Complexities with alternative ads

Navigating the TOS

[universetoday]

Adsense is having trouble filling my inventory, so I'm getting a lot of alternative ads that I want to monetize. I know that you can't have other providers that look similar to Google on the same page. So what do you do when you have multiple Adsense blocks on the same page? Let's say the first ad is normal, and then the other two go to your backup. So then you'd be mixing Adsense and backup ads, that could serve up ads that look similar to Adsense.

How do people navigate this?

[david_uk]

To start with, there isn't a shortage of ads to display these days. When I started a couple of years back that was true on occasions, but nowadays the adsense inventory of ads is huge.

It might be an idea to read through the following page from the Adsense help section:-

[google.com...]

The second point I'd make is that you can have collapsible ad units that if they can't show any Google ads will not show anything, and take up no space on the page. I think this might be a better option than showing alternate ads that may conflict with Google's TOS.

The other point I'd make is that multiple ad units on a page can actually make you LESS MONEY than having one ad unit. There are quite a few threads that discuss this.

I'd suggest that if you can't get the ads to fill extra blocks, then consider dumping them anyway. That way, if Google can't serve ads in your main block, the alternate ads CAN be one that Google doesn't allow to be on the same page. No TOS worries, and you might even earn more money!

[Hobbs]

My experience is that Google is best removed from a channel all together than setting alternate ads, this way your earnings will not get a hit with all those counted impressions.

You can set those channels to display referral instead or another network.

I did the above and my earnings not only were not affected but improved.

In brief: Give Google only the good content and bot food that Google likes, works out better for both of you.

[david_uk]

I'd second Hobbs' advice - it's exactly what I've done. Pages where I'd like ads to be that don't work with adsense simply have ads from Fastclick or AdBrite on them.