AdSense and Alternatives

Using them together..

[domramsey]

Does anyone have any experience of using both AdSense and Ad Sonar?

I've been getting a lot of AdSense PSAs on one of my sites lately, so I've been experimenting with using Ad Sonar as the alternate ad for AdSense, then using Ad Sonar's "house ads" as a final fallback if no ad is available.

Seems to work reasonably well for me, and Ad Sonar picks up quite a few clicks that would otherwise be lost, although Ad sonar's targeting obviously isn't quite as good as Google's.

Anyone else doing anything similar? Or found situations where ad sonar performs better than AdSense outright?

[edited by: Jenstar at 2:59 pm (utc) on May 31, 2004]

[irock]

Is Ad Sonar even 'alive'?

I thought they suspended their program.

Do you know if Ad Sonar is running Overture or FindWhat?

Have you got a cheque from them?

Thanks!

[domramsey]

It's alive - I signed up and received conformation the next day. Haven't received a check, but I've only been using it a few days!

Not sure who they're using, but they obviously don't have as many advertisers as AdSense, so their targeting isn't as good.

Having said that, the level of control and reporting options are much better than AdSense (IMO).

[blairsp]

Agree with the above poster and all comments. I tried to sign up with them a few weeks back-didn't hear anything so I thought I had been rejected (relatively low traffic site). Got acceptance e-mail on Friday(are they just rolling it out?), VERY friendly interface and also support appear to work on a Sunday-reply within an hour

[domramsey]

Agreed - very friendly support too.

I really hope it takes off, it would be nice to have a genuine competitor for AdSense.

[ownerrim]

I just applied to sonar and am thinking of using it on
pages that adsense keeps sticking with PSA's. These are pages that, incidentally, rank very well, but which AS can't seem to target for some reason. To be honest, I don't really feel like spending my evenings trying to figure out the targeting problem, be it stop words or whatever. If sonar can fill the gap in those instances, great. I just saw the sonar ads on a site. They look pretty good.

[chikung]

sonar may be the competitor for adsense but since December they are on Beta testing and keep on extending the lauch date. This make the siuation bad and also loose the trust.

[freitasm]

Applied January and got approved today. Will enter this as default for AdSense, and see how it goes... Currently my Adsense defaults go to Tribal Fusion, so I'll just add another level on that.

[sezampicika]

Ad-Sonar is rocking... I recived check yesterday.

[irock]

I cried... they still haven't accepted me as of today... :(

[sezampicika]

if you want to try via My account let me know...

[freitasm]

The problem is that AdSense covers my site well - no PSA and thats even for forums.

I'm not sure the other one will have a chance. Only if I replace one of the channels. Not sure if I want to do that... I'll have to think on this.

[Sunflux]

Anyone have any non-specific experiences with Ad Sonar's EPC & CTR rates (compared to AdSense on the same topic site)?

Overall, AdSense has been *performing* fairly well on my site. Although the April changes wrecked targeting and thus CTR for my site, I note that things are starting to become better. May's CTR wasn't that bad, and I'm beginning to get days with CTR's higher than March averages (March being the last bastion of normal performing months).

However, earnings per click continues to plummet. In May I delievered 15% more clicks than April, but ended up earning *less* money in total. There seems to be no end to AdSense's downwards spiral for some of us (and yes, I know that some of you are seeing an upwards trend).

So, Ad Sonar is starting to look more an more attractive, but if they pay out even LESS than AdSense, it's not worth the time to apply...

[domramsey]

I've done a few experiments (although the results may differ for different sites / topics).

In general, I've found a slightly lower CTR via Ad Sonar - probably down to less advertisers meaning targeting isn't as good.

I've also found that EPC is quite a lot lower than via Adsense.

However, having said that, I still think it's a good option as a back-up for Adsense.

[novice]

I have been approved, but am yet to place the ads on any of my sites.

It's great that ad sonar allows publishers to use their own parameters. However it doesn't let you know how many ads will be displayed.

I certainly don't want to place a 300 x 300 banner and only get 1 or 2 ads.

