Taboola => Adsense arbitrage. Is it really this easy?

[jamie3000]

I was looking into media buying and ad arbitrage. So essentially buying traffic and sending it to Adsense.

I can't believe that it's as easy as these websites make it look.

Check this out.

Simple click bait title on UK website with massive traffic (Daily Mail)

Clicks through to gallery website with small amount of content and loads of Adsense ads + videos.

Now I know there is a lot of tracking and optimization. But how is this profitable when the cost per click on Taboola is so high and the Adsense payout is so low?

Doesn't this market just become crowded until there is little to no margin left?

I mean there are hundreds of websites doing it so it must be profitable? What am I missing here?

Is it really as simple as track, optimize, repeat, bank?

 

[mhtro]

Guess we have to try it out? I've been seeing this type of ads a shit ton and I also question how effective they are.

 

[Universe0]

I think @se900se is an expert on traffic arbitrage.

 

[Leader777]

how is this profitable when the cost per click on Taboola is so high and the Adsense payout is so low?

Even the cpc is low u aim for one user to read more articles and click on more ads. There is a lot of stuff that I see people doing like another example getting people to subscribe to their email list and that way everyday they send them articles and that's how they generate free and easy traffic. Dude with creativity u will not care about the cpc

 

[klonja]

its very profitable but to risky man iknow a guy who lade about 80k $ in few days but his google ads was closed and lost all that cause ad arbitrage using some blackhat methods like placing the next button in articles under the ad with a next symbole in it make CTR go really high in CPC and yeah google bots think its sort of click frauud and u got blocked

 

[phedes1]

its very profitable but to risky man iknow a guy who lade about 80k $ in few days but his google ads was closed and lost all that cause ad arbitrage using some blackhat methods like placing the next button in articles under the ad with a next symbole in it make CTR go really high in CPC and yeah google bots think its sort of click frauud and u got blocked

that was quite specific

 

[Nut-Nights]

You need to find other network, not the saturated ones. Check out in adult niche, it is little easy in adult.

For adsense, you need to play in big figures to make profit.

 

[belallama]

@jamie3000 , the adsense payout it in fact low. but, check out their ads.txt - they are connected to tons of ad networks including some of the best ones. they might not be using adsense at all at this point or simply bidding against it in their massive poor of bidders.
They also "raping" impressions from each user - either doing pagination like in your screenshot, getting around 6 impression per page view(including video), or as i've seen they have really long pages with 60+!!! ad impressions per page view. based on similarweb they avg. 4 PV per visit.
so premium ad networks - tons of ads on a single page - high RPM - multiple page views - high rev.

 

[Deleted member 813988]

I was looking into media buying and ad arbitrage. So essentially buying traffic and sending it to Adsense.

I can't believe that it's as easy as these websites make it look.

Check this out.

Simple click bait title on UK website with massive traffic (Daily Mail)

Clicks through to gallery website with small amount of content and loads of Adsense ads + videos.

Now I know there is a lot of tracking and optimization. But how is this profitable when the cost per click on Taboola is so high and the Adsense payout is so low?

Doesn't this market just become crowded until there is little to no margin left?

I mean there are hundreds of websites doing it so it must be profitable? What am I missing here?

Is it really as simple as track, optimize, repeat, bank?

Yes, it is (fairly) easy and very (extremely) profitable.
The most struggle in this business (which is good) is the Net payout terms, as this means you not getting paid right away and you're looking for a quick buck it won't be this quick. Why I think it's good - because the web is already flooded with many low-quality sites and this would trigger even more of them.

Taboola + AdSense is just a beginning, scratch of the surface - most of the medium to big publishers use at least 5-12 ad networks, many uses even more. I have a few threads on how this works, but basically, you (or more your ad operations guy/company) set up as many ad networks that 'fit' and you make them compete for each ad impressions making higher bidder win - to maximize your revenue.

When network set to compete, most of the time AdSense rates are one of the lowest, which is still good - you can sell all inventory that wasn't sold and AdSense buys 99% of whatever they get.

This is extremely profitable, I am saying this as a publisher & advertiser (I also work with multiple publishers & ad networks managing their ad ops). As a publisher your main task to have a lot of traffic and, if possible, from a variety of sources. As an advertiser, I can tell that most bids are between $1 and $10 CPM, so when we pay $10 per CPM publisher gets $4-$6 (ad network will never tell you what is the actual CPM as they take cut). As an advertiser, in 90% of times, targetting goes for a specific user (by IP, Interests, browsing history, work, salary etc), not a site. In terms of targeted sites, it's mostly blacklisting, e.g. don't show ads on these URLs no matter what.

