Monetization

And now ... (drum roll please!) ... the moment you've all been waiting for: Monetizing Your Proxy!

Owning a proxy is nice and all, but why bother doing it if you aren't going to get any cash off of it? Isn't that the reason you bought this eBook, to make money? Well, your wish is about to be fulfilled.

Applying to Ad Networks

First thing's first, we need to apply to the ad networks – they are the ones that will be paying us! Below are some companies and my reviews for them. Google AdSense is the only PPC network (pay per click), the rest are CPM networks (cost per thousand impressions). PPC means that you will get payed every time your ad is clicked, and CPM means that you will get payed a certain amount when you get 1000 impressions.

While there are many different ad networks out there, I am only going to mention the ones that you should look into. I can guarantee that you will make Global Interactive/Media Shakers, and most webmasters are already admitted into AdSense. So you should have no problem.

Google AdSense – Google AdSense is the biggest money maker for proxies, and is a must. In order for you to register, you must however have a site that is at least 6 months old and is constantly getting new content. Google AdSense is a PPC ad network, but index page only! Google ads cannot be placed on proxified pages. Google AdSense pays by check or direct bank deposit, and pays out upon reaching $100 by the end of the month. AdSense allows 3 banners and 3 link units on a page at a time.

Adversal – Adversal is the best money maker for proxified pages, with it's high CPM banners and pop-unders. The highest CPM you can get is $1.40 in the US, and you can easily reach 100,000+ visitors a day (this means that you will get payed $1.40x100=$140 every day). It is hard to get in to nowadays, but it is great. When you apply, remember that you can't apply using a forum (they don't allow their ads on forums). Adversal allows one of each ad format to be placed on a page at a time.

Global Interactive / Media Shakers – I am putting these together because they run on the same network and have the same control panel and very similar rates. If you cannot get into Adversal, you should go for these. They also offer popunders and banners. While they do have a fairly low CPM (ranging from 3 cents – 10 cents on average, my record was 26 cents), they have a high fill rate. The few differences are that Media Shakers provides more ad formats, and pays out every month as long as you have $1. Global Interactive pays out every month providing you have $50. Both pay by direct deposit, check, or PayPal. They allow one of each ad format to be placed on a page at a time.

Xtend Media – I do not use this, but that is only because I do not have the site requirements to make it in. The biggest proxy sites, like Privax, use this network. CPM rates range very high for proxies! However, you do need at least 50 million page views/month in order to make it in. If you can though, go for it!

AdBrite – Some publishers have success with this, other's don't. I am currently experimenting with their CPM advertisements (their PPC ads are crap). I really like the 'beat it or replace it' option, where you can set a fixed CPM rate. If they can't find an advertiser willing to pay that, they'll replace it with another code of yours (For example, if you set it to $.50 CPM, and nobody can deliver that, they will replace it with, let's say, your GlobalInteractive ad, so those impressions will not go unfilled). However, do not use their Full Page Ads. Those are probably more annoying than popunders and don't work well with the proxified Glype pages (the URL form covers the 'Skip This' button and there's no fix).

So those are the ad networks that I suggest you go with. Definitely Google Adsense, and Xtend Media or Adversal. If you cannot make those, then GlobalInteractive and Media Shakers are good. CANEP and AdBrite I don't like, but there are success stories with them.

Advertisement Placement – Index

Your index page will be the most profitable part of your proxy, believe it or not. It's the #1 most visited page of your proxy, and the easiest to monetize. The reason for that is that Google Adsense is allowed on it, as well as any other advertisement network.

I have experimented with different advertisement layouts around the URL form, and I found the following to work the best. All it takes is two Adsense 336x280 blocks and two links units.

Now, with the first layout below (this is the one I currently use), I easily get a CTR (click through ratio) of about 2% (more or less, it may vary). This means that for every 100 hits to my index, I get about two clicks. Now, if you get about 20,000 hits to your index every day, with that kind of CTR, you can expect about 400 clicks/day. Adsense generally pays out about 3-15 cents per click. On rare occasions, maybe 20 cents. If you are getting as little as 5 cents per click, with 400 clicks, that would still be $20/day. And who says you can't get payed more per click or get more visitors?


Above is the best placement I have yet to see. It does not use the max 3 link units and 3 blocks, so you can add more (not necessary). However, it is still great. The link units above and below the URL bar usually say stuff like 'Unblock MySpace' and 'More Proxies', so users would definitely want to click that – it gives them exactly what they want. The blocks are both put right above the Go button, so a user will have to see those before they click the 'Go'. They also have very enticing offers, and are exactly what the users want.

I want to mention that before, I didn't add link units – and just had the blocks. I later realized this was a big mistake. The Link Units usually get around the same amount of clicks as the blocks – but on average pay twice as much. My earnings more than doubled when I placed too small link units above and below the URL bar.
A possible variation to this is to remove one of the big blocks, and add a banner above the URL bar. It does not make that much of a big difference, so it all really depends on your template.

Depending on your proxy's theme, you may not want the above template. Below are a few other concepts I have created, feel free to experiment.


Make use of your space! Your footer is a great place to stick a CPM ad because while it earns you money, it will be out of the way for your visitors. If it gets you that extra $2, then why not?

If you are not using Adsense, or any other PPC (pay per click) advertisements, then there is no reason why you should bother visitors with ads right next to the URL bar. Put them at the very top of the page, and in the footer. You will still get the impressions you need, without the annoyance of your visitors.

