Essential Website Monetization Strategies: Step By Step Guide for 2022

Stick around as we unpack some of the leading Website Monetization Strategies in 2022. We’ll cover ten ways to generate income for an existing website, including top tips to monetize your web traffic with online Ads. 

Mobile Application Monetization

This article focuses on website monetization strategies and not mobile application monetization. For this reason, we will not be covering mobile application monetization in-depth. You can get more information from the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB). We also have a handy (high-level) article on How to Monetize Your New App if you’re looking to run In-App Ads. 

Website Monetization Strategies: 2022

It feels as if there are a million different ways to monetize your website in 2022. Whether you’re looking to flip sites for extra cash, sell a course, run PPC Advertising, start an eComm store or build up a mailing list, there’s always a fresh new way to monetize your website. 

Here are ten of the best ways to monetize your website in 2022.

1. Set up an Ecommerce Store 

​​Ecommerce is one of the most popular ways to make money from a website. But due to global competition, it also requires some of the most challenging work. However, it is entirely possible to set up your eCommerce store with the proper steps. While you can build a stand-alone site from scratch, adding a store to your existing site makes more sense. This way, you make the most of the traffic you already have. Here are the steps needed to start your new eComm store.

1. Decide on your products (the less saturated the market, the better) 
2. Choose an eCommerce Website Builder 
3. Get a domain name (where applicable) 
4. Decide on your eComm store template and start customizing
5. Add your products 
6. Set up your shopping cart and payment methods
7. Choose your shipping settings and structure
8. Continue to market your products online via PPC, social, etc. 

2. Affiliate Marketing

One of the most common website monetization strategies is to promote someone else’s products/services on your website. You’ll need to sign up for an Affiliate Program or Affiliate Network to get started. Once registered, you’ll get your unique affiliate links for different products or services. 

Add Your Affiliate Link 

You can embed your links on your site after copying them from the network or program. One of the best ways to do this is by writing product reviews, blog posts, top ten lists, etc., and adding the unique affiliate link into the content. When a user clicks on a link, you’ll earn a commission on every sale or conversion. You can also run PPC advertising.

3. Selling Digital Products or Services

You can also create digital products, such as eBooks, online courses, widgets, templates, or similar. However, you will need to spend a lot of time and effort getting the products good enough to sell online. Products may take an initial investment on your part, such as design, content creation, etc. But once they’re onsite, you can charge a fee for the download link and generate an income. Also, make sure you’re sending traffic to a well-designed landing page to help increase your conversion rates. 

You can also add a lead capture form and collect email addresses for future follow-ups.

4. Sell Sponsored Content 

Sell ad space or other sponsored onsite content to companies or individuals. Sponsored content could include paid guest posts or online ads with embedded links. The drawback with this approach is that if your site is not generating much traffic, you’ll struggle to see returns. 

5. Take Donations

If you’ve created a product/service that people like and have an online community behind you, then offer your MVP for free and request onsite donations to bring out a better version. 

6. Create an Email List

One of the oldest and most overlooked website monetization strategies is to go back to basics and generate an email subscriber list. Take time to produce excellent content to develop a loyal following and bring you more subscribers. Collect, save and batch these email lists into different subcategories, and use your list as an upselling tactic for new products and services. 

7. Website Flipping

Some publishers bring in significant revenue from buying existing websites with a preexisting traffic source, improving their traffic/profitability, and then selling them for a higher price. 

8. Start a Private Forum

If you’re an industry expert with a wealth of knowledge and top insights to share, you can create a paid membership forum. And if you bring together the right people with the right knowledge base, you may find you’ll have a consistent stream of incoming subscriptions. 

9. Generate Leads 

If you’re a specialist on a niche topic, you could help direct leads towards similar businesses by placing the right products or services in front of them. For example, if you have a health and fitness site, you could have listed results for personal trainers, physiotherapists, dieticians, etc. Every time a potential lead converts, you get a commission. 

10. Monetization through Advertising

And finally, one of the best ways to monetize your website is by hosting ads and getting paid by the advertising platform for ad interactions (i.e., Ad Impressions, Clicks, Conversions). You’ll simply place a short line of code on your website, and depending on what your site is about, your audience will start to see relevant offers.

Find the Right Online Advertising Network

The best way to monetize your website through ads is by partnering with an Online Advertising Network. Our advanced optimization technology matches your traffic with high-quality demand and shows the most relevant ads to your users.

