Forum Moderators: martinibuster
Of course my options are limited given my relatively low traffic but I'm sure for higher revenue sites there must be a break even point in comparison to other revenue streams.
I'd drop AdSense in a flash if a better-paying competitor came along, but the competitor would have to offer advertising that was relevant to my readers' interests (which isn't the case with traditional banner networks).
I only know of one month that Google paid beyond terms {the infamous October/Thanksgiving incident}. Did you get paid late other times?
Bidclix pays about 10 times better...
I take such claims with a grain of salt. (If another ad network were paying 10 times better than AdSense for ads on my topic, the advertisers wouldn't stick around very long.)
I've done a test run of Bidclix for a couple of days as Adsense PSA replacement, delivered a sizeable amount of impressions (a few tens of thousands) and the revenue from it was close to none, because the ads were for mainly for "spammy" sites such as "work from home for 1000000$ per week". EPC was not bad but CTR inexistant and CPM close to none.
CNN is going with Overture as well. EFV, have you looked at Overture?
I wonder if a quick straw poll would be possible. (Pity we can't add real polls)
1. Current adsense approach: ie dropping, increasing, monitoring
2. Approx traffic: (impressions for want of a better metric)
3. Alternatives and why
Income has been solid and slightly up each month since we started in June, 2003.
CNN is going with Overture as well. EFV, have you looked at Overture?
I don't think I have enough traffic for Overture. Isn't it geared more to large portals and news/entertainment sites?
Also, I doubt if Overture can provide the level of targeting on subtopic pages that Google can.
My plan would be to put both networks in a chain so as not to have more than one contextual ad showing at once {possibly avoiding TOS violations}.
If you want a higher advertising revenue it seems the only clear alternative to me is to cut out the middle man (Adsense) and go straight to the source.
I do know they are working hard on targeting. That is, they want the ads to be in context for real.
They are also working to provide a "quality" audience to the marketers. I am told they are trying to double the price per click paid currently (averages less that 40 cents now) and the only way to do that--if they can do it at all--is to bring in a quality, buying audience.
I'm not certain that size is as big a deal to them as is quality of the web site. (Although, granted, they want a certain amount of traffic to talk with you, but so do G.)
I'm not certain that size is as big a deal to them as is quality of the web site. (Although, granted, they want a certain amount of traffic to talk with you, but so do G.)
At the moment, their Web site is still saying that partners must have a minimum of 2 million Web searches and 30 million pageviews per month. Maybe that'll change with Content Match. (It's hard to imagine them finding many targeted sites with 30 million PVs a month!)
Even if OV lowers the requirement of 30M pageviews/mo, down to what? 3Mpv/mo? 300Kpv/mo? Still how many CONTENT sites (not generic high-volume sites like CNN, or hi-vol no-content sites like e.g. tunes for mobile phone) will be eligible for participation? Beyond major companies, few, I'd presume.
Having now looked at both AdSense and AdWords, I think G designed these two services to cater for even the very small operations (mom and pop).
And my opinion is that G did so, to build brand awareness and closer ties to the broadest possible audience, and ensure 1000s of sales-points (i.e. independantly run websites) and not rely on a handful of big partners that could leave with very short notice.
But I think it's a good idea for Yahoo to launch an AdSense-like program.
I've just started looking at PPC services, but isn't it obvious that AdSense and Overture are completely different? Not in concept (contextual ads), but in channels (ie publishers eligible) and scope.
Overture's strength is on portal and general news/entertainment sites, in part because it lacks the technology to deliver highly targeted ads at the page level the way Google does. Because it uses humans to help with targeting (e.g., to make sure that travel pages at CNN deliver travel ads), its overhead costs dictate working with major players.
Google's strength is in the niches, because it normally can deliver targeted ads for thousands of topics and subtopics. On an Elbonian travel site, for example, there might be pages about various cities, Elbonian rail passes, barge cruises along the Elbon River, luggage, travel accessories and security products, nudist camps, car rentals, and skiing in the Elbonialps. Google can place appropriate ads on each page (when its algorithm is working correctly, anyway), and because no human "editors" are required, Google can afford to work even with smaller sites.
IMHO, Google's product looks weakest when it's used on major portal and news/entertainment sites where matching by topic (the Iraq War, for example) often makes less sense than matching by demographic. That's probably why Google made a deal with About.com: Unlike many high-traffic partners, About.com is a collection of niche sites, some of which are in profitable niches like finance, travel, health, etc. Its editorial quality may not be on a par with, say, the WASHINGTON POST, but it offers a way to reach specialized audiences with "evergreen" pages (which work well with Google AdWords) in the same way that independent niche sites do.
I've seen only one of my pages on which the relevancy of the ads was substandard. In that case, it was based on a keyword I had which means different things in different contexts. Most times relevancy has been very good to excellent.
AdSense accounted for 14% of my website income last quarter, Amazon for 86%, and my CJ links for 0%. Other quarters CJ has been more help ... but I'm still replacing some of my CJ w/ Adsense looking for a better Q2.
