Advertising 202 took you through which ad providers to use and why.

Advertising 303 is going to take you through how to make money. Whoo! However, I’ve already touched on a lot of this in my previous articles, so I’m going to start out by repeating myself.

—

The first way to increase revenue generated from displaying ads is to give the ads priority in your site design, whether those ads are served from ADSDAQ or Project Wonderful. I realize this goes against everything a webcomic site is supposed to be about (ie, you and your comic), and I don’t care, because I want to make money too.  By “priority” I mean placing ads before your site’s content, in this case, your comic. So, a leaderboard ABOVE your comic, a tower to the LEFT of your comic, and other ad sizes where available (example, a 300×250 box directly beneath your comic, not beneath your news area).  Ad providers generally offer two types of ads: above the fold, and below the fold. You get paid MORE for displaying above the fold ads, obviously.

Please keep in mind that even if these ads are given priority over your comic, people keep coming back FOR your comic, and no, ads will not make people stop coming back unless you completely overboard.  Mike, a commenter here, mentioned something called “ad blindness” a bit back, where internet viewers no longer even see ads.  It holds true. They see your content, and ignore the ads for the most part, which is EXACTLY the reason to get paid more, you need to put the ads before the content, so they [the ads] perform better.

What you DON’T want to do is place ads where people much scroll, either horizontally or vertically, to see them, unless they are specifically “below the fold” ads.  Sometimes this means you have to change your layout (DESIGN FOR THE ADS) or change your content (ex, no more wide-screen content).  What you also don’t want to do is allow “takeover” ads on your site, pop-ups, pop-unders, or ads that are expandable without hovering. These ads are a deterrent, and if you’ve got an archive of 50 or more pages, with these ads displayed on every page, NO ONE is going to read your comic.  Moderation is key, as well as taking care of your audience.  These types of ads can be turned off in your admin areas on Burst Media and ADSDAQ, and are obviously not allowed through Project Wonderful.

—

The second way to make more money is specifically for context-based advertisers like ADSDAQ.  These companies read the text on your page and then serve you ads that have something to do with that text. If you have little text on your page, you don’t get many ads (if you have no text, your application will not even be accepted).  These companies are NOT INTERESTED in serving ads that have nothing to do with your audience’s interests, and why should they be? It’s lose-lose for them and the people advertising if performance is horrible! Which is why having readable text on your page is extremely important.

But the question then becomes “well, what text should I have on my pages?”

• Text about specific current events, politics, technologies, culture, or media RELEVANT to your audience.
• Text about specific places you visited, how you got there, what you bought, where you went, with what transportation service, etc.
• Text about specific companies, items, things you want to buy, gifts, holidays.

The key is being specific enough to get ads.  For example, let’s say I’m blogging about myself beneath my comic:

Hey guys! Yesterday I drove an hour to visit my friend and hang out with her. We checked out a bunch of things at the mall, but I didn’t buy anything.  We thought about seeing a movie, but decided instead to go out to eat. All in all, it was a fun day.

That is so vague that the only keywords I can find are “mall” and “movie.” This is not going to increase my fill rates much. Now, what if I transformed that into this?

Hey comic readers! Yesterday I drove to Rochester to visit my friend and have some fun at the local shopping mall called “the Medley Center.” We shopped for half the day, checking out stores like The Gap, Bon Ton and Dick’s Sporting Goods. I didn’t buy anything, but I found this fabulous athletic outfit that is just so cute! It’s Nike too (which was probably why it was so expensive! D:) We thought about seeing a movie at the theatre, perhaps the new James Bond flick Quantum of Solace, or maybe a comedy like Four Christmases, but decided to go eat at Outback Steakhouse instead. It was a great day, but wow, post-Thanksgiving at the mall is tough! I can’t even imagine what Christmas shopping will be like! It was still a lot of fun though!

This time, I highlighted the keywords for you (I went a little overboard, but I wanted to you get the general idea).  Mentioning CURRENT events/holidays gets you in on current ad campaigns that will shoot up your fill rates. This is why it is so important to write or update your text OFTEN. If you don’t, you get in on the new campaigns.  I mention specific places to get in on the “Travel” ads.  I mention specific stores to get ads related to merchandise sold there. Specific movies because when movies first come out, there are a LOT of ads going around. Etc, etc.

If you’re still confused, here is a screenshot of possible ad categories displayed on my site.  My next goal is to work on increasing specific ones.