Just a word (note: This paragraph right here I am writing about a month after I have written the above). Over time, you may see your CTR slowly decrease, regardless of how good your placement is. This is because users coming back get blind to these ads. I suggest changing around your ad placements once in a while, or maybe make them stand out just a bit. Try out new things.

Advertisement Placement – Proxified Pages

This trick with putting ads onto your proxified pages (the pages that appear after you enter a URL into the form and press GO) is that you want to fit in as many ads as you want, and at the same time trying to annoy the visitors as little as possible.

It is very easy to place advertisements onto Proxified pages in Glype. All you have to do is go into your Admin CP and paste the code in to the 'Footer' field. If you do not have the Admin CP installed, then paste the code into the 'Proxified' tag inside of your theme's CONFIG file.

There are several different types of advertisements that you can place onto your proxified pages (PS: Google Adsense is NOT Allowed). These are CPM banners, popunders, interstitials/full page ads, and your own banners and such.

Banners – These are your every day 468x60 and 728x90 banners. Good advertisers have a 90-100% fill rate, so you can expect to have every impression counted with these. Some advertisers even offer backup codes, so if their banners don't appear, you can put in a banner form another network.

Pop Unders – These are popups that appear when users click a link, and automatically minimize. People have to open them and then either click or close the window. It is very debated whether or not to use these, because while they can make a lot of money, they can drive away your visitors. Also, be careful what ad network you use for pop unders, some networks use them to distribute adware/viruses. You can set the amount of times you want them to appear per minute.

Interstitials/Full Page Ads – Different ad networks call these different things. They are a big graphic that covers the screen for X amount of seconds or until you X out. While not as annoying as pop unders, still annoying. You can set them to appear every X amount of seconds.

Configuring Interstitials and Pop Unders

Because these ads do not appear in a set place, all you have to do is configure them from your control panel and place a JavaScript code onto the page.

I have Interstitials set to appear every 60 seconds, and so that they appear for 10 seconds or until a visitor clicks or removes them. Something around there is good, anywhere from 1-2 minutes. My average visitor browsing time is 10 minutes, allowing each visitor to view roughly 10 interstitial ads. If I get about 5k visitors a day, that's 50,000 impressions. Now divide that by 1000 (50), and multiply that by your CPM, and those are your daily earnings.

Pop Unders have been debated since they were introduced. Because of the way they are initiated, they can evade almost all popup blockers. Many proxy owners do not like pop unders because of their annoyance to visitors, however, I have found that they do not make too much of a difference. The lazy teenager who has finally found a working proxy will not waste any time looking for another one.

Setting pop unders to appear about once per minute is good enough. When I put pop unders into my proxy, I did not see much change in traffic. I even went so far as to try 3 pop unders per minute. Now that is what I do not recommend. Too many pop unders creates hell for your visitors, and it severely slows down your proxy. So once or twice per minute max, and to find out your daily impressions, use the same equation as the interstitials above.
I suggest Adversal or GlobalInteractive/Media Shakers for these two types of ad formats. Sites like CANEP and others purposefully allow popup blockers to stop pop unders, so you won't get payed as much.

Banners

If you try adding banners to your Glype proxy, you will realize that the URL form covers them. If you wish to stop this, just place the following code into your CSS in the 'framedForm.inc.php' in your Themes folder. This is the file that goes into your proxified pages.

This will force the body of websites to move 70 pixels down. If you plan on changing the height of the URL form, then you will need to change this too.

You should be signed up for at least two different CPM advertisement networks. This is because most only allow one ad per format per page (you can only place one 468x60 banner on the page from a network). Since there is no reason why you can't put two different banners of the same size (since it really doesn't make a difference), take one banner from your highest paying network and one from the second highest paying network and put them next to each other. You should put the codes in the same place as you put the pop under and interstitial codes.

If you want, you can also place one 768x90 advertisement above the two. I later decided to remove mine, as it seemed unnecessary and ugly. The only time I really find it acceptable is if you have a static ad that you sold (those don't really affect loading time).

Another thing that you can attempt to do is to take a banner and float it at the bottom of the page browser. This will follow a user as he scrolls. All you have to do is surround the advertisement in and place this into your CSS.

Selling Private Ads

Private ads are ads that you sell yourself; Somebody pays you by PayPal, and you put a banner up. There's no ad network involved. There are several reasons why selling private (direct) advertisements.

1. More Revenue – I'm sure you can sell a non-rotating ad for more than you are getting with your CPM banners
2. Stability – If somebody buys more than one month, than you are guaranteed to get a certain amount of money. With ad networks, you may get $10 one day and nothing the next.
3. No Revenue Sharing/Fees – Besides PayPal fees, the money is all yours.
4. Lower the load time for your visitors – The average GIF banner has a much smaller filesize than the iFrame or JavaScript ad networks give you.

So if you can sell private advertisements, go ahead. By selling 125x125 squares, I was able to monetize my sidebar (too small to put ads there). Your visitors will also thank you when browsing with your proxy, since the load time is greatly reduced. All of a sudden, a banner or two won't really matter.

You can find great deals at the Digital Point Marketplace – in the Advertising forum. You can also find a bunch of other stuff there, like promotion and newsletter blasts, but more about that later.

Summary: The best networks to sign up on are Google Adsense, Adversal, and Xtend Media. Try placing Adsense around the URL form on the index for maximum results. Put interstitials, pop unders, and banners onto the proxified pages (no Adsense). Try to put as many ads without sacrificing usability and load time. If you can, try selling some private advertisements. You can find great deals at the NetBuilders Marketplace.

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