This case study is provided by Malik, 28, based in Bandung. He’s been running online businesses for almost four years. Not a developer, he’s growing an Indonesian entertainment website that now makes $8,700 a month thanks to an ad mixture.
Indonesian entertainment website case study data:
| Niche | Celebrity & Entertainment |
| Monthly impressions | 1,5 million+ |
| Traffic geolocation | Indonesia, Malaysia, Bangladesh, Singapore, and more. |
| Average CPM | $3.3 |
| CPM Indonesia | $7.8 |
| Ad formats for publishers | Popunder, Native Banner |
| Average monthly revenue | $8,700 (last 3 months) |
| Peak monthly revenue | $29,000 |
Disclaimer
The story was translated by the Adsterra Content team. We had to depersonalize web screenshots and erase sensitive data to protect the publisher’s privacy. We tried to keep the copy authentic but may have misinterpreted local names or slang. Please be tolerant of this.
Hi mates! I’m going to be honest from the start: I’m not a developer. I studied communications, I like writing, and I’ve always been close to the world of Indonesian celebrity culture — infotainment, as we call it here. Everyone in my family watches it. My grandmother, my mom, my cousins. It’s basically a national language.
When I launched my first site (I’ll keep the real URL private), it was mostly a hobby. I’d post quick articles about trending celebrities — gossip, red carpet moments, couple rumors, you name it. Then I added recaps of the Sinetron (Indonesian soap opera) category, and next, Korean drama and K-pop news, which are extremely popular with the 16–30 age segment in Indonesian cities. My site is now growing organically only through Google Search.
I will share my early problems and methods that helped me grow my business, which has hit $29,000 (that’s my next scheduled payout!).
Early monetization problems
My early monetization was a disaster. I was using a mix of CPM banner networks. Why? Just to make more money–that’s how I thought. But later, I realized that multiple ad codes don’t necessarily indicate high income. Codes conflicted, my stats were a mess, and I could hardly hit $400 per month.
A friend in Jakarta’s publisher community (we share notes in a WhatsApp group) told me to look at Adsterra. He said, “Bro, the approval is fast, the support is actually responsive and polite, and the payouts never miss.” That sealed it. I decided to focus on one monetization tool and test it for a while.
New strategy I learned from my manager
When I applied to Adsterra in mid 2025, my combined monthly pageviews were already around 1.5+ million. The approval took less than 5 minutes. I easily generated a couple of scripts for Banners and put them on the main category pages. Well, no magic. I saw views and my earnings coming, but it seemed my visitors ignored the ads.
Thankfully, I heard from my friend that Adsterra’s support managers can help build personal monetization strategies. That was a live chat session when my manager, Zoe, suggested removing banners and adding a Popunder code to all pages. The result was a shock: more ad impressions counted, and revenues peaked.
Why Popunder?
Popunder has become my highest revenue contributor at approximately 55% of total earnings. This surprised me initially; I expected Native Banner to dominate because it’s less disruptive. But entertainment traffic in Indonesia behaves very specifically. Users arrive via Google Search, read an article, sometimes click around, and then leave.
The Popunder format triggers silently, opening a new tab behind the active browser window. Users who come for gossip content often scroll through 3–5 articles. The Popunder fires once per user per session, so it doesn’t annoy repeat readers, and the CPM for Indonesian entertainment traffic is consistently competitive.
Here you see how rates differ: with fewer impressions, Pop ads send a CPM of $10.9 while payouts for Native Banners stay at $1.5.
Native Banner contributes the remaining 45%. Its real value isn’t just the CPM — it’s the user experience protection. The native format adds a layer of editorial credibility. It also captures users who would otherwise bounce after one article.
I experimented briefly with In-Page Push. It works, but I definitely need to find a different location for them. Adsterra Support assured me it’s feasible.
Entertainment website earnings by countries
The Indonesian traffic drives the majority of volume, but I’m now working on getting more Malaysian and Singaporean users. They arrive naturally because some of my K-drama content ranks in Malay too, and Adsterra offers nice payouts, some $3.5 CPM for Malaysia (see my 30-day revenue breakdown by countries). But still, traffic is insufficient to drive great revenues.
One thing I want to clarify: the $8,700 average represents my revenue from Adsterra only. It’s my main network and the only one I use for these three sites. I keep it simple. I tried running two networks simultaneously in my early days, and it was a management nightmare, resulting in CPM drop and support tickets going everywhere. Stick with one solid network and optimize within it.
Pro tips for publishers growing an Indonesian Entertainment website
You know ways to monetize a business, like mine. But still, you need a foundation for growing an entertainment website in Indonesia. I’ve selected tricks and tweaks that.
