Your Disqus revenue is closely tied to reader engagement. That means that the more readers comment on your site, the more viewable your ads will be, and the more you’ll earn. As you begin monetizing your site, remember to keep to track of both engagement and revenue to optimize your earnings.
Engage 101: Understanding engagement metrics
You might already be tracking pageviews and subscribers, but what does that really tell you about your audience? Experts agree that engagement is a much better indicator of your site’s success than vanity metrics like views and followers.
1. What should you track?
Disqus’s analytics tools let you track your site’s engagement through votes and comments. These metrics indicate the value, not just volume of visitors to your site.
Go to the “Analyze Engagement” page to view votes and comments by date. You can break down your engagement metrics by month or day, and select a specific date-range to see how engagement change over a given period of time.
2. How to use engagement metrics
Look at your posts with the highest engagement. How do they differ from low-engagement posts? Perhaps you wrote about a controversial topic, used a provocative title, or posed a question to your audience. Pay attention to how your audience engagement changes for every post and use that information to develop more engaging content in the future.
Ads 101: Understanding revenue metrics
Disqus’s revenue analytics show you key ad performance metrics like RPMv, viewable impressions, viewability Percent, and total earnings. The closer you can get to 100% viewability, the higher your earnings will be.
1. What should you track?
Take a look at your revenue metrics in the “Analyze Revenue” page. You’ll see your earnings, viewable impressions, viewability percent and RPMv—that’s revenue per one thousand viewable impressions broken down by date. As with the engagement analytics, Disqus’s revenue analytics page lets you select a specific date-range to see how your earnings change over a given period of time.
2. How to maximize earnings.
Viewability percent gives you the most control over your Disqus earnings. The higher your viewability percent, the more you’ll earn. Since Disqus loads asynchronously, you can maximize viewability percent by removing any slow-to-load elements on your site. And remember, if there’s anything separating your comments section from the article (like a click-to-view-comments button or large blocks of other ads) your Disqus earnings will decrease significantly. Keep your earnings high by including the Disqus embed immediately after the article.
Get paid
Fill out your payment info at the bottom of the settings page. Disqus payments are made on a 90-day trailing basis once a minimum $100 balance is met. That means your January earnings are paid in April, February earnings are paid in May, etc. You can view your upcoming payments and estimated pay date in the payments tab.