SEM Tycoon

**KeithfromGeorgi** · 07-30-2007, 08:34 AM

Hi Guys-

I work for a travel website and we are trying to monetize our site and I need some help as I'm in a bit over my head. We're getting a little over 100k pageviews a month and I want to move away from Google Adsense towards something more focused. Can you please give me some specific suggestions of what kind of programs I should be looking for? Is it better for us to go after CPA or CPM at this stage? Banners or text? Thanks.

Best,
Keith

**junger** · 07-30-2007, 11:44 AM

Have you thought about selling your ads straight to advertisers?

BTW, Adsense is designed to be very focused, so if it isn't showing you relevant ads, try optimizing your site.

**imported_mondala** · 07-30-2007, 01:08 PM

If your site is applicable, you might want to offer travel bookings or vacations etc through an affiliate like ian.com

**Finandom** · 07-31-2007, 08:11 PM

I think selling affiliate products will be a good income for your site. there are a lot of products you can sell such as travel packages, hotels booking, flight tickets and others relevant products.

Selling Ads also is a good choice that I think is better than those contextual ads.

**john546** · 08-04-2007, 12:42 AM

Theres a good amount of CPM and CPA ad networks listed on my affiliates directory, but personally I think that if you went for the CPM way, then trying to get your own advertisers for your niche may be a better approach. In other words, you may get a higher CPM rate as you are cutting out the middleman.

Good luck and hope it all works for you.

**MrCat** · 08-10-2007, 05:31 PM

You should bring in a lot of traffic to your niche. Once this is done, it would be easier for you to monetize it more through PPC. I fairly think that 100k pageviews is not bad at all. You may check out our site also for your reference. Goodluck

**handsome rob** · 08-10-2007, 05:45 PM

Sell travel guides through amazon.com

**Superman859** · 08-12-2007, 10:40 AM

Like others have said - add some links for affiliate commissions.

Someone did mention travel guides through Amazon, and while it is an option, my experience with Amazon has not been great. The payout is very little, and for some reason it seems like you don't get many sales through your links. Maybe it's because Amazon is such a big name that people just go directly to amazon to look up travel guides once they get the idea from seeing the ad on your site. Maybe it's something else, but I've never had much luck with Amazon.

I think flights, hotel bookings, and things like that may work well for you. I'm an affiliate with TripAdvisor which is alright. There are probably better programs to join (TripAdvisor just has a poor affiliate panel that doesn't quite seem to function properly). But for a travel specific site, a similar affiliate program would work great for you - my site isn't directly related to travel and has very little about hotel bookings, but I still get a portion of my income from TripAdvisor regardless.

**jesterx** · 08-13-2007, 01:16 AM

do a jv with other big companies in a similar niche just make sure they are not competitors and then tell em you are doing a deal where you giving 50% off banner ads or click ads on your site.

THis works great, so go and try it if you want.

**skyhawk133** · 08-13-2007, 01:28 PM

As I'm sure you already know, travel is a huge industry and thus has a ton of affiliate programs available. You might even look at trying out some of Google's new "Referrals 2.0" in the travel arena to see if they convert for you. If so, you'll definitely want to look at doing some more targetted offers through affiliate networks and companies directly.