I was just looking at revenue and traffic figures for CoasterBuzz over the last year, and they're kind of disturbing. Traffic is up around 15% year-over-year, but revenue is actually taking a slight hit. The overall cost-per-thousand rate is declining. October was the worst month I've had in like two years. Club memberships are relatively flat.
That's not good news. I'm sure that part of it is that I can't find a good balance of ad providers. They all kind of suck right now. The challenge is figuring out which one has a good fill rate and eCPM, and then who they should default to, and probably who defaults from them in turn. It's not fun.
I wish I could simply use the Google AdSense ads that so many other people use, but I can't do that and make the same kind of income yet, especially with the current site layout. That and there aren't a lot of relevant ads for this market.