1. Build around moments, not evergreen topics
Indonesian entertainment traffic spikes hard around reality TV show eliminations, celebrity weddings, and political events tied to public figures. Post within two hours of a story breaking because Google search traffic in Indonesia is highly moment-driven, and you can benefit from publishing trending news. Your article doesn’t have to be the best written; it has to be the first indexed and the one that grabs attention.
2. Mobile-first layout is non-negotiable
More than three-quarters of Indonesian internet users access the web primarily through their mobile phones (mobile traffic domination), often mid-price Android devices powered by 4G. Pages that load in over 3 seconds lose 40–50% of visitors before they even read a headline. Use lightweight themes, compress images aggressively, and test on a Redmi or Oppo device before publishing. Get a pro Chrome extension for tracking site health in real time. My results are close to the red zone, as you can see:
3. Become an active member of a publisher community
You can’t overstate the value of the informal WhatsApp and Telegram groups where Indonesian publishers share tips. We warn each other when traffic from certain GEOs drops, share notes on which ad network is having payout issues, and help each other with technical problems. This community is one of my biggest unfair advantages.
4. Use the Adsterra account manager’s help actively
Unlike some networks where support is just a ticket system, my Adsterra manager proactively suggests optimization tweaks every two to three weeks. Accept that help. One suggestion for placing Native Banner units above the comment section can add $400/month in revenue.
5. Publish in Bahasa Indonesia, fully
I know some publishers try to do bilingual or “Indonesian English” content to chase Malaysian or Singaporean traffic. Don’t do it unless you have separate sites for separate GEOs. A hybrid voice confuses your Google ranking signals and dilutes your identity with Indonesian audiences, who strongly prefer reading in their own language.
Shall you allow AI bots to crawl your entertainment site?
Mates, this part reflects my personal views on AI search. I do believe we, publishers, and honest entrepreneurs suffer from AI Overviews. I know: big CEOs out there keep telling us they leave clicks untouched, but that’s partially true.
I can’t say that’s a proper strategy that fits all, but I decided to disallow AI bots from crawling my inventory. Just added such lines in the robots.txt file.
User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: OpenAI
Disallow: /
User-agent: ChatGPT-User
Disallow: /
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: anthropic-ai
Disallow: /
User-agent: Claude-Web
Disallow: /
User-Agent: PerplexityBot
Disallow: /Worst practices of Indonesian website monetization
I’ve already discussed my initial mistakes in growing site revenue. If I started today, I would also avoid the following worst practices.
Never launch with aggressive ad density
I was impatient and launched with three banners simultaneously from day one. You need to prove your site has real content value before adding aggressive monetization. I recommend waiting two months post-launch, then introducing one format at a time with weekly monitoring on Search Console and Analytics.
Don’t chase high-CPM niches you don’t understand
I’ve seen publishers in our community try to pivot from entertainment to crypto or forex content purely because they heard CPMs were higher. They lacked the credibility signals, couldn’t write convincingly, and their traffic depth was terrible. Indonesian audiences are warm and loyal when a site feels genuine, but they leave fast if something feels weird or shady.
Don’t neglect content freshness
Some publishers treat their site as a “set and forget” machine. They post 50 articles, place paid ads, and expect passive income. Entertainment content rewards only freshness. If your K-drama recap is from three seasons ago and a competitor published one yesterday, you’re invisible.
Avoid asking for payouts before the minimum threshold just to test
My mates told me about one trick: you earn $25 and immediately request a payout to “test if the network pays.” I don’t recommend you do this. It creates delays in the payout cycle and signals to the account manager that you may not be a serious partner. Let earnings accumulate and come on schedule, and build trust first. Afterward, you’ll be able to ask for individual payouts.
Don’t rely on CPM only
When growing an Indonesian entertainment website, you must focus on real payouts, not rates. If your rate for the US traffic is $19, but you send poor volumes, you’ll make less than with average rates and lots of ad impressions.
Keep the focus, but have more than one site
When Google updates hit, especially for news and entertainment content, you want a bunch of business assets, not a single site that can drop. I started building my second site while the first was profitable.
Final steps
Growing entertainment websites in Indonesia feels natural to me because I genuinely love the content. Currently, I’m expanding the K-drama site with dedicated review sections for Thai and Filipino dramas, which both have massive Indonesian fan bases. The traffic is already starting to reflect it. I expect to cross $12,000/month in the next two quarters without adding a fourth site.
While this business requires patience, there is no reason to delay the start of your online venture. You can enhance your monetization power with a site like mine, try posting local viral news, or try signing up as a publisher and ask for the team’s assistance. My Adsterra account manager operates as a quasi-monthly advisor. I share my performance data, he shares optimization recommendations, and we agree on one or two changes to test in the next few weeks. This structure keeps the optimization process systematic rather than reactive.