This post was most recently updated on February 26th, 2023
Monetizing websites can be a very efficient way to make money online. However, until the business goes well, it is common to go through some challenges or even need specialized help. That is the story of Henrick Santos, a MonetizeMore client who has been working as a publisher for two years, monetizes four websites, and has a six-figure monthly income at the age of 23.
After losing a site which was already making about $40,000 a month, Henrick reveals how he bounced back and even gives advice for those just starting. Curious? Check out the story!
Henrick’s history with website monetization started three years ago when he was a DJ locally:
“I was a DJ, playing at parties, and the owner of a nightclub in my area had websites and blogs and ended up learning about Google AdSense. So I was introduced to the platform through him. Before that, I had no idea how it worked. And this happens a lot: knowing that someone is making money with the internet, but not knowing how. We had projects together for a few months, then the partnership ended, but I kept the knowledge about AdSense,” says the former DJ.
In his time playing at parties, Henrick had already taken a DJ marketing course and understood a bit about paid traffic and branding. So he used this knowledge to start his projects. He created a website on his own about contests and did the promotion organically, using Facebook groups.
“I remember that on some days, I was ecstatic because I was making eight dollars a day. But I always had a long-term mindset. I thought: if this exists, there are more people in the market and more people making money from it,” he says with nostalgia.
By specializing in the area, Henrick met friends who encouraged him to leave organic and invest in paid traffic to give his site more visibility. By buying traffic, he could slowly scale to $10,000 per month.
“From then, we knew that if we had more capital, we could make more money. It took us a while to find an investor. I showed all the projects, explained how it worked, one person ended up accepting, and we got it done.”
Henrick’s idea was to use the investor’s money to get the minimum criteria to open a credit line within Google Ads, which would significantly increase the site’s revenue. Following this scaling plan, Henrick was already billing around $40,000 a month when he was banned from the AdSense account.
“Worse: I chose to scale only one website without diversifying, and it wasn’t on Ad Exchange (AdX) but on AdSense. And when you’re very scaled, everything becomes very thorough in AdSense. It becomes easier to get your account closed. What makes sense since if everyone could scale a lot on AdSense, there would be no AdX. We were making almost $40,000 when AdSense tripped us up, and the site was banned,” he recalls.
Read more about the advantages and differences between Google AdSense and Ad Exchange on PubGuru’s blog!
After trying to scale his website without the right strategy and losing everything, Henrick has decided to seek expert help from MonetizeMore to rebuild his work and get back into profit.
“I contacted MonetizeMore because of that. I had already secured Google’s line of credit and couldn’t stop the business. Then I was able to reach the parameters to be accepted into MonetizeMore, and that was the beginning of this new experience with Ad Exchange,” he said.
When asked about the migration period from AdSense to Ad Exchange, Henrick explained that it takes patience to get the expected results:
“Until it warms up, and you have high volumes to consolidate AdX, it will take some time. But you have a better guarantee of return on investment, even putting in very high amounts. The first step for when you have the capital to invest is to have the security of AdX, even if it takes time to adapt. It took me about two and a half months to get better results with AdX than I had before the AdSense ban,” he says.
With the help of MonetizeMore, Henrick could set up the structure he has considered ideal, which was to diversify the types of sites with different niches and have a strategy that involves both Google AdSense and Ad Exchange. AdSense on the smaller sites to mine the URLs and validate them; AdX to scale the sites safely. In addition, of course, to having the technology to protect the site and avoid a new ban. As a result, today, he earns six-figure a month as a publisher.
Any website can fall victim to invalid traffic, a type of non-human traffic that can jeopardize an entire advertising network. Thinking about this very recurrent problem, MonetizeMore‘s team of experts worked on Traffic Cop, a defense system awarded by Google with the 2020 innovation award. This tool can keep a website secure 24 hours a day. Watch Henrick’s experience with Traffic Cop in the video.
“The combination of Ad Exchange and Traffic Cop makes the site very secure, and it’s unlikely for something to happen that would cause you to lose everything. So the publisher can be much safer having these two things together. I recommend this tool to everyone.”, he suggests.
After losing his most profitable site and learning his lesson, Henrick has some advice for those still in the early stages of their career. One is to choose a niche that the site owner likes to talk about, but without forgetting that you also need to check if it is a profitable area. The ideal is to unite these two criteria to be successful: a niche you have an affinity with, but also has demand in the market.
He also reinforces that it is necessary to be patient to achieve one step at a time until you can scale the site on the most profitable platforms:
“It’s important to start seeing how it works and keep in mind that until you can go to AdSense, it takes time, as well as mastering traffic. And then moving from AdSense to Ad Exchange is also going to take a lot of time. A new publisher who wants to enter this market has to understand that until they get the experience they need to be able to scale, it will take a little while, but it’s worth it,” he advises.
Want to get expert help to make more money and keep your site always safe like Henrick did? Contact MonetizeMore! We’ll be happy to help.
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