Wish there was a feature in their wizard that lets you know how manys ads would be displayed while you're building the code.

I understand that availability is an issue, but just a projection, the way Google does, would be nice.

[TampaLou]

"In general, I've found a slightly lower CTR via Ad Sonar - probably down to less advertisers meaning targeting isn't as good. I've also found that EPC is quite a lot lower than via Adsense."

Agreed on both counts. I have Ad Sonar running on a site that I work for that has enough adult content where AdSense said "no thanks" to having its ads there.

Ad Sonar has great flexibility as far as being able to modify the design style, which is a plus as well. The ability to have a 150 wide skyscraper was very nice for this particular situation.

I've noticed lower EPC than I've received on a similarly themed site that I run on my own with AdSense (which doesn't have any adult content). My suggestion is to go with AdSense if you can, with Ad Sonar as a backup, and see if that works for you.

[TonysDesigns]

Yes, but is it agaist EITHER of the 2 TOSs to run them simutaneously with one another?

Can we run them BOTH on one page?

[Jenstar]

AdSense does not allow any other contextual advertiser to appear on the same page as AdSense, and Ad Sonar is considered a contextual advertiser.

You can find it under AdSense terms # 2 "Implementation; Ad Placement" section (because it is a legal document, I cannot take a direct quote from it).
[google.com...]

[TonysDesigns]

Thanks Jenstar! That's a bummer...oh well

[sezampicika]

For example, today results:

My average CPC at AD-SONAR is 10 times bigger than CPC on ADsense.

[gethan]

> AdSense does not allow any other contextual advertiser to appear on the same page as AdSense, and Ad Sonar is considered a contextual advertiser.

Jenstar: I read this as on the same page at the same time, but a publisher would be able to rotate ad's from different providers (using some mechanism), providing only one batch of text/context ad's appears within that unique page impression.

I'd planned to use page view data and referrer information to determine which ad provider to use. Would that violate the T&Cs?

[DJFlite]

How exactly do you set up your **** account as your adsense alternative? I trid posting the adsonar code in the alternate ads box in adsense but that didnt work.

How do you do it?

Thanks in advance!

[markus007]

I signed up in feb, they told told me they would contact me when it would launch etc etc etc. So i went and signed up on tuesday again got approved and got my account info.

I do over 400,000 pageviews a day, the CPM from **** was 1/10th of what it is from adsense. Needless to say adsonar was given the boot very quickly

[JohnKelly]

My CTR from Bid**** is also extremely low. Will likely drop them to run my own ads. Revenue over the weekend wouldn't even buy a can of soda.

[Macro]

sezampicika, I'm confused ;)

On Dec 5 you posted in several threads like this one [webmasterworld.com] (msg #59) saying that you were dumping Adsense. Then in March [webmasterworld.com] you said you got an Adsense check. On April 13 [webmasterworld.com] you said that Ad Sonar was earning you 25% more than Adsense. Now you say Adsense CPC is a tenth of Ad Sonar's...

What's going on? Did you drop Adsense? Did you not? When did you start Ad Sonar? And, if it was so good, why are you still running Adsense? Please help me...

[sezampicika]

I am runing Adsense only on my forums... I have only 50 unique visitors a day there... So, I can say: I dumped adsense.

I am on ad-sonar and I will stay there.

If I can help you, tell me.

Regards

[ownerrim]

it seems like others have gotten relatively fast responses from quigo on ad$onar, but I've had trouble getting them to email me back. They sent me an email which said in the subject line "welcome to ad$onar", but no text in the email. I emailed them back 3 times and said the email they sent was incomplete, but zilch, zippo, nada. Makes me wonder. At least adsense team responds within a day or two.

[blairsp]

It surprises me that you haven't had a good response. I e-mailed them on a Sunday afternoon and got a reply within an hour. Also get a periodic-how are things type of e-mail, one of which I replied to and got a response about 3 (maybe 4 hours later) Are you using the correct address?

I would post it here, but no doubt it would get deleted

[ownerrim]

Initially, I used the one on the quigo site, whatever that was. But when I responded, I simply returned it to publishers@ad$onar, which is where it came from.