It’s a popularly held belief that a front page Digg means a lot of extra traffic but not a lot of extra income. More than a few bloggers have posted how they got to the front page of Digg, got thousands of Digg users visiting and made zero extra income because not a single user clicked on the Google ads. Sound familiar? Well, I’m here to tell you that is complete hogwash.
Digg user will click on ads when they’re presented with a targeted offering. If you’re not making any money from a front page Digg it’s because your story wasn’t targeted to your advertising. Digg users will click if the ads match the story.
The Digg Coup
Yesterday, Bob Buskirk of Think Computers got his review of the Samsung SyncMaster 940UX 19-inch LCD monitor to the front page of Digg. The Digg effect helped Think Computers pull down 31,000 unique visitors and 50,000 page views in one day. Here is the break down of revenue compared to their average day.
- Google Adsense: $155.44 / $30 (Average)
- TTZ Media: $160.50 / $30 (Average)
- Contexual Ads: $175 / $17 (Average)
- Tribal Fusion: $37.29 / $7 (Average)
- Total: $528.23 / $84 (Average)
Still think Digg users don’t click on ads? The numbers would have been better had Think Computers survived the full Digg effect – they went down for two hours after the Digg hit. I’m sure that cost them an extra few hundred dollars.
Study the Think review carefully and note how the TTZ Media and other ads are targeted to the item being reviewed. This was not Bob’s first Digg coup. He’s done quite a few of them. When this blog got its first Digg, it made nothing because the blog had no advertising on it. That figure went over $400 as I started to optimize for it. You can make good money on Digg. You just have to play the game correctly.