American University of Sharjah professor Starling Hunter has studied the factors by which blog advertising actually earns revenue. Here’s his summary:
(1) The number of weekly page views (WPV) is a much stronger predictor of weekly ad revenue and price than are either the number of inbound links or the number of blogs providing those links
(2) The number of ads has a negative impact on ad price and a largely positive effect on ad revenue, and
(3) The political orientation of the blog matters: on average left-of-center blogs significantly out-earn their right-of-center counterparts.
From a corporate vantage point, Starling’s study underscores how blogs are quickly reaching the inevitable fork in the road that will define the technology’s relationship as a tool of the profit motive.
On one road, advertising will force many stand-alone blogs to evolve upward into full-featured web sites, chock full of real-time dynamic content bells and whistles. Independent and business bloggers who enjoy making money from ads aren’t going to limit the experience and revenue potential of their fan base because they’re committed to operating only from a single room in the house.
On the other road, this same proliferation of advertising will drive lots of people toward RSS and other newsreader technology, where they can get the content they want without having to put up with the increasing distractions and click-throughs of the over-designed, advertising-laden web source.
The bottom line for business: Like the ad revenues that push them into hyped-up glory, blogs are not – and never will be – the end results of themselves.
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The Business of America is Business: Starling Hunter's BlogAds study and analysis
