Right now our website is bringing in about 20K uniques a month, which is up quite a bit from previous months, but AdSense (as usual) isn't paying anything. A main problem is that a lot of what we do is video, and the videos are all very long. The show we're doing now is getting, across all videos, about 150K views p/m, so I'm trying to decide if it's worth going after direct deals and adding them in the beginning of each video in a "Sponsored By..." setup. What would you guys charge for this? I'm thinking along the lines of $10-20 CPM (audience is hardcore gamers mostly, age 18~22), but I'm really not sure. Back to the AdSense problem, we're also considering trying to get straight CPM deals instead of PPC all together, but the gaming niche seems to be really difficult to get deals for. I've seen some insanely high CPM setups, although I don't remember what industry, so I'm a little unsure here also. Right now our eCPM with AdSense is about 1.50$, so I'd hope it's at least possible to get a good $5 deal with someone. Some good advice/experience would make me really happy TY
If you're willing to check out Pay Per Play ads, they estimate up to $0.02 per unqiue ad play (5-second audio ad) - so with your estimated 20K uniques a month, you could make up to $400.00 or more. I'm sure it's at least worth your time to read a little more about it, so check the red link in my signature below. It's nice because you don't need your visitors to click, and they are not directed away from your site by the advertisement (think TV, radio ads). You can hear a sample Taco Bell ad by going to the red link below and clicking "What is PPP." Best of luck!
The problem with gaming traffic is that it's low paying normally and can be harder to find ways of monetizing it better. Have you also tried CPA Affiliate Networks. I have a good few listed in my sig. There are some networks that has some zip/email offers that most probably will be entertainment related.