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Who's tried them and how well do they compare to adsense in terms of epc and relevancy to content?
[edited by: ownerrim at 8:28 pm (utc) on Feb. 24, 2005]
[edited by: Jenstar at 1:46 am (utc) on Feb. 25, 2005]
Call me cynical but did you really expect anyone to say that one of the competitors was great? After all this the is adsense forum.
VERY few peopel on this forum ever speak ill of adsense and even if they do the "worshippers" always spring to the defence.
As a matter of fact -here is an example. Adsonar (how come we can actually type that now-it used to be blocked) has given me 4 (yes four) times the earnings that adsense used to give me. On adsense I used to get adverts for wee jeannies bed and breakfast (yes I am in the travel sector) on adsonar I am getting conrad and hilton hotels, expedia etc. I am puzzled that EFV didn't get any good targetted ads-because I certainly am.
Over to the zealots and worshippers now to tell me I am wrong :} even although my bank manager tells me I'm not!
1. Targeting is very poor. In some cases, not targeted at all.
2. CTR also poor which is probably a result of ads with little or no relevance to my pages.
3. EPC is 50% of what they receive. I've had a couple of okay clicks, but generally less than AdSense.
4. No channels that I could find. Very frustrating not knowing which ads are working.
I've only been on for two weeks, and will continue for a while, but so far, not too happy.
Yes I'll call you cynical, but I am cynical as well.
However, I am glad to hear you're having a good experience with adsonar. Perhaps they're getting better. My experience with them is similar to what EFV indicated. If they're improving, great. Competition only makes contextual advertising better for all concerned.
Kanoodle doesn't sound so hot, though. Maybe it'll be kaput.
VERY few peopel on this forum ever speak ill of adsense...
Are you kidding? Hardly a week goes by when we don't see threads about poor earnings, mistargeted ads, PSAs, disabled accounts, conspiracy theories involving a reduction in payouts, etc. With all the teeth-gnashing in this forum, you could dance flamenco to the virtual sound of castanets.
With that in mind, I tried adsonar and kanoodle and both had very disapointing targetting and even worse in revenue.
I really really wish I could diversify away from adsense, but at this point it doesn't make sense.
Everything else is just...
For those who tried the others for a few days, I'm wondering if that wasn't long enough for them to determine the content of the pages and target ads. I would expect earnings to increase over time initially as they become more familiar with your site and gather CTR numbers on the various ads.
I've never tried any of the others, but my suspicion is that they wouldn't perform as well. Bids are higher on AdWords than on any of the second tier PPC SEs, they do a generally good job of targeting, and they share a very large percent of the earnings. There could always be exceptions, but I would be surprised to see any other consistently performing better for most sites.
Does anyone have any experience using them?
I'm seriously thinking of just slapping 5 amazon books across the banner area and see what happens, might easily outperform these other lame services.
Would Mamma's Publisher Network be considered an AdSense competitor
I used Mamma back in the day, I think it's still stinking up my site somewhere, it was abysmal.
Adbrite and Adsense never generated any revenue for us. We didn't like the Adsonar ToS.
Matt
Publishers perfer adsense because adsonar has a tiny advertiser list.
Advertisers perfer adsese because adsonar has a tiny publisher list.
One of these groups is going to have to move to adsonar before the other one does. This means adsonar is going to have to do SOMETHING to pull in one of these groups, so the other one follows.
The ads are very similar (color, font etc) and in the same location.
In January, Adsense had a CTR over three times better than Adsonar, not surprising as the Adsense ads are often targetted but the Adsonar ones are just generic "category" ads with NO apparent attempt to use page content.
However, Adsonar pays better, about 4 times the payment per click of Adsense for this site. Result: effective EPM of Adsonar was 20% better.
For the first half of february, the Adsonar figures were similar but the EPC of Adsense dropped even lower (as it has on all my sites this month), making the EPM of Adsonar 70% better than Adsense.
Ironically, I then decided this was enough testing and dropped the Adsense from the pages. Result: over the past week the Adsonar CTR collapsed resulting in a 60% drop in EPM!
So it seems the maximum revenue is a mixture of interesting but low paying ads (Adsense) and some boring irrelevant well-paying ads (Adsonar). Adsonar may pay well per click, but the lack of ad variety kills CTR on sticky sites.
On another (entertainment) site, I've run Adsense down the left and a Fastclick banner across the top, for a month now. Fastclick CTR is half that of Adsense (the ads are totally untargetted), and EPC is much lower, resulting in a EPM 1/6th that of Adsense. Not worth the space.
Fastclick CTR is half that of Adsense (the ads are totally untargetted), and EPC is much lower, resulting in a EPM 1/6th that of Adsense. Not worth the space.
Agreed - the FastestClick was when I removed them from my site.
LMAO. What a visual. Someone should archive this things
What about contextweb?
Don't like their contract. They state you forfeit (not roll over) any payment in a month where your revenue is under $50 OR where impressions (by their count) is under 50,000.
Impressions WILL be undercounted, as multiple impressions from the same IP within two minutes (even on different pages) count as one. Only one click per user per two hours is counted. Revenue will be much less than 50% of what they get as it is minus lots of things including (unspecified) ad serving fees. Etc.
The conditions make it very unlikely there would be any payment at all for less than a few hundred thousand real impressions in a month, and that's too much to waste on a test.
From the ContextWeb website TOS:(if its against TOS to quote TOSes, kindly remove)
Because we are assuming the risk of collection from the Advertisers, we will hold back an additional five percent (5%) of Net Revenues from your share for bad debt allowance. We shall not be required to remit any Net Revenues to you for any month in which you provide ContextWeb with less than $50 (USD) in Net Revenues or fewer than 50,000 Countable Impressions (as defined below) from the Website; such revenue share shall be forfeited
They're collecting 50% of the fees already and still add 5% for bad debt allowance? "because..." my ass. Get my hand and take the arm too, while at that. Not to mention, what was their thinking when they forfeit payments less than $50? I can imagine they're trying to be selective by weeding out small time or non serious webmasters, but the other message they are conveying is "yeah you can work on our behalf to make money but we won't pay you if you don't perform. We win, but you don't". Bollocks.
I'm just flabergasted at their business practices. This one webmaster is one less they'll get business from.
So far, earnings are less than Google at its best, better than Google at its worst.
They are a pure content play -- no search ads -- and they are very upfront about the terms. So far, so good.
I could easily earn over the $50.00/mth for minimum payout, but it'll come from only about 10,000 - 15,000 hits in a month - so what will they do? Say, nope you didn't get 50,000 impressions - no money for me?!
Am I getting this right?
thanks
I would suggest more SEO work before applying to their program.
