Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Anybody have any experience with this strategy...any tips?
Also are there any issues per the Adsense TOA?
Thanks
[edited by: jomaxx at 1:26 am (utc) on April 29, 2006]
There are about 10 advertisers who are always on Adsense for one of my sites, so I'm thinking of soliciting them for some "enhanced" advertising.
Hi friend,
that is the dumbest idea I ever heard. Stay away from advertisers. What kind of enhanced advertising would you like to offer them? How many page views do you have, is it in millions or billions? They already have enhanced advertising with Google; with Adwords they can pinpoint any location in the USA, Canada, and elsewhere to advertise. Listen to my advice and do not contact advertisers. I don't think they would appreciate that either.
I would not contact them for advertising but perhaps a link exchange might be an idea.
I would not contact Microsoft.
Lets say you have a solar power site. And company xyz comes up on adsense dont you think they would be relevant to solar power? (hopefully)
I am not suggesting to offer to sell them advertising and if it is against tos then no contact of anytype.
My point is that A.S. does provide you with other sites relevant to yours.
What a person does with that information is up to the tos and their level of scummyness.
LOL at microsoft, Google maybe haha
I will probably not do it then because I like my Adsense revenue.
BTW, toldan, this is not a dumb idea. I have a lot to offer advertisers that they cannot get through the minimal adsense space on my site. You obviously are too braindead to come up with any creative ideas or you would know that.
And yes, actually it is in the millions of pageviews, although that doesn't matter anyway because my advertisers likely can make thousands of $s on 1 client.
Thanks for your response but I don't see why it's unethical, please explain.
If you were to beat the bushes and drum up your own advertisers, that would be fine. But to continue to accept money from Google while working to steal their advertisers is not right. That's my opinion, anyways. Besides, there must be ten million other places you can do this kind of market research.
that is the dumbest idea I ever heard. Stay away from advertisers. What kind of enhanced advertising would you like to offer them?
Yeah, real dumb, it's so dumb I make many thousands a month with direct advertisers and just augment it with AdSense. When my direct advertisers significantly exceed what AdSense is paying, and that day is coming, I may punt AdSense to the curb.
I've considered doing just that on one of my sites, but I like how AdSense is reliable to pay while requiring very little effort on my part. Not having to chase down paychecks gives me more time to work on content.
Jomaxx-- btw, I haven't actually solicited any advertisers yet so I haven't broken any rules and I *won't* break any contract surreptitiously.
Nevertheless, these are well-known advertisers--Google did not introduce them to me, they just happen to also advertise on Google's network, which I also have on my site.
If I did collect all the urls from what I saw on my main competitor's site Adsense (which are basically the same advertisers btw), quit the program and then solicited them, I don't see why that would be unethical, anymore than if I simply blocked them from my site using the Adsense competitive ad filter and then solicited them.
Am I not allowed to solicit them for life? I guess I will have to read more in the terms to find out the details.
Also I have affiliates and I have no way of knowing if they are advertising sometimes in Adsense (they probably do because they are rather big)...not sure how to handle that. This is opening a can of worms.
MisterMarkup--barely anybody useful clicks on those kind of "advertise here" links on my site, I've tested it quite a bit and it's been a waste of time, even the people who do seem interested have me spinning my wheels for low, low $ amounts. In any event, I am trying to develop a more comprehensive system which can bring in an additional $5-10k/mo from 3-4 advertisers (as kind of a customized affiliate arrangement) . In my niche there are these "suppliers" who are non-branded. They would get cobranding from my site (I am better branded and have a lot of registered users) and I would run the whole process except at the end it gets passed off to them because there is some technical certification req. that I can't handle right now. So it's a bit more than just text links or something and I don't want to work with small fish.
They would have to avoid companies whose adsense already show on your site, but hopefully there are some other big players available.
I have long been considering direct ad sales, but don't quite know how to go about getting it started. I have some articles that didn't do well with adsense, but I think would do well with other kinds of ads.
