Hello, I am interested in starting an ad network like TribalFusion, Azoogle, etc.. Was curious as to how much (rough estimate) would it cost to start it? I am mostly concerned about the programming of the software part. Anyone can give me tips or let me know? thanks
I looked it up a few months back. It's hard to find a good script, most of the crappy one's are still about $400. To get one made yourself would probably cost about $2500.
Yes, to find a good script might almost be impossible. I would suggest that, if you have the funds available, to sign up at any of the freelancer sites and have a script developed to suit your needs. Atleast you will then have a site you are familiar with and that is easy to use. Then you will need to start advertising your services. It might be quite difficult to get quality advertisers and for that matter publishers. If you can overcome this hurdle you are almost there. Another problem is payment processing. You will need to have this set up in various ways, such as credit card payments, accounts for large institutions (who wont pay for an ad using a credit card or paypal, etc.), paypal, etc. etc. Another thing you will need to look at is your local currency laws. In all likelihood you will have clients from around the world and you will need to receive money and send money to them. You will need to ensure that you will be in a position to exchange that money according to your laws. It is quite a big task to run one of these sites.
no i dont want a script or anything.. i want it to be custom. i have a decent budget and i am not looking to be a fly by the night op
i have posted ads on freelance sites but no one is giving me an estimate i just get inundated with the same old copy & paste msgs
OK. Let's estimate that you get 100 million impressions in January. Your domain is $10-$30. Your website design will cost $300-$2000 for a quality design. You can easily go on a VPS for your website hosting for a month, even a good shared plan if you're lucky. $10-$40 for a month. Your adserver will probably be 2 or 3 dedicated servers. $700 a month. Payment processing fees, support script, etc. will run at about $300, depending. Marketing is your big expenditure. Expect to spend $1000 or more a month if you don't rely heavily on word of mouth. So, you need a good referral program in there. The script is also a big expenditure. A random rotating script should only be about $50-$100. If you want to go contextual, expect to spend $8,000 for something based on PHP and meta tags, and up to $40,000 for something of fair quality that deals with semantics, Python maybe. You don't have enough money for a behavioral ad server, trust me. This ads up to a lot, and you probably don't have enough time to support all these users and make sure everything is running normally while preventing click fraud and marketing to gain new users. In conclusion, it's a rewarding venture, but you should only undertake it if you have the available resources at your disposal. If you want something to, say, practice on, build a traffic exchange or a GPT site. I've sent you a PM with an offer. Thanks
Learn PHP and system administration. That'll save you most of the costs. Otherwise it's probably not worth the effort and stress that you'll get.
my goal is pretty much lets say if i spent $75k to get $75k back within the year.. is that possible?basically get my investment back within a year
That would be a reasonable goal but you got to attend alot of affiliate events and advertise like brazy. Not to mention keep up with every complaint and software problem.
Tribal Fusion is a CPM network whereas Azoogle is a performance driven marketing affiliate system, correct me if i am wrong. What you are trying to accomplish will lead to you to determine your costs. I dont agree with people telling you X for that, Y for this without knowing what you are trying to do. What i would tell you is that the software and programming part is the last thing to worry about if you are trying to get into this business. There are lots of people, including me, who have already developed adservers or trackers and may be willing to go into partnership. The more interesting and important part is what you are trying to do. Who are you, what and whom you are selling? Is there any different unique concepts that you are bringing into table? Without knowing these facts, just opening a blank sheet of paper and writing down approximate costs and trying to visualize if you are going to get any investment back within one year is just reading future from your palms. If you have thought about your concept, your mission and competitive advantages, than fine. If not, dont spend even a dollar which you will never be able to get back easily.