—

The third way to increase ad revenue is to join multiple ad networks and set up an ad chain (as discussed in Advertising 202). You can see in the above image of ad categories that I have a lot of default views because my fill rates are not 100%. My fill rate at ADSDAQ is on average 15%, which leaves 85% to send elsewhere.  I send it to Burst Media, where my fill rate is also 15%. I send the rest of the views to defaults of my choice, in this case, free advertising for comics I enjoy.  If I joined more networks, I would get paid for more pageviews, which is my goal!  I next would like to join Tribal Fusion, but my audience is not yet large enough.  Tribal wants 2k uniques a day. I’m about half-way there. :D

—

The fourth and final way (that I use) to increase ad revenue is something again mentioned in a comment. I advertise through Project Wonderful to increase my total pageviews, and I make more money from the higher CPM of ads my site displays than I lose paying for the advertising itself. Make sense? PW prices are so awesomely low that just about every webcomicker out there can afford it, with average CPM being under 20 cents (in my personal experience.) In contrast, normal market CPM is 2-4 dollars, or higher.  Most of us don’t even think about our ads on PW being in CPM, we think in CPC and click-thru rates.  A good ad with PW will have a CPC (cost per click) of 0-3 cents.   If it costs more than that, as a webcomicker, you’re being ripped off!

I’m going to quote that aforementioned commenter, JGray, here, as he beat me to it:

“…people should consider at least one Project Wonderful ad on their site. If everyone uses PW and no one publishes PW there won’t be a PW to use. Plus, a good way to pay for PW is to use the funds they give you for publishing.”

This means more ads on your site, but it’s nice because it funds your OWN advertising through PW if you have a PW slot on your site.

This is the end of Advertising 303!  Next up: Advertising 404: The in-depth tutorial on setting up ad chains and default campaigns. When I can get to it, as it will require quite a view screen shots and coding quotes.

Most people in webcomicdom know, use and love Project Wonderful. This post is not about Project Wonderful. PW is AWESOME for the average webcomicker looking to advertise his or her comic on another web-page  (advertiser). It is not so awesome for the person trying to make money by publishing ads on his or her page (publisher).  In the rest of this article, please be aware that when I say “publisher,” I’m saying “person who publishes ads on his/her site.”

Some more terms:

CPM=Cost Per Thousand Ad Impressions (mille=thousand in French, guessing the acronym is related). This is the unit in which ads are sold through most publishers. You are paid by how many thousands of pageviews you provide. Normal market CPM is $2-4.00 US for webcomics.  In contrast, I’ve never advertised on PW for a CPM over 20 cents.

CPC=Cost Per Click. Some ad providers pay by the click. This directly relates to the performance of the ads on your site, obviously. It’s not recommended that you run CPC ads, as you will generally make less money than with CPM campaigns.

Fill Rate= # of ads shown/total # pageviews. Most ad providers do not guarantee a 100% fill rate, unlike Project Wonderful (if someone is bidding, they get that spot 100% of the time, until they cancel the bid or run out of funds).

Default= when an ad space is not filled on a pageview, it may be sent your default: either an image of your choice, or another ad network.

Ad Chain= you can set up different networks to default to other ad networks. When your fill rate is 10-20% per network, but you set up your ads in a chain, you make more money by filling default views.

—-

So, if I don’t champion Project Wonderful for the Publisher, what do I suggest?  There are lots of other advertisers out there that pay by CPM or CPC*  For this article, I am only going to talk about the ones I personally use, have set up for others, or have heard only praise for by others.  I am also going to stress that you should not take the step to applying to ad providers until your site is up to par! That means SEO, webcomic website must-have’s, should-have pages, reguarly updated content, and that’s just the beginning! You can find my articles on these things in the archives on this blog. Check the categories section in the side-bar!  If you do not do these things, your site’s application will be rejected, and you’ll have to wait a couple months to resubmit!

Okay, now that I’ve added my disclaimer, I can move on to where to go! I recommend starting first with ADSDAQ. This is a context-based ad provider, meaning it reads the text on your site, and serves you ads that have something in common with your readership.  If your site does not have a lot of readable text, your site will be rejected.  ADSDAQ is also nice because it provides you with simple codes to install on your site, as well as the freedom to set your desired CPM. This means that you may set a very high CPM (and have a lower fill rate), a very low CPM (and have a very high fill rate), or your perfect CPM (with a medium fill rate.)

