NOTE and TL:DR:
This is going to be a bit long but worth reading. If you need a TL:DR, I’ll provide that quick. TL:DR is that ad prices everywhere have decreased and Brave is no exception. They are working on getting Search Ads to help expand options and also are working on trying to roll out Self Serve ads which will allow more places to place ads. Action is being taken, but until then, we are seeing a hit on quantity of ads and their prices, especially with the bulk of them being “house ads” paid for by Brave just to help us get BAT.
Example of article showing ad economy hit hard lately can be seen at https://www.forbes.com/sites/bethkindig/2023/01/27/ad-budgets-set-to-slow-even-more-in-2023/?sh=2b5f8fab554c
Basic Explanation
There have been a lot of discussions among users lately about how it seems we are earning less BAT than usual. I know I can affirm that’s true. Even as I’m writing this, my Estimated Earnings are just 6.793 BAT, which is just $1.74 USD. I have seen 368 ads to get that, which averages about 0.018 BAT or $0.0047 per ad. That seems quite low, doesn’t it?
When I inquired about this through Brendan Eich and others at Brave, they explained that advertising has decreased through 2022 and into 2023. They initially had a goal of about $20 CPM for ads, which means they would charge about $20 for every 1,000 views. However, the prices have been closer to $10 CPM.
If you do the math, that means Brave is charging around $0.01 US per ad, which means we’d be getting around $0.007. Earlier I showed I’m averaging $0.0047 USD. So what’s the difference on why I’m not getting $0.007 per ad? Does that mean Brave is skimming off some of the revenue?
The answer to that is no. As they went on to explain, that’s the prices they charge on average, but that doesn’t mean all of them hit that mark. For example, when we get new Wallet partners for Brave Wallet, they tend to either run house ads for them or will provide a discount on ads to help bring awareness. On top of that, Brave also continuously runs house ads which is an out of pocket expense for them. They run these ads just to guarantee we can earn something and also to make sure there’s awareness on features, such as Brave Wallt, which they are always trying to encourage us to use.
This isn’t just at Brave
If you spend time searching through Google or other search engines, you’ll find that there has been talk of ad revenue dropping recently. It’s been a struggle, even at bigger places like Google and Facebook. Examples of some articles discussing this can be found linked below:
https://apnews.com/article/technology-business-earnings-reports-8d24203456813802a4239e54d1b444d4
https://www.adweek.com/media/google-reports-decreased-ad-revenue-amid-looming-advertiser-pullback/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/02/technology/alphabet-earnings.html
And the larger story of how advertisers are cutting their budgets at https://www.insiderintelligence.com/content/30-of-advertisers-cutting-their-2023-budgets
What does that mean for us now?
Unfortunately it means that we may see these slightly lower values until Brave can implement some of the future changes. I know it’s frustrating. By all means I want to earn a lot more and am on a limited budget in real life. While BAT never makes us rich, the extra money is able to help with things needed in rea llife. So I understand and relate to many of you who are frustrated and are hoping to earn more.
All I can suggest is that we be patient and keep participating, to incentivize places to want to use Brave Ads (Brave Rewards). We can also try to encourage businesses in our country to consider placing ads with Brave.
What does that mean for us in the future?
Brave is working on getting more research done on Brave Ads that can show why they may be better than other advertising options, which in turn would increase the number of advertisers we have.
In addition to that, they are working on rolling out more opportunities for ads and ad sales by releasing Search Ads, which will give a different format for ads. Also, they will be releasing Self Serve ads which will allow businesses and individuals to create and place their own ads. The other benefit to Self Serve ads is that until now, ads had a minimum amount of ads or money that needed to be spent in order for ads to be placed. Through self serve, they will allow businesses and individuals to buy smaller amounts of ads. This doesn’t mean that prices will drop even lower. It just means they are going to be giving more opportunities for advertisements to be placed, where otherwise it may have required larger ad budgets than had been capable for places.
Will we earn more?
Yes. While nobody from Brave is able to guarantee any amounts, they are saying that they’ll be doing everything they can to increase the number of ads we get and how much we get per ad. Unfortunately, things like ad prices are something that can and will fluctuate. They also are competing with many places. If they try to charge too much, then advertisers would go to competitors instead. So there’s a delicate balance.
As any of us who have been using Brave for a long time, their use of soon can be a longer timeframe than any of us would wish. In fact, it’s been a bit of an inside joke to say it’s soon™. Some of the future changes should be starting to roll out or begin its process towards releasing in April or early May. But others might not be until closer to the end of the year or slightly past.
The main thing I want to emphasize is that they currently don’t have anything written in stone in terms of when to expect the newer features or when we’ll see increases in ads seen or more BAT per ad. All that can be said is they are sincerely making strides to make it all happen. For many of us, this helps give insight on just how much places are earning for showing ads and why websites try to plague us with pop-ups and all. Just as we’re frustrated because we’re barely earning a penny per ad (give or take), so too are the websites which then are trying to increase their profits by putting as many ads as possible.
Verified user (i will approximate a max 20BAT/month, maybe there are small farmers and assume more devices ).