How to Monetize Your Site Using Ads

There are several website monetization strategies that use ads at their core, but we’ll need to first unpack the ads themselves. Here are the six most prominent ad formats for publishers in 2022.

Publisher Auto Tag Feature

A 3-in-1 ad solution that may be the future of website monetization as we know it! This multi-purpose tag includes three leading ad formats: In-Page Push, Pop-Under, and Interstitial. By placing the tag on your site, you can effectively target traffic with a killer combination of top converting ad formats while freeing up testing time. You can also efficiently maximize your UX by showing only the most relevant offers on-site.  

While Pop will bring you most of your earnings, using all three tags can bring in 30 or 40% more revenue.

Autotag has a built-in Monetization Goal that lets you adjust the on-site ads’ frequency and consistency. The Monetization Goal parameters allow you to change between greater UX, stronger revenue, or an equivalent combination of both. The Monetization Goal gives you complete control of your monetization goals vs. your overall onsite strategy. 

Adcash Publisher Ad Formats 

Aside from Autotag. Here is a list of high converting ad formats readily available at Adcash.

Full-Screen Advertising 

While these ads have been intrusive in the past, the AdTech industry has gone to great lengths to make full-screen ads less disruptive and more in line with onsite content and the end-user experience. The two most popular versions of Full-Screen Ads include Pop-Under and Interstitial Ad Formats. There is also an option to change the dimensions on Interstitial Ads to be less disruptive to the end-user experience. 

Pop-Under

Pop-Unders is a less intrusive version of the traditional Pop-Up Ads. This format no longer displays itself on top of content but instead appears behind an active browsing window to be engaged with after a user has completed a task onsite. Pop-Under ads are far less intrusive to the end-user experience and a great way to monetize traffic. 

Interstitial 

Interstitials appear while a web page is loading. When users are between onsite tasks, they utilize the moment to deliver maximum visibility and reach. The Ads themselves are versatile, cost-effective,  and come in an Overlay format.

Display Advertising

Display ads remain at the center of some of the best website monetization strategies. Combining strong imagery, text, and targeted URLs, they are less intrusive to the end-user experience. When used in collaboration with the right offer, they can help boost brand awareness and increase visibility. 

While there are many forms of Display Ads on the market today, the most popular are In-Page Push, Native, and Banners Ads.

In-Page Push

These alert-like ads are well-targeted and eye-catching without being too disruptive. In-Page Push ads blend strong messaging high-quality UX, and they’re able to convert more traffic while taking up a lot less space on site. 

Native

These ads blend in with onsite content effortlessly and remain mostly non-intrusive while promoting products to the fullest. First created in 2011, Native Ads remain a highly effective monetization tool with high engagement and conversion rates. 

Banner

The first digital ad came to light in 1994, and digital marketers have never looked back. Banner Ads have stood the test of time and continue to convert high-quality traffic. These days Banner ads can be sub-categorized into three different types. 

Skyscraper – A tall and narrow banner type, available for desktop and mobile web. These ads are typically placed alongside onsite content for higher exposure.

Rectangle – Standard banner ad format, fully compatible with desktop and mobile web.  Banner ads can appear virtually anywhere on a web page.

Leaderboard – Usually placed at the top of a webpage for greater visibility, Leaderboard formats have the strongest impact on website traffic.

How To Optimize Your Ad Revenue

When optimizing your ad revenue and growing your conversions, it’s good to look at two main performance metrics, namely Ad Impressions and eRPM.

1. Ad Impressions

This number is driven by how big your website audience is and the number of ad placements monetized.

Example 

If you have 100 different visitors, but you’re only monetizing them at one point on your site (i.e., through a single ad placement), you’ll only generate one ad impression per page view.

ProTip:  Having multiple ad placements at various points in your site will significantly increase your chances of bringing in more impressions for higher onsite revenue.

Always find a balance between having too few ads and too many. While you want to monetize your traffic, you also want to keep your users happy, and showing them too many ads, too frequently will most likely lead to higher bounce rates and fewer returning visitors. 

The good news is that you can filter and limit the number of times your ads show to a specific traffic source by using a zone capping feature and other filtering techniques. 

1. eRPM

Another metric to consider is the average revenue or earnings you’ll generate per 1000 impressions. Also called the Average Revenue Per Mille (eRPM). 

