Forum Moderators: martinibuster
google has been a good 'backup' for me in that regard .. ie, where i have no direct advertisers
Surely my traffic must be worth more than this
Not necessarily, but it's always worth testing.
How much was your traffic making you before adsense?
Why not use adsense and another revenue stream for your traffic?
Adsense, although it goes way up and then way down, has been a pretty solid performer for 6 months.
Ad Sonar doenst pay as much as adsnese from my experience but they are much better, have many more features and are willing to work with you on everything.
I wouldn't define paying less as "much better," but maybe that's just me. :-)
Seriously, it's nice to see AdSense having some competition, but I can't imagine Ad Sonar competing with AdSense's massive (and growing) depth and breadth any time soon. It might do okay with mass-market keywords and keyphrases, but's going to have a tough time reaching critical mass across the board. As for "features" and being "willing to work with you on everything," so what if they don't pay as well? Features don't pay the bills, and I don't care about having an ad network that's willing to work with me--I want an ad network that lets me put its code on my pages and earn money while I sleep.
Heh heh. Ok. You must work for Ad Sonar! Doesn't pay as much but they are much better? What kind of business logic is that..
Anyways, if you guys want a serious competitor wait for CJ Evolution to come online.
Or Yahoo/Overture, however I can't imagine they want to come online. After all, they'd be funding their competition.
If you are out to do nothing but make money you can use google and get dumped on your head like everyone else is... whenver they want, or you can go with someone better, someone who will work with you help you to optimize your site to work correctly and so on. If you don't care about service and the ability to speak to a human when you're having an issue and you want to talk to a google bot keep on going with google... I really dont care, I make no money off of either decision, but I dont appreciate the off the cuff infernece that I work for Ad Sonar.
Oh and one other thing... for the genious above... Ad Sonar is what powers Overture.
In another recent thread, I moaned and groaned and said that I would probably be leaving adsense soon, since my EPC has fallen to almost nothing. Guess what? For the past three days, my EPC has shot back up.
The one thing I did? I removed adsense from the non-productive channels.
Now maybe, JUST MAYBE, those unproductive channels were somehow wrapped up into Google's secret sauce (er formula), and G said, "hey, the xyz factor is too low, so we're gonna lower the EPC". Now that the xyz factor is higher, the EPC is higher too. Again, just a theory. Maybe it's all coincidence, but for those of you out there with lowering EPC rates, maybe try dumping some of the non-productive channels, and see what happens.
(Note: xyz factor is my made-up term to indicate i don't know what the factor is).
Sorry, I didn't mean to say you worked for them.. I just thought your comment was a bit funny. If it makes you feel any better, I take it back.
The one thing I did? I removed adsense from the non-productive channels.
So how do you define an unproductive channel? Low EPC? Low EPM? Low Impressions? Low clicks?
(if my questions are too specific please answer however you see fit).
since my EPC has fallen to almost nothing. Guess what? For the past three days, my EPC has shot back up.
Just day-to-day fluctuation.
Ad Sonar doenst pay as much as adsnese from my experience but they are much better
I believe Retalin. If Ad Sonar pays 50% as high as AdSense, it's still good. With 50% payout, he will get $7500 a month from Ad Sonar since he used to get $500 a day from AdSense.
I've got a few non-performers, I may do this tonight to get fresh data tomorrow....
Problem is, they still have me pegged at 30 impressions and 1 click for the day.
also, it may be just day-to-day fluctuation. however, for about a month it was horrible with no real fluctuations during that time. so, that's why i'm hoping this might be more than just a fluctuation.
I currently use contracted ads through my main site as alternatives to adsense (as well as a ton of affiliate and other type of rev. strems), so do not go through an ad company, but what have people found to be "the best"?
Just curious.
While speaking of "quitting" adsense, what has been the best alternative ad provider for folks here?
To a great extent, your own skills, interests, and goals will determine the best course to take.
If you're looking for a "set and forget" revenue source, AdSense and Ad Sonar are likely to be your best opportunities, with traditional networks as a backup.
If you have a relatively commercial topic and are willing to invest some time, affiliate links are worth investigating.
If you have a popular community site about a hobby, craft, or industry, you may be able to sell flat-rate sponsorships (as a former colleague of mine has done with his hobby-oriented site).
If you have enough traffic and a sufficiently focused audience, and if you have a knack for sales, it may be worthwhile to sell and serve ads on your own.
IMHO, if you're quitting AdSense because your effective CPM and revenues are too low, you may simply have a topic that's tough to monetize--and you probably won't do any better with other revenue sources. Instead of quitting AdSense, why not test other alternatives with AdSense until you see what (if anything) works better?
A quick example. You setup Channel A for a section of a site. Over a month Google reports 10,000 AdSense impressions, 150 clicks and $15 in earnings. Instead of showing a PSA, the AdSense code block for Channel A has AAs implemented and calls a PHP page on your server which shows a single affiliate ad and tracks the page it was loaded from by passing that page name to the PHP page via a query string and logging it to a DB. By querying the DB, you notice that 3,000 of the impressions loaded the AA, meaning there weren't 10k potentially paying AdSense impressions - there were only 7k. Instead of a 1.5% CTR and $1.50 EPM, they were really 2.1% and $2.14 respectively. And since the affiliate paid $6 per sale with 1 sale, the AA had an EPM of $2.00.
Drop AdSense and go all affiliate? Increase the % of impressions given to affiliate ads? Go with a network that pays a flat EPM? Look for new affiliates? All good questions, but you can't make informed decisions without the above info.
If you can, I (and I'm sure others) would love to see an update in a week or so to see if this is still holding.
MQ
My content is in the same realm as your own. Some areas ads are better, and some areas affiliates are much MUCH better than adsense. I am interested in backfilling my adsense with better preforming alternate ads. Every so often i browse around my site and notice pages with horribly targted ads or PSA's. I am not in the business of promoting good deeds for Google, my page realestate is worth money, not "Support Jimmy Carter and his Idealistic Ways" garbage.
For publishers who are struggling with adsense, look into other methods. Since i started using more affiliates, i have made a lot more than my monthly adsense check, which was already a lot.