hey friend, i deal with networks a lot and recently though to open up myself. i have a great domain to use, and a dedicated programmer team that would work with me on that project. most of the numbers said here are way over my estimates cause people don't know what they are talking about. if you have good ideas in mind, we can partnership on my project, as if and when my project will go bigger, i.e like Azoogle.com, then it will have many people working together to make it better then the competitors. Robert
Since I'm the only person to have posted numbers here I thought I'd respond to some of the remarks that they aren't accurate. First of all, the OP was asking for an estimate of what it would cost, since the freelancers wouldn't give him a concrete one. I've taken my estimates from quotes that were given to me and some from the actual prices that my network pays. Again, it's a rough estimate. These estimates were given with the assumption that the OP wanted to open up a quality network that could be eventually self-sufficient financially- a long term venture that wasn't based on an $80 modification of OpenAds. I quickly browse through the DigitalPoint forums. Several ad networks have been launched in the past year or two. Let's recall a few. CPC ads.net, itpays.ws, advert-revenue.com, linkanova.com. These networks are now defunct because the owners didn't have the resources to compete or decided to abandon the venture for a lack of immediate ROI. On the other hand, we see successful networks. AdToll.com which is growing rapidly into a respectable network, Canep Media which is a partner, like Freedom of Ads, in the AdECN Exchange etc. We've heard that they are doing well- both Canep Media and AdToll and we wish them the best of luck against the behemoths of the industry. A directory or a proxy network is very different from an advertising network. But, each to his own. Good luck with all of your ventures.
yeah azoogle is a cpa based and tribalfusion is cpm based... my main goal is to know how much would the programming cost be. I have the marketing and everything else down because I ran an offline marketing company before and I can use my skills in that. I am trying to secure about $100,000 financing for this venture which I hope I should be able to secure within few weeks. Like I said I wanted response from someone who has setup ad networks or runs one and whooped has helped me a bit and Im not looking to buy scripts or modify anything. i want something custom built from the ground up. Right now I do not plan on doing contextual but cpm + cpa (publishers/advertisers have different options) . I hope to have this network launch by the Summer of 2008. I have done my research on cost of attending a trade show and each of them will run about $10k-$15k but should help boost my exposure out there.
Shah, From what you've described, you pretty much want an adserver with conversion tracking. You should be able to get that done for $500 -$2,000 with PayPal integration. Try rentacoder.com, getafreelancer.com, or elance.com. ScriptLance.com isn't too bad either. However, I'd recommend that you do eventually move to contextual ads, simply to optimize your revenue and to optimize everyone's results. Many CPM ads are now contextually targeted at a bare minimum- not all, but many. This will improve CTR and conversion rates, which is what advertisers are after and adding contextual targeting to a CPA model will increase publisher revenue. Thanks
Very professional? That's variable. But it's definitely possible, easily possible, with the technology that you're seeking. Again, I recommend that you capitalize on contextual adserving technology at a minimum.
It is going to be hard because people have trouble trusting ad networks also since google has a stranglehold on the market. I know myself I would really have to think twice about trying out a new ad network even if it is just one small ad because of all of the stories I have heard about companies not being able to pay out and others folding before they can give the checks to everyone and there is no way to get your money. My advice would be to build you a small team of people to start with that you know can get the job done and pay them just as employees because in the long run it will be cheaper if you are doing this as a long term engagement. Because many people will create script then leave and when something needs fixing which will happen alot in the first months or year of existence and so on then you will have to contact them again and maybe wait a few days to get it fixed at a high price when if you hire someone full time they will be able to look over it all of the time as well as also have another obligation with the company such as SEO etc. Main thing is to have a business plan, market research, general knowledge of advertising industry, and plenty of time and you should be able to make some money at it.
500,1000,2000 name your price. You can get any price from getafreelancer. It wont cost you $10K absolutely. Adservers are not rocket science and with India,East Europe outsourcing prices for programming are really dropped to ground.
Your missing one important thing and that is the costs of employment. Although you could probably run a network by 1 or 2 people, you are more likely to not do well and be known for the wrong things. So employing people that will help your publishers and keep upto date with all the threads on the web that call you a fraud when infact they got banned for frauding will make your network be much more of a success. So staff is needed and will cost a lot. If you get someone that does a script, then I can't see it being a script that will take a month to build. If it's being used for the first time then it will really need some major testing before it's launched to the public. Testing could take a few months. Preferably, buying a script of the self will be cheaper and quicker to get started. Many networks seem to be using directtrack these days. I've given you a link to some quick information about directtrack and what it has to offer.
Very true, John. Running with 100 publishers and a few advertisers is a full time job, and you'll definitely need employees or partners to be scalable. However, many new networks don't get to that point, so I omitted it. Startup costs don't really include employees.