I recommend ADSDAQ because it allows small sites to join. Webcomic sites, or any image-intensive sites, must be careful when applying.  Webcomics/graphics compete with ads on the page, so an application will be quickly rejected if competition is too high.

I personally make $40-50 dollars a month with ADSDAQ (more now that I’ve optimized my site) by displaying 2 ad sizes. That’s up to $600 a year, which ain’t a LOT, but it’s far more than I would make with PW at 50 cents a day.  I have a steady 15% fill rate at 2.00 CPM, and I get on average 100k pageviews a month. I’m trying to increase the fill rate to 20-30%, if not more.  The key to making money with ADSDAQ is increasing your fill rate, and it will depend on your site’s content, your desired CPM, and your total pageviews. I am currently experimenting with including more text about current television series such as Heroes, NCIS, CSI, etc, as well as new movie releases in order to increase fill rates. By doing this, I increase fill rates for ads that have more in common with my audience, for example, the Hellboy II campaign that was shown 2 weeks ago.

—

After applying to ADSDAQ, learning the ropes of being a publisher, and optimizing your site even more, apply to Burst Media.  Burst is harder to get into than ADSDAQ, and is not context based. Instead, it allows you to choose which ads (and what CPM) you want to display on your page out of a list.  It also requires that your audience fill out a survey in order to determine your site’s demographics. You need a minimum of 200 responses to get better fill rates, so make sure your audience is big enough!

Since you’re in 2 networks now, you can set up an ad chain so that unfilled impressions are sent to the second network. Which ever network makes you more money should be placed first! (D’uh, right!?) I have ADSDAQ defaulting to Burst.  Before joining Burst, I had ADSDAQ defaulting to Project Wonderful. Be aware that when doing this, the PW stats graph DOES NOT INCLUDE PAGEVIEWS WHEN IT IS NOT DISPLAYED. However, due to misconceptions about this, PW default ads perform poorly.  People do not like to bid on them.  The one exception I know is the tower on Roza and the Horse Prince.

—

After ADSDAQ and Burst, you’ll want to apply to networks like Tribal Fusion and Gorilla Nation.  These are the big guys, and they require a minimum amount of visitors, UNLIKE the previous 2 networks.  They are context-based networks also, GN more than TF.  My site is too small to be accepted here.  There are many other ad networks out there, but most, like Google Adsense, make zilch for the average webcomicker.  Since I have no experience with them, I won’t write about them.

What I HIGHLY recommend is advertising through Project Wonderful, and publishing through these other networks.  For a comparatively inexpensive price, you can greatly increase your pageviews, and make MORE money from publishing than you spent advertising.  I also know there are plenty of webcomics out there with significantly more readers than mine, webcomics that are simply better, but make no money.  THERE IS A WAY. If I can make $600 a year on a hobby, others can be making thousands, easily. This is entirely without merchandising, which is something I think webcomics should not pursue until they have a steady income though publishing ads. There is simply so much involved in designing good merchandise odds are you won’t do it right until you’ve had more experience in knowing WHAT SELLS, and that includes ads on your site.

—

Up next: Advertising 303: Generating Ad Revenue and How it Relates to Content (and therefore, SEO).  I touched on it today, but tomorrow will include examples, screen shots, etc.

I give you now proof that it works:

This graph shows search engine referrals from May of this year until now, and is graphed by month, courtesy of Google Analytics (a free service you all should be taking advantage of). Yes, it is trailing down at the end, but a best-fit line will still show a positive slope, and the month isn’t over anyways. Yes, the percentages there are negative (in red), but that is contrasting the behavior of search engine referrals to the rest of the referrals I get–so of course people who stumble across my site via search engine won’t be as keen as the group of people who come to my site directly, knowing what they’re getting into.

The success that this graph shows is:

• 1) a distinct increase in the number of referrals per month since taking steps to optimize my site, and therefore…
• 2) a distinct increase in gaining NEW readers through search referral rather than direct webcomic-webcomic referral.

My goal was to gain new readers, real NEW readers, and I think I succeeded. This isn’t a “hey, I’m so great!” article. It is my intention that this article simply proves that if I can do this kind of thing, anybody can!  My degree is in biology, not um, computer science.  Everything I’ve learned has been the result of paying attention, and learning from people with experience. My goal with this blog is to pass all that experience on to you, so you don’t have to scrounge it up yourselves over the course of years.

