Does Adsense have a competitor?

[Jon_King]

Is there a rival to Adsense? Are we to expect in the future... "Ad Wars" where we the publishers are caught in the very profitable middle for our ad space?

[Jenstar]

Overture is coming out with one "soon".

Here is a thread from a week or two ago:
Adsense Alternatives? [webmasterworld.com]

[loanuniverse]

Not a serious one.

Not yet.

[universetoday]

Once Google starts really raking in the bucks, the competitors won't be too far behind. I suspect that the number of publishers and their supply of pageviews will outpace the number of advertisers, but I think the money will start being spread more evenly, instead of just collecting in the pockets of a few huge media companies. The money I'm making has to be coming out of someone else's pocket.

[dougs]

Espotting I believe will start doing this asap. We have a client with lots of traffic who is potentially dropping espotting for adsense....purely because it is so much easier to administer.

With espotting they have to put a piece of unique code on every page and as there site has 1000īs of pages and changing content this is just a nightmare.

Doug

[justageek]

Yes there are others. The one that I know of has been developing longer than Google has and is much better IMHO not only because of features but also because they pull contextually relevant advertisements from virtually any source for any web site. They also give you the option to use their affiliate relationships on a rev share like Google or you can use them as a sort of gateway and use your own affiliate relationships.

Eric

[WebWalla]

Eric - would you care to share with us which company you're referring to?

[justageek]

The name tcla.net. I don't think they have made it available to the public yet though. I just checked the site and they do have some of what I have seen on it to test with. It's kind of hard to follow some it because it looks like it is a mostly tech oriented site. I hope they change it a bit before they do allow everyone to use it. They do some pretty interesting stuff and give much more fexability to both the advertiser and content owners.

Eric

[Visit Thailand]

I think any competitor to AdSense has an enormous challenge on their hands.

For me to move away from AdSense to a competitor would require a serious increase in revenue.

Google AdSense has an awful lot going for it, the targetted ads are great, colours etc but what makes it truly special is that it is Google.

The fact that it is Ads by Google adds confidence to viewers, and that has got to be the biggest challenge for any competitor.

[justageek]

Agreed. But if you want one place to pull ads from (including Google) then it will be the networks such as CJ, DoubleClick etc. that will probably be the best bet in the long run since they will allow people to pull from any source.

But, if the only advertising a content site will allow is keyword advertising instead of other types such as affiliate advertising then Google is definately the best choice. At least for now. It won't be long before advertisers realize that a lot of times they are being charged to much for a contextual match by doing keywords. Meaning that a match can often be made by less expensive words found on a site but if the most expensive word is there - guess what the advertiser gets charged?

Personally I wouldn't limit myself to just one source of revenue though.

[devlin]

Some interesting tests on tcla. OK, so it's in test mode, but I wasn't impressed by the contextual ads it presented for my marketing site. It grabbed just four key words:

• Contact - presented an ad for Lazik eye treatment
  
• Personal - ad for Yahoo Personals (dating)
  
• Marketing - ad for a university. Didn't mention marketing degrees in the ad
  
• Business - ad for a private college

OK, it's probably not got a big database of advertisers. But AdSense's targeting is much more accurate.

Interestingly, each ad shows the keyword that the advertiser chose - and how much they pay per click.

Now that would be something, wouldn't it, if Google gave us so much info :-)

D.

[Visit Thailand]

Agreed one must never limit oneself or company to anything but I went to that site you are subtley promoting and some links etc did not work, plus the site did not look overly proffessional.

I disagree with what you say re having a site to pull ads from different arenas. Why?

Well I am happy with Google and G has brand recognition I trust them and their targetting abilities. Plus putting the control in hands of a third party is silly as obviously they would take money from the revenue.

[justageek]

If I remember right the tests just look at a few words on a page. More for showing how it all works (I know they were doing this long before anyone knew what this all was) rather than showing relevancy. I think they say that also. I'll check again.

You're right about detail. Whay doesn't Google say how much someone paid? I think it's because advertisers pay too much but don't realize it. I know from testing this stuff that matches can be made by using less expensive keywords but if Google finds an expensive word they use it instead. Good for Google and the sites but bad for the advertiser.

Eric

[chiyo]

No where close in terms of size but textads.biz. is a very small competitor.

Ive mentioned it before. Its text ads but not contextual (advertisers and owners choose which sites and ads to have) and ads are limited. BAsically it runs like an introduction agency and third party reporting server, but you can choose your own fees of which text ads.biz takes a cut. Advertisers can choose to have ads on just your site or others as well, and both advertiser and site owner have their own reporting screens.

