What are Other Advertising Methods for Monetizing a Site?

[donelson]

I have lost faith in Google's accounting methods for our AdSense clicks. Our value per click has dropped by half in the last couple of months (after being steady for over 2 years), and I cannot tell whether that is due to Google discounting the clicks or that the advertisers are suddenly paying less.

Since Google's accounting methods are hidden, I would like to consider other AdSense-like programs.

We have a bunch of websites, but our main site gets around 1,500 visitors per day, resulting in around 2,500 - 3,000 ad impressions. Our other sites (all totalled) generate around 1/3 as many impressions.

What other advertiser programs are available to us with our level of traffic?

Thanks!

William

[markwelch]

The obvious alternative is Yahoo Publisher Network -- their program is modeled on Google's. Some webmasters report that it pays more on average, while others get more from AdWords.

There are a host of alternatives, but I'm not aware of any alternatives that actually pay more when measured by any objective measure (such as "effective CPM"). Many of them appear designed to deliver advertising on sites which Google has rejected or pays very poorly.

However, if you have multiple pageviews-per-visitor, you will usually earn more if you "mix and match" multiple programs (so that a Google ad appears on one page, YPN on another, someone else's text ad block on another, a banner on another, etc.).

Note that eCPM rates vary widely depending on category and ad placement. For ads "above the fold" (visible without scrolling), the eCPM might be $10 for a great category; my sites average about $2.25 eCPM; I know there are categories where "above the fold" ads generate far less than $1 eCPM. If ads are displayed "below the fold" then performance drops significantly from these levels.