For new readers of this blog who have their own sites, I will repeat myself about what SEO is, how it works, and why it’s something you should be doing for your own site:

[From this article] “…Why is it important to get more search referrals to your site? Because outside of webcomicdom, that is where sites get most of their visitors. Here, it’s the opposite. Most people visit our sites from direct links on OTHER sites. It means we get a small, in-bred audience, with few opportunities to catch a truly new reader. This is why it’s critical to improve your site’s Search Engine Optimization.”

SEO works by reading the text on your webpages. Search engines don’t see images, and webcomic sites are primarily composed of images, which is why traditionally, they don’t get many search referrals.  You can fix this problem by adding more text, cleaning up your code, inserting titles and alts for links and images, and relying less on images (well, text flattened onto images, especially if you’re not all to HTML/CSS savvy).

When you optimize your site for search engines, you also optimize your site for context-based advertisers, a service I champion as a way for webcomickers to make money.  As soon as I exhaust the articles on what you need to do to change your site, I will change focus to how to make money with your comic (AND your site.)

Interested readers can find more about that in a 2-part interview I gave at The Floating Lightbulb.

Next Up: Links and Gallery Pages: two great pages to have for “webcomic relations.”

ADDENDUM: I would like to apologize to those who have sent me emails within the past 72 hours. I have been phenomenally busy with website commissions, and have not responded to anyone.  I greatly appreciate your comments and your emails, and I will reply as soon as I have free moment. No, I am not ignoring you, I promise! I would also like to say that I flattered at the attention this blog is getting. I really had no idea so many people would find it helpful, and I will earnestly try to continue posting articles of substance. Thank you for visiting, everyone!

Of all secondary pages to have, the archive page is the most obvious one, and indeed, about 99% of comics have it. However, the format of the page seems to be beyond some people.  First, I will list what you should not do:

• Do not have your archive be a listing of “calendars.” This is most often seen on Comic Genesis sites.  A calendar contains no information about chapters, page titles, or filler pages you may have. The only thing it’s good for is showing people what your update days are, and/or how often you miss them.
• Do not list your archive by text-link, date only.  This is most often seen on ComicPress sites that have not been personalized.  This is just as bad as the “calendar” feature on Comic Genesis.
• Do not list your archive as shrunken-down “thumbnails” of the original comic files (make real thumbnail images instead).  It’s called a “thumbnail” for good reason: it’s small, and it loads fast! You may think you are being innovative, but you’re really being annoying, taxing your bandwidth, and taking up people’s time.*

When people visit your archive page, they are looking for a couple things. First time readers may want to know how large your archives are. For example, “This comic looks great, but I don’t have the time or energy to read an epic. I will check the archives to see how big/small it is.”  First time readers may also being trying to find a link to your first comic page, and this is often the fastest way.  Loyal readers will browse your archive to pull up a specific page they are looking for, or to re-read a part they liked a lot. This is why you should not have your archive set up by date or calendar. No one can find anything! Remember KEZ’s #1 webcomic website rule: make it as easy for the reader as possible. Not easy for YOU, for the reader.

Now that you have the “do not’s,” how about the “do’s?” When in doubt, go the archives of the most popular comic you read.  I choose you, Phoenix Requiem! See how the information is presented in a chronological AND chaptered way? What about Tales of Pylea?  Date, page number, chapter and page title, though ideally, the formatting of this page would be a little improved.  It can be hard when it’s automated, I know.  What about Xylia Tales?  Chapter cover image, chronological and chaptered order.  Ok, now what about my own archive?  I’ve taken everything I like about the previous examples, and then added my own flair: The War of Winds’ Archive.  I have a thumbnail image, chronological chaptered order, each page text linked, AND a written synopsis.  The written synopsis serves three functions: it is a refresher for long-time readers looking for a specific page, it gives a better idea what the story is about to new readers, and lastly, it provides textual content for context-based advertisers and search engines.

How could I improve my archive? I could add page titles as link titles and alts, as discussed in a previous article of mine.  I have the chapter cover image, the chronological order broken down by chapter, but I don’t have titled pages. If I included link titles, the final piece of information my own archive doesn’t offer, the page title, could be seen whenever you hovered over a page number. Why haven’t I done this? Well, I’ve got 270+ pages. That’s a lot of work. It’s on the list of to-do’s though!

