Forum Moderators: martinibuster
[google.com...]
Not sure if this should be in Google News or adwords. I guess this forum should really be the one for AdSense questions as it's about advertising.
Also, it seems that the site hangs in IE. Mozilla ( as usual ) works perfectly so use that.
Unlike the exising content targed ads you do not need 20 million visitors to put these ads on your site.
(jk)
(I say "semi-targeted" because the banners' AdWords are picked according to a site's keywords, not according to what's on any specific page.)
It would be interesting to see how the revenue per thousand impressions (RPM) for AdSense might compare to that $1.70 CPM. Obviously, this is going to vary quite a bit by topic and site.
It's neat that my banner blindness is morphing into frustration that the ads I see aren't more targeted. :)
Of course, revenue is likely to go down over time based on Econ 101 "supply and demand", as well as potential reduced adwords bids as advertisers learn the price-point of leads generated from adsense.
In the end, you have to choose your weapon based on your site content, demographics, and user behaviour.
Well, in a VERY short term test, adsense is exceeding 1.70 cpm for me, but your mileage will vary. I imagine if I had it on a "recipes" site, the effective cpm would be under 50 cents.
And if you had it on a content site for luxury travelers, the effective CPM might be far, far higher--but you probably could make even more from affiliate links.
My take:
1) AdSense is a question mark for sites about topics that don't attract online sales. If you're running a site about American history or zoo animals, you might do better with affiliate merchants like Amazon.com or AllPosters.com. (And you'll be lucky to do more than cover your costs in any event.)
2) AdSense is only minimally attractive to content sites in "easy to monetize" categories that lend themselves to relatively big-ticket affiliate sales. If your RPM (a.k.a. effective CPM) is in, say, the $5-10 range, you're probably better off using affiliate text links than running AdSense ads.
3) AdSense should be very attractive to content sites in big-money categories that, for one reason or another, don't have many good affiliate programs. Cruising is a topic that comes to mind. If I had a site about cruising, AdSense might be my salvation, because most cruises are bought through travel agents (who are more likely to buy AdWords than to have decent affiliate programs).
Yes, that's an impressive example.
If I could run AdSense on my site, it would help to monetize "loss leader" editorial pages that--like most editorial pages--generate very little revenue directly.
For example, I have somewhere between 100 and 200 pages on European cruising. I get a little money from the ad banners that run on those pages, but--for the most part--the affiliate links don't bring in any money because people who are planning cruises aren't in the market for hotels, car rentals, or rail passes. AdSense ads would be a perfect way to monetize those pages.
IMHO, this shows one of the weaknesses of the "one size fits all" prohibition against other text ads (which apparently include affiliate links) in the AdSense TOS/policies. On a page about European cruising, my affiliate links for hotels, rental cars, or rail passes wouldn't compete with the AdSense ads. And on a page about Bergen, Norway or Ghent, Belgium (where I don't have any affiliate partners), an AdWord ad for Bergen hotels or Ghent B&Bs wouldn't be competing with links to my affiliate partners.
I'm guessing that AdSense will have to loosen up its rules a bit as time goes by; otherwise, the program will have limited penetration in some of the most easily monetized subject categories.
SN
