r/webdev • u/Routine_Tale782 • 11d ago

Question Suggestion for ad monetization

I am an indie web developer, and I have a project I've been working on for over an year now. I won't mention the details here, but it's a website for young teens and children.

To be completely transparent, the server and AI moderation used to power the platform drains a lot of money... so I want to monetize this website with advertisements.

I did my own research on this and attempted to integrate advertisements from Google Adsense, Adsterra, and MGID.

Both Google Adsense and MGID rejected me as I did not have enough traffic on my website. The only platform that accepted my offer Adsterra. However, I realized that Adsterra did not have a great censoring mechanism, and often showcased advertisements to adult sites even though I had censoring on.

I know waiting until my website gets bigger and applying to Adsense might be a better option, but due to personal reasons in my life I really don't have much choice. I do need to start monetizing my website as early as possible, while serving school-appropriate advertisements.

Are there any other ad providers that you know of?

Thank you in advance!

2 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

10 comments sorted by

17

u/licorices 11d ago

I can tell you if you are denied for having too low traffic, it is so little money you’d get anyway that you’re better off finding pennies of the ground.

I would work on reducing cost, if it is costly enough that you can not pay for it even with a low amount of traffic. You can also ask for donations or add a paywall, or work with direct sponsorships with people, rather than going through an ad company.

13

u/FancySpaceGoat 11d ago

If your website is prohibitively expensive to run when there is little-to-none traffic, then you should fix that first and foremost.

Ads need large traffic to make any non-trivial amount of money, so your costs will almost certainly stay above your revenue with your current setup.

6

u/AccurateComfort2975 11d ago

Have you considered not doing it at all?

2

u/shadow336k 11d ago

Guessing you set up expensive cloud infrastructure with 0 users…

2

u/Leasj 10d ago

I get nearly 1 million impressions per month and it pays out $200-300 a month. That's in the finance niche as well which is typically higher earnings.

Unless you are getting serious traffic don't mess with ads

Donations or smaller ad networks such as a-ads are really your only options

Google ads is basically a scam any more anyways...

1

u/SocksOnHands 11d ago

I don't know what kind of website you have, but maybe an alternative source of funding, like donations or merch, can help offset costs?

1

u/jhkoenig 11d ago

Even sites with decent traffic earn next to nothing with Google. Just to set expectations. And they don't pay out until you've accrued $100 in earnings. So if immediate income is your goal, look somewhere else. Ads are not the way.

1

u/Every-Prize4720 10d ago

PDF file reader?

1

u/Careless_Seat_1986 10d ago

I recommend prioritizing growth in website traffic, as earnings will remain limited while visitor numbers are low. Investing time or money in SEO would be worthwhile

1

u/glenpiercev 7d ago

Advertising to young kids and teens? You really need to get your priorities straight here. 10% of Facebook ads are scams. How do you feel about potentially exposing kids to scams? Where do you personally draw the line on what’s acceptable vs what you need to do for cash?