HN Explorer

Made the front page of reddit: 60x traffic, only 8x revenue

12 points by cvshane ↗ HN
Last month one of my niche sites made it to the front page of reddit (in the TIL subreddit). Thought it was interesting that I got a huge influx of traffic (20k visitors), but only an additional $12 in ad revenue.

Lesson learned: Not all traffic is created equal!

11 comments

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minimaxir
That implies about $1-2/CPM. Which is not an unusual value.

20k visitors for the front page of Reddit sounds low, though. I've hit the front page (with http://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/2ac8ba/who_... , also a default subreddit) and I received 150k visitors.

cvshane
150k wow! Maybe the subreddit subscribers perform differently, or I wasn't on the front for that long. It did have over 1800 votes though
1123581321
You'll see quite a bit more traffic if you get over 3,000 votes. Seeing the 3k or the 4k threshold is a quality signal for reddit's more casual browsers.
cvshane
Here's the monthly report that has my detailed numbers, if you're curious: http://www.sideprojectprofit.com/july-2014-profit-report/
unsquare
What kind of bounce rate do your normally get from organic traffic vs the Reddit traffic?
cvshane
Bounce rate is pretty similar (actually better), 55% organic, 50% from reddit.
unsquare
Interesting, was expecting a higher number. Did it translate in a higher time on site as well?

On the 20k, it's actually low for Reddit, but it's so volatile and random, i've had posts generating 185k+ views for around the same amount of points in active sub reddits.

awor
I would bet (no citation) that a lot of Reddit users use AdBlock compared to the average web user
cvshane
That's a great point, completely agree
_delirium
Did you adjust for time spent on site and/or bounce rates?

I've found this kind of temporary traffic burst from high-profile sites is often very transient traffic, people clicking on a link out of curiosity because they saw it somewhere, with a very high bounce rate. It's the kind of traffic from people who open 30 tabs and then briefly visit each one. Doesn't matter (at least for my sites) whether it's Reddit, Slashdot, HN, an NYT Blog, etc.—almost never has the same CPM as "regular" traffic, regardless of the burst source. Visitors who come via organic search or bookmarks are much more likely to spend more than 1 second on the page and read/interact with something.

cblock811
Getting on the front page of these communities is great but I wouldn't solely look at them as a source of customers. Sometimes you have to create awareness before you have enough credibility for people to sign up. This is especially true for developers. Devs are more difficult to sell.