Ask HN: Anyone monetizing their sideproject with direct ads / sponsorships?

Yes! My side project turned into my day job several years ago but to this day one of the largest source of income it brings in is from ads. I now use more of a niche ad network provider to serve our ads but at the beginning everything was google adsense. While its true that day 1 ads didn't generate enough to cover costs but since I self hosted and worked hard to optimize everything I didn't have huge AWS bills to pay and costs were really low anyway. It was only six month ago that we finally made the jump to the cloud.

Anyway the point is, at least if you're not targeting an user base that has ad block enabled, ads, and I'm not talking about annoying ads, still can work just fine. What we do is offer our users a fairly cheap subscription option to disable the ads too along with getting some extra features so a lot of people jumped on that too... but I love being able to offer most of our services to everyone without any cost so thank you advertisers!

While I charge for some sideprojects, I can't really do that for the blog I run. Since it is semi-popular, it runs ads and I charge for text ads, about $5 a month. Before it was popular, I was only charging $2 a month, but when I began to see a demand to be on certain pages, I increased the price just slightly. I don't get too many, but I've had a few buyers. I don't personally keep the money, it usually just goes right back into the hosting costs. So I still have to go to my day job to make up for the mortgage, credit card, gas, etc.

The money makers on the website are the banner ads, though lately, it seems like the more visitors I get, the less money I make. When I was getting far less, I was making more. Go figure that one out.

http://confessionsoftheprofessions.com/

I am unable to answer your questions for you, but I wanted to talk on the topic because it is something I've been thinking a lot about lately

There recently was a lot of talk and reporting surrounding YouTube 'changing their algorithm' and hurting a lot of YouTubers I watch frequently

One of my thoughts was that unfortunately the best solution would probably mean content creators would need to seek their own advertising'sponsorships

I can tell you the only ads I have clicked on in any recent memory are all, every single ad, of the ones that 3blue1brown places at the end of thaer videos(o)

Considerate effort like this really made me think how inconsiderate and detrimental the current hands off one size fits all ad networks are

Some content creators will surely protest 'im a creator stead a salesman' which is a fair complaint but I'd argue 3blue1brown really brings an artistry to the personal ad network the channel is creating.. self curated ads has the potential to be another medium of self expression

(o) https://youtu.be/mvmuCPvRoWQ?t=22m41s

.. an aside: the ad that YouTube ran in front of the video I linked when I first clicked on it was offensive and jarring, it depicted an animated Albert Einstein literally scribbling on a black board while a student looked on in dread and three words came in the screen, two of which I can remember 'math ___ sucks' the middle was either: teachers, lessons, or tutors; this ad actually upset me.. contrast that with this great 3blue1brown ad(i) and I am more confident in my conviction that a new collective effort in this direction would be both beneficial to all parties and is seemingly compelled by the momentum of inevitably

(i) https://youtu.be/gB9n2gHsHN4?t=19m52s

Just starting this process on a side project. Currently reaching out to advertisers I think would be a good fit. Too bad there's not a more premium google ad sense for niche verticals.

* How are you doing it? * How much do you know how to charge? * Do you recommend it as a way of monetising your (side)project?