a larger amount of traffic, or readers.
Better agencies will monitor the effectiveness of advertising campaigns presented on different web sites, and will supply advertising campaigns which generate higher eCPM revenues. However, since a web site can only display so many adverts, web site publishers should not be complacent, and should monitor the eCPM of campaigns being supplied and should reject campaigns which are not earning revenue. Similarly, agencies frequently do not have any advertising to supply to a web site, and in these circumstances will deliver either non-paying adverts either for charity or default adverts created by the web site publisher to fill the gaps. Default campaigns can often be adverts supplied by a different advertising agency, thus allowing a web site publisher to deal with a primary agency, and fill gaps in advertising with campaigns from one or more secondary agencies. A typical scenario may be to use Valueclick as a primary supplier of advertising. Valueclick allows up to ten 'default' advertising campaigns to be created for each different advert format. A publisher may then create a default banner advert to be supplied from the Casale agency when no primary Valueclick banner format advert is available. Similarly, Casale allows one default advert to be created for each advert format, and a publisher may then create a default banner advert to be displayed when Casale doesn't have a banner advert to display either, thereby maximising potential earnings.
No matter whether a web site sells directly to an advertiser or through and agency, adverts come in two basic payment forms: CPC or 'cash-per-click', whereby the publisher recieves an amount each time the advert is 'clicked' by a visitor to the web site; and CPM or 'cost-per-impression', whereby a publisher is paid for each time an advert is displayed. A third system, whereby an advert is displayed for a period of time such as a month or a week is much less common. Both main systems can be measured and compared with a third variable known as the eCPM or 'effective CPM', this being the actual revenue paid to a publisher for each thousand adverts displayed. Some CPC adverts attract a great deal of reader interest and can generate a higher eCPM than some CPM adverts.
Web site adverts come in various standard forms: pop-ups and pop-unders, where a separate web page is opened containg the advert when a reader visits a publisher's web page. These tend to be annoying to readers, and are often capped so that an individual is only delivered one pop-up advert within a given time scale, usually twenty-four hours. Even more controversial are interstitial adverts. Interstitial adverts are a format of advert that appears between page views. When a reader clicks on an interstitial advert enabled link, they are redirected to an intermediate advertising page where they will be presented with an advert for a short period, typically ten seconds after the advert finishes loading. Afterwards the reader is automatically redirected to the URL from the original link. This type of advert is very annoying to readers, and like pop-ups are usually frequency capped so that a reader is not presented with subsequent interstitial adverts within a certain time frame. Interstitial adverts work where the reader has a valuable prize at the end, for example when clicking a link for a free download of software. InVue is an advertising format in which the advert 'floats' into view when a user visits a web page, covering over part of the existing page. These are similarly annoying to readers and are typically frequency capped so that readers are not presented with more than one InVue advert within a given time frame. Other advertising formats are less intrusive and generally more popular with readers, and as such attract lower advertising rates. These include banners, skyscrapers, rectangles, medium rectangles and text links.
Banner adverts are among the most common and least intrusive advertising media. They come in two standard sizes; 468x60 pixels and a larger 728x90 size and typically must be displayed towards the top of a web page.
Skyscraper adverts evolved later than banner adverts and are displayed vertically, coming in standard sizes of 120x600 pixels and wider 160x600 pixels. Typically skyscraper adverts must be displayed towards the top of a web page, and are less popular with advertisers than banner adverts.
Medium rectangle adverts are large, 300x250 pixels, adverts that like abnner adverts and skyscrapers are incporprated within a web page.
Rectangle adverts are smaller than medium rectangle adverts, at 180x150 pixels, but are again incoporated within the web page.
Half-page adverts evolved later than the other incorporated advert formats and are large, 300x600 pixels, skyscraper-type adverts which are incorporated within the web page.
Text-link adverts take two forms. They are either a simple text link somewhere within the body of a web page, or, more commonly, are one or more text-only adverts within one of the other standard sized incorporated advert formats - banner, skyscraper, medium rectangle, or rectangle. Text-link adverts tend to be sold as CPC, the most commonly encountered being those from the search engine Google that sells text-link adverts under its 'AdSense' program, and from Israeli firm Targetpoint, while Linkworth and Adbrite both enable web site publishers to set their own price for displaying a text-link advert for a period of time. Research Making Money With A Web Site
The Probert Encyclopaedia was designed, edited and programed by
Matt and Leela Probert
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Research Making Money With A Web Site
