Many people have asked me how much I make from Google. While there are Google Whores who will reveal how much they make from AdSense, I am not one of them. I do not reveal my internet income for two reasons.
- It may not be big enough to impress you.
- It may be so big it scares you.
While Google is the big thing everyone talks about, it is in fact not my biggest income source. Of all the methods I use to make money on the internet, Google accounts for just 17% of online income. Many webmaster rely on Google or some other 3rd party ad network for their internet income. This is fine at first, but as your traffic grows you’ll find that you can make more money outside of Google AdSense.
For me, AdSense provides a nice “base price” on which to set my direct advertising rates. If a direct advertiser wants to take over a Google ad spot, they need to pay double the eCPM I am making from Google. So if the Ad spot has an eCPM of $5.00, it would cost the advertiser $10.00 to take over the spot. I will give a discount for a multi-month order.
Why double the cost for a direct buy? There are a couple of reasons. First there is no reason to sell the ad spot at the Google eCPM. That would just be stupid. With Google, you’re dealing with a multi-billion dollar company that you know will pay you. Direct advertisers have been known to “forget” bills. The second reason is direct advertisers needs to be service. That adds costs. I don’t need to service Google. Google services me. So unless I can get double what I would make from Google, it’s not worth my time to deal with a direct advertiser.
Still, direct advertising is not my biggest online income source. What is the biggest? TTZ Media Network. This is my private shopping network that connects consumers with online retailers. The network is currently made up of 22 high quality technology based content sites. They have a combined traffic of over 30 million page views per month. Right now TTZ Media Network only handles price comparisons, but may start to offer direct ad sales for affiliates.
I am looking for more affiliates to add to the network. If you run a technology based site with at least 250,000 page views per month, give me a shout. We might be able to do some business together. All TTZ Media Network affiliates make more from us than from Google.