Presentation from 2009 US Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa, California. How To Monetize your Blog.

1. MonetizeYour Blog
How-to Tips

2. • Tim Lemke
• Wine blogger for over 2 years
• Day job in Interactive marketing for
Barefoot Proximity (a BBDO agency)
(no relation to Barefoot wines)
Who Am I?

3. • Wines & Vines offers a comprehensive collection of products
providing news, information, marketing and research
capabilities for the wine and grape industry
• The flagship monthly magazine provides a wide range of
solutions to give those in the industry the tools they need to
be successful
Thanks to Our Sponsor

4. This Session is NOT About...
• Whether or not to monetize
• Ethics
• A secret formula to Internet millions

5. This Session IS About...
• How to generate income from your blog...
at least a little bit
• Mostly advertising-based revenue, but we’ll
discuss some other options too
• Giving you actionable steps to start
monetizing or improve how you’re doing it

6. Monetizing with Ads

7. Prerequisites to Monetize with Ads
• You need a blog (or similar web property)
• Your own root domain
• Traffic... Preferably lots of it
• Basic HTML knowledge, or a friend with it
• Privacy Policy
• Ideally, set up a LLC & get an EID

8. Lingo
• CPM = Cost per mille (thousand)
• CPC = Cost per click
• CPA = Cost per action

9. CPM is a Good Base Measure
How much can you make?
50,000 Page views
x 3 Ads per page
= 150,000 Ad impressions
Average $1.00 CPM = $150 per month
Average $2.00 CPM = $300 per month
Average $3.00 CPM = $450 per month
Maximize traffic, page views & CPM to maximize your profits

10. Don’t Be a Douchebag
“If CPC = Cost per click, then I can just click
on my ads and watch the money roll in!”
- Foolish Douchebag

11. Ad Formats
• Banners
• Text ads
• Video ads
• Image ads
• Contextual text ads
• Sponsorships

12. Where to Find Advertisers
• Google Adsense
✓ Easy to become an
Adsense publisher
✓ Can be ugly and can
cheapen your site
✓ Can be tuned for a
better experience and
effectiveness

13. Where to Find Advertisers
• Affiliate Marketing
✓ Pay for performance
based on conversions
✓ Subscriptions and high
-commission items
are most profitable
✓ Works better in some
genres than others

14. Where to Find Advertisers
• Ad Networks
✓ Provides scalability for
advertisers
✓ Many have minimum
traffic or exclusivity
requirements
✓ Requires active
management to get
best CPMs

15. Where to Find Advertisers
• Direct Sales
✓ Eliminates the middleman, making it more lucrative
✓ Can be most effective for advertisers, but can also be
inefficient for advertisers
✓ Requires a lot of work

16. Revenue Opportunities
Direct Sales Sponsorship >
Direct Sales CPM >
Ad Networks CPM >
Google Adsense CPC >
Affiliate Marketing CPA*
*Usually

17. Optimize Banner Size/Placement
• Use IAB Standard Sizes
✓ Leaderboard
✓ Medium Rectangle
✓ Wide Skyscraper
• Place within 500 pixels
of top

18. How to Get Ads onYour Site
• Insertion Code
✓ Ad Networks &
Affiliate Marketing
Networks provide
insertion code.
✓ Can be JavaScript,
iFrame or just HTML
✓ Ad serving apps can
generate code too
<div style="text-align: center;">
<script type="text/javascript"><!--
adroll_width = 728;
adroll_height = 90;
adroll_a_id = "PNF5YX2YT5GV7AOYFO7T5F";
adroll_s_id = "MH3KJ42IUZEOTIBJQ5SIET";
adroll_render_link = false;
//--></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="http://c.adroll.com/j/
rolling.js"></script>
</div>

19. Ad Serving Applications
• Help you to manage
inventory
✓ Define spaces
✓ Define advertisers
- Define campaigns
- Define ads
✓ Associate advertisers
with spaces
✓ Assign weighting,
rotations and limits

20. DefaultViews
• When an ad network, Google Adsense or your own ad
serving application doesn’t have a paid ad available it fills
the space with a default view.
• Remnant inventory = lost revenue
• Ad chaining helps minimize revenue loss from remnant
inventory

21. Ad Chaining
Direct Sale Ad (not available, default to) >
Ad Network 1 (not available, default to) >
Ad Network 2 (not available, default to) >
Affiliate Marketing Ad

22. Ad Chaining (advanced)
Direct Sale Ad (not available, default to) >
Ad Network 1 (if CPM < $3.00, default to) >
Ad Network 2 (not available, default to) >
Affiliate Marketing Ad

23. Ad Chaining (making your head spin)
Ad Server Ad Network 1
Ad
Available
Ad > $1.00
CPM
Ad Server
Default Ad
Rotation
Affiliate
Program
Google Adsense
Display Ad Display Ad
Display Ad
Display Ad
50%
50%
NO NO
YES YES

24. Traffic IS Important
Be Transparent
about your traffic...
get Quantified

25. Create a “Media Kit”
Look at successful sites
for examples of what you
can do for a media kit
Here’s a snippet from
icanhascheezbuger.com
You can get info like this
from Quantcast & Google
Analytics

26. Other Ways to Monetize

27. Text Ads
• Beyond Google text
ads, some advertisers
just want to buy links
✓ Not CPM-based
✓ Either CPC or a flat
rate per time period
• Use a “nofollow”
attribute in links or risk
getting nerfed by Google

28. Find a Sponsor
• Site sponsorships can be unobtrusive and associate
your equity with a brand
• This may require a custom layout for your sponsor, and/
or a site-wide ad takeover

29. Write an eBook and Sell It
• If you’re really smart and think you can write something
worth paying for, write an e-book
• The play here is not to just write it and sell it, but get
others,“affiliates” to sell it for you and pay them a cut...
pay them at least 50%

30. Subscription Model
• If you think your content is
really good and worth
paying for it, try switching
to a subscription model
• Appellation America
recently switched to
subscription
• Good luck with this one

31. PromoteYourself onYour Blog
• Use your blog to generate offline business
opportunities
✓ Promote your wine business
✓ Offer wine consulting
✓ Speak about wine at events & parties
✓ Write about wine for others willing to pay you

32. WaterboardYour Readers
• Pop-under ads and other
invasive technologies can
pay well
• Contextual text ads can
pop ads on mouse-over
and send your readers
running to the hills
• Mouse-over ads are also
available for images, but
lack context

33. Become the Scourge of the Blogosphere
• There are companies
that will pay you to blog
about their products
• Typical rates are $5-10
per post
• Disclosure that it’s a
sponsored post is highly
recommended, if not
required

34. Questions?