Switching from Adsense to regular advertising

I received an advertising inquiry..

[rubenski]

Hi everyone,

Yesterday I was contacted by a company that wants to advertise on my computer-related website. My site is running Adsense ads, but I would love to move away from Adsense in order to diversify my revenue streams.

I use custom channels to track Adsense revenue per article and I would like to base CPC prices on the stats I gathered in my Adsense account. I am thinking of taking the Adsense CPC for each article and multiplying it by 1.05 or 1.1, and calculate advertising cost per article.

Question 1: Should I mention that the CPC prices I am asking are based on Adsense prices? Is that professional? How should I justify my CPC prices? And should I justify them at all?

My second question concerns the type of ads to be placed by the advertiser. Adsense text links WORK. They work much better than image ads on my site. I want to offer text-link advertising to my potential advertiser. I have read the Adsense Terms and Conditions and have concluded this is allowed as long as end users will not confuse the text links from my advertiser with Adsense text links.

Question 2: Am I right here?

Derived from the Adsense Terms and Conditions:

You cannot place Adsense ads of another Adsense customer on your site, unless Google has speciffically approved of this. -> OK

You cannot place ads that an end user would 'reasonably confuse' with a Google ad -> What exactly is allowed here?

You cannot place ads of a context targetted ad supplier and Google ads on the same page -> OK

I have had advertising requests before, but those companies found my Adsense-based prices too high, even when I asked the exact same CPC or CPM amount that I would otherwise earn with Adsense, so I really hope this advertiser will go for it, especially since it's a rather large company sellig a lot of products tjat are related to my site.

Besides the questions above I am interested in any experiences from Adsense publishers that moved to regular advertising.

[ionchannels]

In my experience, it is better to offer them a flat rate monthly regardless of clicks etc... Calculate the fee based upon the average of your last 3 months traffic, use a CPM substantially higher than your adsense CPM. The effective CPM I charge is between 10 and 20 $. Advertisers like the flat rate and you don't have to worry about justifying multiple clicks, accidental clicks, bots etc... This way you can be sure that you will make more with your private arrangements, as you should.

[rubenski]

ionchannels, a monthly flat fee is indeed a lot simpler than calculating clicks.

On your pages, do you combine Adsense ads with regular ads? and what regular ads are you serving? Text-links or graphical ads? Do you think I should mention that my monthly prices are based on previous earnings with Adsense?

[ionchannels]

I rotate adsense and my clients' graphical banner ads. We haven't tried text ads; most clients still prefer the old graphical banner model. I usually rotate in an adsense house ad to provide some variety. I am not sure how one would create a text ad that doesn't mimic an adsense ad. I suppose different type face and font colours.

I make about 50% more with my private arrangements relative to adsense. I like the revenue diversification and the fact that I have more control, so for example, having the client's page open in a new tab/window. I usually offer a good discount for multiple-site advertising or purchasing several months in advance.

[darkmage]

Me? Don't do it. Why would the advertiser do it? They can already target your site this through Adwords. I suspect they are trying to get a lower fee. Remember that you now carry the burden of invoicing, recovering money etc. Plus, the less companies bidding on Adsense on your site, the lower the CPC will be.

[iwannano1]

If you are going to offer them a flat rate monthly regardless of clicks

Make sure you quote little high. For example if you would like to sell for $100pm quote $150. Almost all advertisers will try to force cost reduction.

If I were you, I will keep running AS on all site with 3rd party ad. No need to remove AS.

[Lou_N_Gerat]

Adsense text links WORK. They work much better than image ads on my site.

rubenski, please tell me more about how you're able to make text links work (but stay within the WebmasterWorld TOS).

I have tested text links extensively on a popular website I operate, and I got near-zero earnings - like less than ten bucks in several months. By contrast, I have earned tens of thousands from the tower ads.

[rubenski]

@darkmage: since the advertiser has contacted me I am sure they are at least considering to advertise directly instead of through Adsense.

@iwannano1: I think 150% is a bit high, but I will keep your suggestion in mind.

@Lou_N_Gerat: With 'text links' I really meant the concept of text links, not actual Adsense link units. However, I do use link units on my website and they perform pretty well. I placed them on the left side of the page where the rest of the navigational menu's are and I blended them into the page.

You people think I should mention that prices are based on Adsense earnings?

[cmendla]

I would consider using a term like 'industry standards' and not specifically mentioning adsense. I'm always leery of anything that might offend the google adsense gods in any way. It's not like Zeus with his bolts of lightning, but the dreaded 'you have violated adsense's terms of service' letter can be just as devastating.

Keep in mind that the adsense tos prohibits disclosure of your stats. Suppose your client decides to sue for some reason and demands your google records in the discovery phase. If you give it to them you violate google's tos and can get dropped. If you don't give it to them the nice judge can hand down a contempt charge.. </paranoid mode>

cg

[rubenski]

Although patranoid, it is certainly something to consider. I will get my general site statistics from Google Analytics and I won't disclose Adsense stats.

[fearlessrick]

This thread got me thinking, since I was always pretty sure I could not do contextual advertising with my own clients with G on the same page.

However, since we're on the subject and the G TOS says they should not be "reasonably" confused with G ads, what if I ran similar sizes, let's say a 160x600 tower with 4 ads in it. I could differentiate from G in a number of ways. First put Ads by mysite.com top and bottom, use different typefaces, vary colors, etc.

What do people think? Would those differences allow one to not reasonably confuse them with Google ads?

On the other hand, since G makes the rules, they alone could decide what is reasonable and just tell me to take them down or remove all AdSense code.

I could put "Ads NOT by Google" or "These are not Google's Ads" top and bottom ;-)

edit: I have to add that I think G could be on thin ice when it comes to restraint of trade issues as they don't hold a patent on ad sizes, designs, etc., only on the adserving mechanism. They reasonably cannot dictate what we can and cannot put on our sites (though we all did read and agree to the TOS), within certain boundaries. I think ads in general look alike, but if you differentiate your self-served ads from others, they you may be in the clear.

[darkmage]

Forgot to add:

T&C
3. 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).