Need some advice about running a streaming/embed site without annoying users too much
I’ve been working on a small movie/seires (anime will be added soon) streaming project mainly for learning and experimenting with embeds, workers, players, APIs, etc.
One thing I’m struggling with is monetization without completely ruining the user experience. Most ad networks push aggressive popunders, redirects, fake buttons, and other annoying stuff. I’m trying to keep things cleaner specially for mobile user while still covering server/domain costs.
Right now I’m testing different embed providers and trying to reduce popup frequency as much as possible. Also dealing with random iframe/X-Frame issues, dead providers, websocket failures, and APIs returning invalid stream URLs.
For people who’ve worked on similar projects before:
- Which ad networks were the least intrusive for users?
- How do you balance monetization vs retention?
- Any good practices for handling unreliable streaming providers?
- Currently i am using Adsterra but my cpm is very low even though more than 60% impressions are from USA/UK. am i doing something wrong?
Would appreciate real experiences or advice from people who’ve been in this space for a while.