We were looking at trying this out before Adsense came along...

[justageek]

Thailand,

Not promoting anything. The question was asked on this thread if there were any competitors :-)

Why pull ads from different arenas? Why only shop at one store?

Not sure why it would be silly or why it is obvious that a third party would steal. There are quite a few players out there such as DoubleClick, ValueClick, CJ etc. that are honest folks and have done some great things as far as online advertising goes.

I agree that if the only form of advertising you want is keyword advertiser then by all means stay with Google :-)

Eric

[Visit Thailand]

The reason I said you were promoting X was because all yoour posts seem to at least point or hint to it.

Regardless. I will use G until a competitor can offer me more money for what I am doing with equally as targetted ads.

[justageek]

Sorry if it seems that way. There is also Overture and Spinks but they just don't seem viable as they offer very little in terms of features. They do pretty well at generating revenue and at targeting although Sprinks really only does categories.

Eric

[killroy]

I've had a look at TCLA, and gloriously they seem to give us all those things we've been begging for from AdSense, such as publisher chosen keywords and negative words, and much more info on hte ad choosing process, aswell as alternative methods to display the advertisers.

Sadly, their technical setup seems really flawed. Their statements abbout their use of CSS seem simply untrue, and I could not get the ads to display nicely without hige amount of wasted space due to the frame spacing that I could not control (contrary to their FAQ).

Also they make no statements regarding to payouts, and I cannot see one reason why I should put the ads up.

It is so close and yet such a wasted chance. If they fix those things I'd use it in a heartbeat for it's greater flexibility, but only if it pays.

SN

[justageek]

Sadly, their technical setup seems really flawed. Their statements abbout their use of CSS seem simply untrue, and I could not get the ads to display nicely without hige amount of wasted space due to the frame spacing that I could not control (contrary to their FAQ).

Kind of an interesting statement since I had no problem with the css or the frame spacing although it was not clear that the frame spacing and dimensions need to be identical and threw me for a loop the first time I tried it.

I'm not sure what you didn't see about the payouts as I saw the specifics in the FAQ. What I did notice about the payouts though is that they are dependant on the ppc suppliers. Notice I said suppliers. Seems as if they are either now pulling or are going to pull from different sources.

[ronin]

I get the impression that tcla's beta is still very beta. Will be interesting to see how things start to shape up towards Christmas.

[linkshark]

>I've had a look at TCLA
>their technical setup

Very easy to "roll your own" javalinks type system. Nothing proprietary there. Basically Ezula TOPtext on your own site with simple javascript.

[justageek]

I have to agree with ronin. Looks like there is some work for them to do.

I have to agree with linkshark. Nothing proprietary but interesting how it is implemented. Seems to be just like Overture, AdSense, DoubleClick etc.

But I have to disagree with it being like Ezula and the other scumware. Ezula needs the user to install their crap and then they hijack a user and do not share revenue with the rightful owner of the content where these guys share revenue and there is no plugin.

[linkshark]

>disagree with it being like Ezula and the other scumware

Me too. I was just saying it basically does the same thing.
Overwrites any specified word with a link to an advertiser. The fact that you can only do it on your site(s), means it is not scumware.

[justageek]

Yep. I wouldn't have even looked at them if they were like those flipping scumware people. I absoluetly hate scumware :-) Can you tell?

That's why I like AdSense and the others. Gives the little guys a chance to earn some money. The more ways that are out there better IMHO.

[4crests]

ah-ha.com has one. But, if it's anything as effective as their ppc program, it's probably not worth it.

[webmasterworld.com...]

[ganderla]

Well, TCLA said in an email to me that their accounting system was being upgraded and it would be online today at the latest. Nothing yet. It is looking like this might not work out. I am not holding my breath. Does anyone know when Overture's content match will go live for publishers?

[ganderla]

Looks like the stats for TCLA are up. Not too bad of a percentage in my opinion, looks like a good alternative until overture comes out or adsense says yes.

[Chndru]

publisher chosen keywords

How easy would it be to manipulate it to the ways and whims of a publisher :)

[justageek]

As easy as adding /?q=keyword to the end of any AdSense url ;-) Unless Google has changed it.

[ganderla]

Back earlier in the thread we were talking about mrwordsmith.com, I got a call today from them wondering why I never clicked on thier welcome email. He was astonished to hear the I never got it. I told him I was not interested anymore.