Running Your Own Sites

[T J Tutor]

I noticed in your "About" page that you have some niche sites for passive income. For these types of sites, do you prefer to go advertiser direct to fill your ad space or do you prefer to use offers from the networks?

And do you find that the advertisers are more open to direct relationships today compared to past years?

 

[T J Tutor]

 

[Matuloo]

Depends on what kind of sites we are talking about. Sites without any particular niche approach, getting traffic from multiple GEOs ... these are easier to monetize with ad networks, and that's what I do with them too. The reason is that the demographics of such sites isn't specific in any way, they don't share a common interest, they don't speak the same language ... finding offers for such diverse audience is a problem.

On the other hand, in case of sites based around some narrow niche, it's better to monetize them with hand picked offers, reviews of such offers or by building an email list and emailing related product offers to them.

Direct advertisers are probably easier to work with now, there is more affiliates, more traffic for them to get ... so they probably started to realize this. There are still some barriers to overcome when working with direct advertisers, so it's not for everybody - they tend to be more strict, payments take longer, they have smaller selection of offers ... there are both pros and cons here.