If you're a small publisher most of the times you set to rules 3 ad units per page and/or maximum 30% of the space could be used for ads. Larger publishers can 'bend' the rules a little.

The market is not overcrowded! There are more advertisers than quality publishers, when I did my research for all publishers there was only 1M publisher sites and only 50k publisher sites with over 5k traffic. That was a year ago, but even if it's tripled, there are still lots of room.

 

[jamie3000]

Yes, it is (fairly) easy and very (extremely) profitable.
The most struggle in this business (which is good) is the Net payout terms, as this means you not getting paid right away and you're looking for a quick buck it won't be this quick. Why I think it's good - because the web is already flooded with many low-quality sites and this would trigger even more of them.

Taboola + AdSense is just a beginning, scratch of the surface - most of the medium to big publishers use at least 5-12 ad networks, many uses even more. I have a few threads on how this works, but basically, you (or more your ad operations guy/company) set up as many ad networks that 'fit' and you make them compete for each ad impressions making higher bidder win - to maximize your revenue.

When network set to compete, most of the time AdSense rates are one of the lowest, which is still good - you can sell all inventory that wasn't sold and AdSense buys 99% of whatever they get.

This is extremely profitable, I am saying this as a publisher & advertiser (I also work with multiple publishers & ad networks managing their ad ops). As a publisher your main task to have a lot of traffic and, if possible, from a variety of sources. As an advertiser, I can tell that most bids are between $1 and $10 CPM, so when we pay $10 per CPM publisher gets $4-$6 (ad network will never tell you what is the actual CPM as they take cut). As an advertiser, in 90% of times, targetting goes for a specific user (by IP, Interests, browsing history, work, salary etc), not a site. In terms of targeted sites, it's mostly blacklisting, e.g. don't show ads on these URLs no matter what.

If you're a small publisher most of the times you set to rules 3 ad units per page and/or maximum 30% of the space could be used for ads. Larger publishers can 'bend' the rules a little.

The market is not overcrowded! There are more advertisers than quality publishers, when I did my research for all publishers there was only 1M publisher sites and only 50k publisher sites with over 5k traffic. That was a year ago, but even if it's tripled, there are still lots of room.

Thanks for the detailed response. It's certainly an area I'm going to experiment with. The scalability of it really appeals to me.

 

[AdvertisingGuy]

Yes, it is (fairly) easy and very (extremely) profitable.
The most struggle in this business (which is good) is the Net payout terms, as this means you not getting paid right away and you're looking for a quick buck it won't be this quick. Why I think it's good - because the web is already flooded with many low-quality sites and this would trigger even more of them.

Taboola + AdSense is just a beginning, scratch of the surface - most of the medium to big publishers use at least 5-12 ad networks, many uses even more. I have a few threads on how this works, but basically, you (or more your ad operations guy/company) set up as many ad networks that 'fit' and you make them compete for each ad impressions making higher bidder win - to maximize your revenue.

When network set to compete, most of the time AdSense rates are one of the lowest, which is still good - you can sell all inventory that wasn't sold and AdSense buys 99% of whatever they get.

This is extremely profitable, I am saying this as a publisher & advertiser (I also work with multiple publishers & ad networks managing their ad ops). As a publisher your main task to have a lot of traffic and, if possible, from a variety of sources. As an advertiser, I can tell that most bids are between $1 and $10 CPM, so when we pay $10 per CPM publisher gets $4-$6 (ad network will never tell you what is the actual CPM as they take cut). As an advertiser, in 90% of times, targetting goes for a specific user (by IP, Interests, browsing history, work, salary etc), not a site. In terms of targeted sites, it's mostly blacklisting, e.g. don't show ads on these URLs no matter what.

If you're a small publisher most of the times you set to rules 3 ad units per page and/or maximum 30% of the space could be used for ads. Larger publishers can 'bend' the rules a little.

The market is not overcrowded! There are more advertisers than quality publishers, when I did my research for all publishers there was only 1M publisher sites and only 50k publisher sites with over 5k traffic. That was a year ago, but even if it's tripled, there are still lots of room.

se900se, I love you but I think you underestimate the difficulty in acquiring traffic and in making a return on said traffic.

