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

7 points by lerix ↗ HN
Hi guys,

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

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?

5 comments

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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.

lerix
thank you, really appreciate the insights.
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.

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.
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).