One of the best ways to monetize your website traffic is through ads. There was $139.8 billion spent on internet advertising in 2020 alone. And it’s projected to grow even further. So if you cannot develop your products to sell online, you can lease spaces to advertisers.
To estimate how much you can earn through internet ads, you can use a tool like Ad revenue calculator. These tools will offer an accurate picture of how much the traffic is worth. In this article, learn how such calculators work.
What is an Ad Revenue Calculator?
Ad buyers and publishers drive the internet ads industry. Ad buyers are the advertisers who pay for the ad spaces. Publishers are website and app owners who offer ad spaces. Facilitating the transactions are ad exchanges like AerServ, AppNexus, OpenX, among others.
A revenue calculator is a tool that estimates how much a publisher can earn from the traffic it generates. You have to provide certain details to the calculator. And it will calculate the estimated revenue.
How the Ad Revenue Calculator Works?
The ad calculators have several fields that you need to provide the numbers. The fields vary from app to app. It is preset to calculate the results based on the numbers you provided. As you change the numbers, the total revenue also changes.
You need to provide the following data at the bare minimum:
Ad Network
Every ad network pays differently. So your revenue will depend on the ad network you work with. If you’re into header bidding, you need to select the demand partners. This option might not be available in the calculator if it’s part of the ad network itself since they will only provide the estimate based on their platform.
Page Views per Month
The next number you need to provide is the page views you’re receiving per month. You do not need to be exact. An approximate number would do. You can get this complete data from Google Analytics or other analytics software you might be using.
Average CPM
CPM stands for cost per mile. It is the estimate of revenue you can expect for every thousand visits. This largely depends on the ad network and ranges from $1 to over $100.
Ad Unit per Page
Ad units are the number of ads you’re serving on the page. The more ads you show, the higher your revenue is likely going to be. But at max, publishers choose three ads per unit since more ads will affect the readability and user experience.
Things to Know About the Calculator
With that said, there are a few things you should know about the ad revenue calculator.
- It offers only a brief estimate of the revenue. The actual revenue can be more or less of the forecast.
- The estimate is based on the earning performance from existing and previous publishers.
- The revenue will vary depending on several factors.
The internet ad industry is constantly evolving, with changes being made all the time. Regulations like GDPR are also being introduced around the world. All of these factors will have an impact on your revenue. When using an ad revenue calculator, you should select the one that takes all of these things into consideration.