Vibrant Media - to use or not?

[nomis5]

I was approached by Vibrant Media about placing their ads on one of our sites. Their figures showed a projected monthly income of roughly 25% of our Adsense monthly earnings.

I searched round to find any information to indicate that placing Vibrant ads on our site would reduce Adsense earnings but found none.

So I asked for a bit more from Vibrant and this is what I found:

They were willing to offer an initial three month contract to place ads on the site

Thereafter they were only willing to offer a one year contract.

I've refused unless they come up with a one month rolling contract.

The earnings sound good but I'm not willing to sign over one of my sites to an advertising contract with no real way of getting out of it.

Reasonable or unreasonable?

[graeme_p]

Kontera appear not to be paying me for the test period. No cheque arrived, and I cannot get an straight answer to emails asking whether they will pay or not:

1) Filling in the contact form on the publisher dashboard got no reply
2) An email asking about payment got a reply asking whether I will chose them or Vibrant (no reply to the question)
3) A follow-up email got no reply.

This maybe something to be aware of. A limited test period is one thing, giving them months of free advertising is quite another.

[morpheus83]

I have used both Kontera and Vibrant for quite some time now. I was using Vibrant and then was offered a lucrative deal by Kontera and shifted a part of my websites to them but they dont come close when to Vibrant when it comes to revenue. So of them both Vibrant is definitely better. As for the revenue of 35% when compared to Adsense it hugely differs from website to website. The only drawback is that these ads do tick off a lot of users.

[Shatner]

They go back and forth. Vibrant is better for awhile, then Kontera is.

Right now Kontera is in the tank. Vibrant doesn't seem to be doing well either.

I'm hearing good things about infolinks though. Anyone try them?

[graeme_p]

Just to update this a few months on. I went with Vibrant and they are producing about 30% of Google earnings most months, with no discernible impact on Google earnings.

I am now moving on to trying affiliate links, to further reduce my dependence on Google.

@Shatner, my experience of Infolinks was lots of very low quality ads and negligible earnings.

[atladsenser]

Interesting in checking in with you guys, as I'm trying out Vibrant Media and have been underwhelmed so far with the results. Also tried Kontera in the past, and the interesting thing to note is that I got better results with them, but it took a LOT more clicks to get those good results than it seems to take with Vibrant.

I've only been trying out Vibrant for less than 30 days, so should I continue, and perhaps do a tryout for as long as 3 months, like a previous poster mentioned?

Interested to hear your thoughts.

[nomis5]

Atladsenser,

My advice would be to give them at least two months. When I first used them, the first month was rubbish. It went up from then on. It seems that they need a couple of months to work out what works on your specific site.

[morpheus83]

@atladsenser

If you have a considerable amount of US based traffic then VibrantMedia will work much better for you. I have been using Kontera in the past and then made the switch 2 months back and the results have spoken for themselves. The factors to take into consideration are the amount of traffic you get from Search engines and direct traffic. The former being the key factor for better revenue in this case.

[atladsenser]

Thanks so much, nomis5 and morpheus83 -- I'll do that. I've gone back and forth between the two and I think I haven't given Vibrant enough of an opportunity to show what it can do. I'll keep you posted on what I find.

[nomis5]

morpheus83,

I don't think success is limited to the US. I'm in the UK and last month Vibrant equalled my Adsense earnings. This month it is on target to beat Adsense.

I think my website subject is ideally suited to them and other subjects may not do as well but UK wise this is a real alternative that deserves a try by many websites.