If it works for them and you is another argument though. In my case I have an "Advertise on this site" link at the bottom of my main index page - I don't push the issue. One of my regular adwords advertisers contacted me wanting to have sole UK use of the offered space, so I agreed. The guy still uses adwords as well as the banner ad on my site. The banner ad on my site has a pitiful ctr, and the Google ad has a good ctr. I'm glad we agreed cpm :)
Turning to the exact chapter and verse:
Communications Solely With Google. You agree to direct to Google, and not to any advertiser, any communication regarding any Ad(s) or Link(s) displayed in connection with Your Site(s).
That's it. Don't talk to any advertisers about any Google Ads or Google Links that have appeared on your website. It's a very simple and extremely narrow prohibition -- as it has to be to have any hope of being sane enough to be legal.
You will find the myth that you cannot talk to advertisers oft-repeated in this forum. However, you won't find anything in the Terms and Conditions to back that myth up.
Just don't talk to advertisers about Google Ads or Google Links that have showed up on your website. Talk to them about anything else under the sun that you darn well please.
The TOS says:
Communications Solely With Google. You agree to direct to Google, and not to any advertiser, any communication regarding any Ad(s) or Link(s) displayed in connection with Your Site(s).
You are reading it as:
Communications Solely With Google. You agree to direct to Google, and not to any advertiser, any communication regarding any Google Ad(s) or Link(s) displayed in connection with Your Site(s).
A small but significant difference. And I don't think the capital A in Ads is that significant...
If you call an advertiser and say "Would you like to put a banner on my site?" you are "Communicating to an advertiser regarding an ad on your site".
It's a very simple and extremely narrow prohibition
I think it's a very broad prohibition. In effects it's so broad you cannot really comply with it: when contacting ANY possible advertiser, how can you be sure they are not running Adwords campaings?
You can be sure the TOS is as broad as possible!
A scenario:-
I'm in the UK, and most of my visitors are in the US. In order to promote my advertising I get a couple of the USA members directories and mailshot all members. How on earth am I going to know who uses adwords and who doesn't? I don't even know who the UK advertisers are, let alone those in a different geographical region. Google don't give us a list of whose ads have shown, or are showing on our sites.
I can legitimately state that I really didn't know any of their customers ads were showing on my site. The same argument applies in the US. How do any of you know what ads are showing in the next state or town? So if you mailshot a load of potential advertisers, how can Google claim you have tried to poach their customers without you being given a list of who they are so that you can avoid doing so?
Obviously an email saying "Dear webmaster, I see your Adwords ad on my site, would you like to do a better deal with me direct" would be proof of TOS violation, but "Dear webmaster, I'd like to draw your attention to our advertising program" is probably allowable, as it's a generic mailshot text.
If Google provided us with a list of advertisers we couldn't approach they have a case, otherwise I don't think they do. However, as we all know they can just terminate an account without giving a reason, so I'm not suggesting anyone puts this to the test!
Am I not allowed to solicit them for life?
You won't need to solicit anyone if you are a well known leader in your niche.
Just post an "Advertise here" page with rates and a way to pay, maybe use AdBrite if you can't hook up all the details yourself, then sit back and let them advertise if they want.
If you have a good media kit describing what they'll get, you'll make direct sales.
I sell flat rate ads per month, no CPM, no CPC, just a flat rate and here's roughly the impressions you'll get for your money. Of course I base my rates on CPM, but it's hard to have monthly renewing ads based on some changing value.
BTW, Paypal has recurring billing.
And I don't think the capital A in Ads is that significant...
To be blunt: you don't know how to read a contract. Words used in contracts have their normal English meaning unless defined otherwise in the contract itself. In the Terms and Conditions, the terms "Ads" and "Links" are carefully defined in (1).
"Ads" is defined as "Google-served advertisements".
"Links" is defined as "related Google queries and/or Ad search box(es)".
Again, there is absolutely no prohibition against contacting advertisers in the T&C, except for the purposes of discussing Google ads and Google links that may have appeared on your website.
This is really quite clearly specified in the T&C and should not be a controversial point at all.
The point is if you have nobody asking to advertise, then they prefer google adwords, they found google first, they didn't find you..and even if they did who are they using adwords or your own banner system?
Regards,
Greedy_Player