The eRPM will vary according to how your audience interacts with your ads and the relevancy of the campaigns promoted. Thoughts to consider include: 

The Size Of The Ads

Remember, the smaller the ad, the less visible it will be, and the less eRPM generated. 

The Visibility Of The Ad. 

How intrusive is the ad? The more it jumps out, the higher the eRPM will be.

The Reaction You Get

Is your audience interacting well with an ad, i.e., converting and not just closing or ignoring. 

Final Thoughts to Consider

Your eRPM will be influenced by the relevancy of the ads shown. The better the match, the better the eRPM should be because there will be more clicks, conversions, sales, etc. 

Below is the Formula for Calculating Your eRPM

The formula for Calculating eRPM website earnings = (Number of ad impressions divided by 1000) x eRPM Example of a site that generates = 1000000 ad impressions with an eRPM of 1.5EUR → (1000000/1000)*1.5EUR = 1500EUR of earnings

Publisher Tips with Marouan Bouhachi 

And finally, Adcash Publisher Manager Marouan Bouhachi shares a few website monetization tips when using the Adcash Publisher Platform. 

Not a member of the Adcash team yet? Register your Adcash Publisher Account Today 

Strategy No.1: Adjust your Monetization Strategy with Autotag

Some publishers are willing to forego maximum earnings in favor of a better onsite user experience. If that’s the case with you, I’d recommend adjusting your filters with the Autotag Monetization bar. Play around and adjust your parameters. Analyze your traffic and see how they interact with slight changes. 

Strategy No.2 Use Button Monetization

One of the most profitable trends in AdTech today is the Button Monetization strategy. It’s essentially a simple link that you’ll place onsite without needing landing pages, creatives, and other campaign collateral. 

Certain websites are well suited to Button Monetization (such as VOD), where you can embed buttons on your site with a hard-coded link. Also known as a Button Monetization Strategy, our team can help you get your direct links seen by high traffic volumes by placing them strategically at specific points in your site. 

An excellent example of Button Monetization would be a media player with the option to watch a video in standard or HD. Both buttons will sit side by side on the page, with the standard button being the actual video and the “HD version” hyperlinking to an ad.

Human nature dictates that the traffic source will click on the HD link more frequently than the genuine offer. This tactic has the power to bring in higher conversions MoM at a lower cost. 

Find out more about Button Monetization for Publishers. Align with your account manager and tell them your specific needs so that they can offer you the best possible whitelisting opportunities and targeting parameters, or if you haven’t signed up to the Adcash Publisher platform already, get in touch, and we’ll help you get started.

Ad Customization Toolkit

We will unpack a few more ways to customize your ads onsite.

Filter by Platform

Another trick is to filter for specific platforms. For example, if you’re worried that your ads might be too intrusive on desktop, you can choose to run them exclusively on mobile. For instance, Interstitials on a mobile interface are far less invasive than on a desktop. 

My experience shows that people are far more receptive to floating panels on mobile screens than on desktop screens. Your account manager can help you reject desktop traffic to allow only mobile traffic sources and vice versa. 

Use The Interstitial Overlay

Interstitial Overlay allows you to change the dimensions of an Interstitial ad. This smaller version is less aggressive than a full-screen ad, as it doesn’t cover the entire page. The Interstitial Overlays “Skip Button” has the same hardcoded five-second countdown, but smaller, it’s more subtle, yet just as effective. It’s also tied to Google’s Better Ads Standards. 

Use Trigger By Delay

You can also change and preset the amount of time between a user logging in onsite and the ad itself displaying. By doing you’ll be emphasizing your user experience rather than overall earnings.

Don’t Forget To Test Your Ads.

When it comes to the types of ads you’ll use on your site; you want to make sure when you place an ad that it’s compatible with both desktop and mobile. So test your ads and try the user experience that this ad provides for both mobile and desktop audiences. 

With 2022’s leading website monetization strategies recapped, we hope you’re ready to take your site down the brightest roads and bring in the best revenue. All the best, and before we go…

Refer New Publishers & Boost Your Earnings by 5%

Refer other publishers to the Adcash platform and get 5% of their lifetime earnings. It’s super simple to join where all you need is an Adcash Publisher account. Share your referral URL, and you’re good to go! 

Get in touch with our all-star Publisher team for tailored tips and placement suggestions. 

By for now!