Google AdSense and other advertising programs

Szechuanosaurus

So I'm just curious. I have a couple of projects currently fermenting at the back of my skull that might be able to take advantage of web-advertising revenue - free to use websites basically, not blogs but nothing mind-blowingly unconventional - and was wondering how effective services like AdSense are at generating revenue in comparison to manually negotiated advertising deals.

Anybody here use AdSense or anything like it (such as Amazon's Associates)? If so, what sort of money do you make off it? I'd only be looking to firstly cover the costs of hosting (probably around $50 a year) plus take some profit off it - nothing serious, it'd be a supplement to my wage, pocket money really. What's the profit versus traffic like and is it enough to cover additional bandwidth if you exceed your hosts allowance etc? Is it better to use ones that generate revenue just from being displayed or ones that only pay out when someone clicks through them?


Thoughts and experiences is what I'm looking for at this point, really.

FastForward

Not to get too detailed, but for most smallish to medium sites its the biggest and best source of revenue. Even a tiny site can make $30/month fairly easily. Do a search on it, you'll find tons of information.

Nexus Zero

I think it's the TOS to state exact numbers but I make a 90% profit from AdSense, which at the levels we're talking isn't a fortune but it does help while at Uni and when I want to buy software/hardware/products for the site. I don't even think I've fully optimised the adverts, but keep in mind that figure is contingent on the amount you pay for hosting.