Getting Advertisers to Bid on www.mywebsite.com

I would rather have Google do ALL of my advertising.

[creepychris]

I get many inquiries about advertising for small amounts. Sometimes I do it, and sometimes I decline because it just isn't worth my time (advertising amounts of about $40.00, say). I would like to tell them to bid on MyWebsite where my website is www. MyWebsiteDOTcom. "MyWebsite"is pretty unique so most of the traffic for that 'keyword' would only come from my site. I wonder if anyone has tried this or if it is a TOS violation.

I know some big companies object to having there name bid on, but I don't.

[JasonHamilton]

I think this could be a good idea -- allowing google to get money that would otherwise go 100% to a site.

HOWEVER, I think if something like this gets implemented, I don't know if all the normal adsense rules should apply. Afterall, the advertiser would have specifically specified your website. e.g; SERP listings with ads.

[loanuniverse]

Hmmm very good idea! The only problem I see is that the adword editorial staff might deny the ad based on their editorial guidelines {relation of the ad to the page where the visitor is sent} good ad copy might get around that. On the other hand, the first 4 advertisers will get shown for the minimum CPC {if you use a 4 ad format}.

Now that I think about it, you need to test it. You might not get any shows at all since the matching would be for the best term...

[richmondsteve]

loanuniverse wrote:

Now that I think about it, you need to test it. You might not get any shows at all since the matching would be for the best term...

loanuniverse, just for clarification, are you saying that if keyword phrases 'mysite' with CPC x and 'foo bar' with CPC 2x both appear on a page, AdSense will always match 'foo bar'? For this example, let's assume plenty of Adwords advertisers are participating in content site advertising and advertiser demand for both keyword phrases exceeds publisher supply. I hope that makes sense.

[Chndru]

best way to know it, would be to test-drive it. Go for it. It's easy to implement and still easier to remove, if it doesn't meet your specifications. You can always tweak your site a little. :)

[loanuniverse]

Something very similar to that is what I am saying.

You have a page about widgets on mydomain.com Mediapartners googlebot figures out that the page is a match for:

Widgets
Red-Fuzzy Widgets
Green Widgets
WidgetsRUs
Mydomain.com

Google has advertisers for all terms.

While, I have been fortunate enough to see ads on my pages all the time, I have only seen at most ads on 2 different topics. Does this mean that it only goes two deep to do the match? Does it mean that CPC or even better the CPCXCTR method that works in the SERPS is in play here? This needs to be tested with a couple of adwords accounts at least. To see if the ads get past editorial review and if they get shown at all in your site.

[richmondsteve]

loanuniverse wrote:

Does this mean that it only goes two deep to do the match?

I have been wondering the same thing. If Mediapartners visits a page and decides that ads about A and B are relevant I'm skeptical that an Adwords advertiser could bid on mydomain.tld and have ads displayed. Even if it did make it past editorial review (which I doubt it will), my guess is it won't appear unless CPCxCTR is high enough and there's either a low supply of A and B ads or several advertisers who bid on mydomain.tld.

But how it works isn't clear to me, which is probably how Google wants it.

Like Chndru said, it should be easy to test though. If I was a betting man I'd bet that it either won't be allowed or will not work consistently.

[figment88]

While I think your idea is interesting, I would think you could still get significantly more revenue from specific advertisers.

If you really get a fair number of requests for advertising in the $40 range it could add up to real money. The question then is how to get each transaction to be as little hassle as possible.

I think there are three choices:
1) your Google AdWords approach

2) a third party self-serve ad firm such as marketbanker or textads. All you would have to do is a quick setup and approve each creative.

3) grab some GNU-liscense or other available ad script, install it and use a third party payment processor such PayPal or Paysystem. This approach has a bigger setup period and then approval of each creative.

Hassle goes up as you move from 1 to 3, but the rewards also increase.

[creepychris]

Hassle goes up.

That's exactly the point and here is why the $40 range isn't worth my time.

I use Paypal, but the advertisers that I get often have trouble figuring it out or have never heard of it. Some of them are too suspicious and some of them just never do figure it out.

A lot of them can send a company check, but I've found that they are not always good on their word. (Roughly 50% of the time the check is 'in the mail' but never comes). And when the check comes, the banks in the country that I'm in take roughly $10 (which works out to roughly 10-25%).

Then there is the hassle of monitoring and setting up the campaigns (admittedly this is the least hassle and if it were only for this I would take the advertising most of the time).

And then there is the time it takes writing emails to cement the deals. One deal usually takes three emails:
Advertiser: Asks about Prices.
Me: Gives Prices and Sizes and Placements. (Form email with some customization to meet specific requests).
Advertiser: Says what they want and asks how much it will be.
Me: Customized email saying how much and asking if they want to give me the go ahead.
Advertiser: Agrees.
Me: Send invoice, payment instructions, and thank you.

In summary, the hassle is great and I could reduce it if I start accepting credit cards but that introduces hassles of it's own.