So, wait, the bloggers etc who throw up little "please disable adblock so you can see my ads and keep my site running" -- they're talking solely about impressions, I assume, because no one who disables adblock is actually going to click the ads. Do they actually fund their site that way? Because if it's powerful enough to pay some of their server costs (even without clicks!) it could probably handle some of ours ... every little bit helps and it doesn't cost the users anything. Lemme know if I'm off.
See links below for the latest and greatest ad networks that explain the different styles and pay rates for ads. CPM = cost per THOUSAND impressions. So a $0.50 CPM would be 50 cents for 1000 impressions. Based on Hubski's pageviews yesterday, we would make a few bucks (literally) if we had those on every page you all viewed. $0.50 is really high though. Usually it's much, much less. The way I've said it up there isn't technically correct though. It's usually said, "the advertiser pays a $10 CPM to run 100,000 ads (a $1,000 total expense)." But then you have to look at what the RPM (revenue) actually is. Since you are using an ad network, the cost may be $1000 but you, as the "publisher" or whatever, only sees $500 because the network takes the other $500. [1] http://www.monetizemore.com/blog/10-best-ad-networks-2014/
Online advertisements are a crazy underworld. Based on the numbers I see randomly because of work or whatever, I don't understand how anyone makes any decent money of ads.
Advertising might be a good bet. There are many ad networks out there you can integrate with, and make some decent eCPMs depending on your traffic volumes.