First, there are a TON of dodgy traffic sources. Working with the big boys (Taboola / Outbrain / Facebook) can work, but you need your page well optimized and that requires a lot of expertise. Quizzes, slide shows, header bidding, fast loading, the works.

You also need to be able to reach out to the right networks and make those connections and get tags to run on your sites.

Then for the buying side of it, you need to get your site analytics on point, and you need to properly optimize your subject, images, copy, etc. Only getting all of these things right can get you paid. Not to mention all of the other additional things that are expensive and cost money (ad verification tech, actual traffic, factoring, non-payment insurance), etc.

This is not for the faint of heart of the small of wallet. Proceed carefully.

 

[DanDD]

i did try with outbrain few years back, using galleries and adsense text ads
funny thing it was profitable, adsense was giving me high cpc due to traffic coming from authority referral
sadly my outbrain was closed after two days for copyrighted content

 

[AdvertisingGuy]

i did try with outbrain few years back, using galleries and adsense text ads
funny thing it was profitable, adsense was giving me high cpc due to traffic coming from authority referral
sadly my outbrain was closed after two days for copyrighted content

The correct thing to do after this was to create real content and try again.

 

[Deleted member 813988]

se900se, I love you but I think you underestimate the difficulty in acquiring traffic and in making a return on said traffic.

First, there are a TON of dodgy traffic sources. Working with the big boys (Taboola / Outbrain / Facebook) can work, but you need your page well optimized and that requires a lot of expertise. Quizzes, slide shows, header bidding, fast loading, the works.

You also need to be able to reach out to the right networks and make those connections and get tags to run on your sites.

Then for the buying side of it, you need to get your site analytics on point, and you need to properly optimize your subject, images, copy, etc. Only getting all of these things right can get you paid. Not to mention all of the other additional things that are expensive and cost money (ad verification tech, actual traffic, factoring, non-payment insurance), etc.

This is not for the faint of heart of the small of wallet. Proceed carefully.

It’s a pleasure talking to someone who knows the stuff!

I meant ‘fairly’ easy if you know what you’re doing or at least can commit, definitely not easy if you look for quick money and have no patience to learn stuff.

In my case it was own site, budget, and a lot of mistakes, I guess this is what brought me the place where I am now.

 

[DanDD]

The correct thing to do after this was to create real content and try again.

problem is outbrain only allows people from certain countries to advertise and mine is not on the list so i ised payoneer and dont have another way for now

 

[Deleted member 813988]

The correct thing to do after this was to create real content and try again.

I keep ‘close’ relationship with my ad networks to ensure they’re happy with what’s going on and no unexpected surprises come in.

 

[kindablack]

Wait, wait...

Nope, it’s not profitable — for us.

Let me tell you how this works and why you will never make this profitable & still will see lots of these ads.

These websites are owned by Native Ad Networks or their special partners. Why do they make this?

Because they’re getting the ad spaces based on flat CPM. So when they don’t have enough amount of real advertiser ads for that spaces, they show this click bait ads to at least make an extra revenue instead of $0 blank ad placement.

So no, there is no media buyers that get $0.3 clicks and wait for 50% CTR with at least $0.6 Google Adsense CPC.

They are just saving some money on blank ad placements.

 

[jeff1985]

I was looking into media buying and ad arbitrage. So essentially buying traffic and sending it to Adsense.

I can't believe that it's as easy as these websites make it look.

Check this out.

Simple click bait title on UK website with massive traffic (Daily Mail)

Clicks through to gallery website with small amount of content and loads of Adsense ads + videos.

Now I know there is a lot of tracking and optimization. But how is this profitable when the cost per click on Taboola is so high and the Adsense payout is so low?

Doesn't this market just become crowded until there is little to no margin left?

I mean there are hundreds of websites doing it so it must be profitable? What am I missing here?

Is it really as simple as track, optimize, repeat, bank?

This is what traffic Arbitrage is however native ads are NOT cheap. Which is the main reason everyone doing it uses slide show posts 5-10 pages to make it make since. You just hope the user who does click will do all 5-10 slides. Then it makes it more profitable. It’s another way of doing it but native is the most common method

 

[meannn]

I keep ‘close’ relationship with my ad networks to ensure they’re happy with what’s going on and no unexpected surprises come in.

Which ad networks do you use/suggest as publisher and advertiser ?

 

[mikey29]

I am thinking cpm is better than Cpc