$1M a year in Google Adsense (or why 2,739 is my favorite number)

If back in September when we started playing with Google Adsense someone told me it would turn into a $1M a year business I would have laughed. A million bucks without a sales person? Give me a break!

However, yesterday we broke our $2,100 record with a $2,335 day. That�s an impressive number I know, because if we can take that number to $2,739.72 we�re at�wait for it�$1M a year.

For some perspective, take a look at some averages:

January we did $580 a day on average.
March was a $737 a day average.
May was a $1,585.57 average.

Now, before you get too excited let me tell you we�ve got 103 bloggers on the payroll and nine staffers here at Weblogs, Inc. We�re a big, little company� so to speak. Plus I gotta pay for Peter Rojas� gadget habit (let�s just say it ain�t pretty)!

However, if you follow those numbers we tripled the average in five months or so. Not sure we can triple every five months, but I think we can get this to a $3,000 to $5,000 per day average by the end of the year.

Another thing to keep in mind is that we can�t run Google Adsense in top positions on a lot of our blogs because they are sold out (Engadget, Autoblog, etc. are sold out up top). If we had those slots open we would be at much more per day right now.

The publishing world has totally changed, and as much as I like to think I�m up on things every day I figure out something new about this business. It�s crazy.

One more tip: the Google horizontal banners work well. You know, the ones where a user clicks and sees a group of ads and then you get paid if they make a *second* click (the first click to Google gets you nothing!). Even with this double-click issue it performs really well (I don�t think I can say how much better then a leaderboard without getting in trouble with the Google Adsense Terms of Service, but lets just say it�s significant). I think this is because the users who click on those ads are rabid�they want a ton of information and they probably visit more then one advertiser�s site.

Anyone else got Google Adsense tips? If so put them in the comments below for EVERYONE to share and benifit from.

Jul 19th 2005 5:54AM
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61. hi jason and the team at weblogsinc, This is great... wow I make around $1 to $2 per day.... hehehe but i am trying to reach. from now you are the guy i am going to benchmark LOL Great Works Anish http://www.wineandwhiskey.info

Posted at 4:41PM on Oct 29th 2005 by Anish

62. It's Great , Best of Luck for future.

Posted at 4:41PM on Oct 29th 2005 by Vivek Sachdeva

63. After your acquisition by AOL, I got intrigued how they valued Weblogs and what it means for other bloggers/website owners who want to sell. I put together a guide on how to evaluate your blog. http://www.iproceed.com/blog/?p=50

Posted at 4:41PM on Oct 29th 2005 by Jay Dwivedi

64. Thanks so much for all of your great suggestions! I have used them to increase my revenue a lot on my site. Come watch this funny video too... http://ghostormist.j2d2.net And click on an ad if you like it :)

Posted at 4:41PM on Oct 29th 2005 by J.D. Dilborne

65. Thank you so very much for that tip Jason re: horizontal ad units! Since placing them on my site 3 days ago, the total click revenue has more than doubled! http://www.hotipodnews.com MSN seems to love me also, as I have many great #1-3 keyphrases -- and the blog is only 3 weeks old! Kinda ironic that MSN would embrace a blog about their arch rivals! hehe GG

Posted at 4:41PM on Oct 29th 2005 by GadgetsGuy

66. Agreed about the horizontal adlinks units. I like them better than the vertical ones. I generally tuck them between the page title and the beginning of the content...although I have a friend who tests vigorously, and she swears by embedding them in a horizontal site bar...black type with semi-dark background.

Posted at 4:41PM on Oct 29th 2005 by Chuck Brown

67. I definitely agree . I started some Google ads on my site and its great! Especially if you're trying to pay down school loans.

Posted at 4:41PM on Oct 29th 2005 by Tony

68. The Million Dollar Home Page is well known by now, and there are quite a lot of �copycat� sites out there on the net. Some of these sites are good, some tasteless and a handfull quite clever (Apart of Alex Tew�s, which is pure genious cause he was the first!) One of these Sites I found is the http://milliondollarpixellottery.com Site. This one let�s you buy pixel�s and also give�s you the chance to win $ 1.000.000 ( 1 Million Dollars)! Which is a nice idea, since you place an ad which might cost you fifty bucks more than on the Million Dollar Home Page, but it has the added bonus of a Lottery which might make you a Million richer. The chances a also a lot higher than in a normal lottery. Well your chances obviously increase the more PayPal Transaction Receipts you generate..but it�s a great idea i think! Check it out at http://www.milliondollarpixellottery.com

Posted at 9:49PM on Oct 29th 2005 by marc

69. nice target...

Posted at 11:39AM on Oct 31st 2005 by notebook review blog

70. Leap years baby: $2,739.72 * 365.2425 = $1,000,662.18

Posted at 5:08PM on Nov 1st 2005 by Eliot Phillips

71. Julio: Would love to make all our adsense stats public, but Google would not be happy about that! Obviously we are doing 10s of millions of page views a month--but I can't give exact details as you know. Biboz: We are not in the premium program yet, but we're going to be soon. Interested to see what gets us.

Posted at 4:01PM on Nov 3rd 2005 by Jason

72. >> You didn't sound so gungho about >> Google AdSense at SXSW when you >> were raking them over the coals >> in the panel session Joey: I was the moderator of the panel and felt that I should do my best to give each person the hardest and most important questions. I didn't want to brag about myself on the panel--I hate when moderators talk about themselves!

Posted at 4:01PM on Nov 3rd 2005 by Jason

73. That's really amazing stuff. Keep up the good work and thanks to all of the people at Weblogs Inc. for bringing us all the great content :)

Posted at 12:28AM on Nov 4th 2005 by Stephen Searer

74. Y que pasas si google termina con el sistema Adsence de un dia para el otro? Con que le vas a pagar a los empleados?

Posted at 12:56PM on Nov 5th 2005 by Nicolas

75. I wonder if anyone can share any experience with Yahoo and/or AdBrite.

Posted at 5:43PM on Nov 9th 2005 by atanas entchev

76. Jayz thats some serious revenue you got coming through there, one day I'll hit those sorts of figures. Just need that one killer idea to do it...

Posted at 8:20AM on Nov 11th 2005 by Dan

77. Wonderful! Inspirational if I may say so :)

Posted at 1:15AM on Nov 15th 2005 by Angsuman Chakraborty

78. Holy Cow!!!! I just found this post. What makes your network so successful? I guess everyone would want to hear your answer to that. I also assume that it's something you won't share. :( Will you?

Posted at 1:10PM on Nov 16th 2005 by Dave

79. Glad to have your support in increasing our already competitive market.. Looks like you just took the 1 million out of your hands... Great Job !!

Posted at 11:45PM on Nov 16th 2005 by Jack McKenny

80. Iv been using adsense for ages. A great way to improve your click through rate is by blending the ads with your navigation, same colour, no borders, same background colour as your site etc. Basically so it looks like it belongs to your site. And try and think where your users will be looking for info, most people wont click on things they think are ads, thats not to say you should disguise them just dont make em stand out like a sore thumb and you should be raking in the clicks in no time. Most people think ya can just stick the ads on and thats as good as it gets, its simply not true. With the amount of page impressions you get you should be easily breaking $4,500 a day. But like ya say, a lot of your space is already sold. Cheers, Ste

Posted at 8:44AM on Nov 22nd 2005 by Ste

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