So, to repeat myself in a coherent manner, for your archive page, do the following (only the first two are definitely necessary for 99% of comics out there):

• link every page. This can be done with a collapsible menu if your archive is extremely large, or be broken down into multiple webpages so as not to be overwhelming.  The only comic I know of who can get away with NOT linking every page is Sluggy Freelance, because there are thousands of comics.  Sluggy has an expandable dropdown instead. Be aware that an expandable dropdown does NOT replace an archive page!
• split up the page links by chapter or story arc.
• provide an image to represent each chapter or story arc.
• provide page titles to differentiate between separate comic pages.
• provide chapter synopses.

*ComicPress has an option for “archive by thumbnail.” If formatted correctly, and if your comic files sizes are rather modest, then this may be the option for you–especially if you have a black and white strip comic.  You could even set up the archive by week (well, past 7 strips), if you know how to do it. HOWEVER, you should also have a chronological and chaptered archive as well, especially if you have a large archive.

Of all secondary pages to have, the archive page is the most obvious one, and indeed, about 99% of comics have it. However, the format of the page seems to be beyond some people.  First, I will list what you should not do:

• Do not have your archive be a listing of “calendars.” This is most often seen on Comic Genesis sites.  A calendar contains no information about chapters, page titles, or filler pages you may have. The only thing it’s good for is showing people what your update days are, and/or how often you miss them.
• Do not list your archive by text-link, date only.  This is most often seen on ComicPress sites that have not been personalized.  This is just as bad as the “calendar” feature on Comic Genesis.
• Do not list your archive as shrunken-down “thumbnails” of the original comic files (make real thumbnail images instead).  It’s called a “thumbnail” for good reason: it’s small, and it loads fast! You may think you are being innovative, but you’re really being annoying, taxing your bandwidth, and taking up people’s time.*

When people visit your archive page, they are looking for a couple things. First time readers may want to know how large your archives are. For example, “This comic looks great, but I don’t have the time or energy to read an epic. I will check the archives to see how big/small it is.”  First time readers may also being trying to find a link to your first comic page, and this is often the fastest way.  Loyal readers will browse your archive to pull up a specific page they are looking for, or to re-read a part they liked a lot. This is why you should not have your archive set up by date or calendar. No one can find anything! Remember KEZ’s #1 webcomic website rule: make it as easy for the reader as possible. Not easy for YOU, for the reader.

Now that you have the “do not’s,” how about the “do’s?” When in doubt, go the archives of the most popular comic you read.  I choose you, Phoenix Requiem! See how the information is presented in a chronological AND chaptered way? What about Tales of Pylea?  Date, page number, chapter and page title, though ideally, the formatting of this page would be a little improved.  It can be hard when it’s automated, I know.  What about Xylia Tales?  Chapter cover image, chronological and chaptered order.  Ok, now what about my own archive?  I’ve taken everything I like about the previous examples, and then added my own flair: The War of Winds’ Archive.  I have a thumbnail image, chronological chaptered order, each page text linked, AND a written synopsis.  The written synopsis serves three functions: it is a refresher for long-time readers looking for a specific page, it gives a better idea what the story is about to new readers, and lastly, it provides textual content for context-based advertisers and search engines.

How could I improve my archive? I could add page titles as link titles and alts, as discussed in a previous article of mine.  I have the chapter cover image, the chronological order broken down by chapter, but I don’t have titled pages. If I included link titles, the final piece of information my own archive doesn’t offer, the page title, could be seen whenever you hovered over a page number. Why haven’t I done this? Well, I’ve got 270+ pages. That’s a lot of work. It’s on the list of to-do’s though!

So, to repeat myself in a coherent manner, for your archive page, do the following (only the first two are definitely necessary for 99% of comics out there):

• link every page. This can be done with a collapsible menu if your archive is extremely large, or be broken down into multiple webpages so as not to be overwhelming.  The only comic I know of who can get away with NOT linking every page is Sluggy Freelance, because there are thousands of comics.  Sluggy has an expandable dropdown instead. Be aware that an expandable dropdown does NOT replace an archive page!
• split up the page links by chapter or story arc.
• provide an image to represent each chapter or story arc.
• provide page titles to differentiate between separate comic pages.
• provide chapter synopses.

*ComicPress has an option for “archive by thumbnail.” If formatted correctly, and if your comic files sizes are rather modest, then this may be the option for you–especially if you have a black and white strip comic.  You could even set up the archive by week (well, past 7 strips), if you know how to do it. HOWEVER, you should also have a chronological and chaptered archive as well, especially if you have a large archive.