I think you guys are in a unique situation where you have the power to let a copy cat pass or not pass. That doesn't happen to everyone. Not everyone owns the platform.

good point. we're on posterous.

Thanks zaidf. Sorry about the confusion. We actually mean that we (as the platform) are making a $340 CPM. The advertiser in this case is making closer to a $500 CPM.

The "C" in CPM stands for "cost" and therefore can really only be used to talk about expenses, so it totally doesn't make sense to says "we are making a $340 CPM".

Yeah but CPM is also used to denote revenue. I notice Google now uses RPM in their Adsense reports which makes more sense but they used to (from memory) use the term eCPM.

Exactly. Only time I have heard $x CPM is when ad networks tell me they can make me $x for every 1,000 impressions of their ads on my site.

Overall that post remains pretty confusing.

thanks for pointing that out. acronyms aside, those are the numbers.

One term my company uses (not sure if it's an industry standard) that captures what you're describing is "yield," which is basically revenue/cost per user. Ultimately, what "CPM" you are making your advertisers is hard to really evaluate without knowing how much they are paying per impression or click.

That said, sounds like you guys are on the right track, now just have to sustain this success and scale it!

thanks sardonicbryan. "yield" makes more sense. scale is the name of the game!

I actually made an online course with some of my basic "tech knowledge". Now if a friend asks me, for example, about the process I went through to create a Facebook application, I send them to my course. I obviously won't charge my friends for the course.

I still get questions like this and have recently started to refer my friends to Quora.

Ultimately, as you mentioned, the overall lesson is to learn how to say 'no'. You can do this with respect and tact.