Forum Moderators: martinibuster
I'm trying to determine the true value of Adsense ads for the advertisers.
[edited by: jomaxx at 11:22 pm (utc) on Sep. 5, 2007]
What is the real Adsense value for an average advertiser? Have you purchased something right after you clicked on Adsense ad?
Have you or anyone you know ever purchased something after clicking on an Adsense link?
Yes.
Cat Deco
[webmasterworld.com...]
I clicked a lot of ads before that though. The ad brought me there, but it was the price and selection that got my money.
I've also clicked on ads, bookmarked the page and came back days later to spend my money.
Either run a test, or give up on it. You'll give yourself an ulcer if you keep worrying about something that is so easy to test.
Yes. Just did yesterday. It took a little shopping, then when I found what appeared to be a good price, I bought the item and four other things that I was interested in.I clicked a lot of ads before that though. The ad brought me there, but it was the price and selection that got my money.
I've also clicked on ads, bookmarked the page and came back days later to spend my money.
For some reason I don't believe any word you wrote above. Did you visit random websites related to your "shopping preferences" that have Google Adsense to do your shopping? It would take hours to find the relevant websites, then pages, then interesting ad featuring a good price. Or did you visit a few favorite websites and clicked on the refresh button in the hopes an interesting ad appears? A normal (whether experienced or not) user would go to Google search engine to do shopping.
Your arguments are as if stated by a Google PR rep who wants people to imagine how an ideal Adsense experience should be. But this is not how it works and how a regular user behaves.
Given that AdSense is contextual, then AdSense ads on a page that is already about the product/subject you are searching should have at least one ad about the same topic.
You could go on like this for quite sometime.
If BigDave worked for G then he'd be GoogleDave and he isn't so he doesn't. Though his advice to run a test or EFV's to consult the AdWords forum are sound.
myself, I have never bought anything from a site I arrived at via AdSense, though I have clicked on an AdWords ad and then bought something. As Dave said, it wasn't always immediately sfter clicking the ad.
You can't call someone a liar, and then demand they provide additional information so that you can pick apart what they said in order to advance your own agenda. If you're not even going to believe posts that don't fit your preconceived notions, I really wonder why you're asking questions at all. Certainly not to learn anything new.
BTW, you'll notice BigDave has been a member for 5 years and has over 3,000 posts to his credit. He's one of the more reliable people around here. You'd do well to listen to what he says.
I'm not interested in extreme views; I prefer to hear about experience of regular users...
Total agree.The random survey is very wildcat.
When real advertisers want to learn about return on advertising investment, they run a test.
I garden. I was interested in a product that I had heard of to make composting of food waste easier. It is a bucket that holds the waste and you inoculate the waste with certain microbes which basically pickle it so it doesn't putrefy.
I don't know how you shop, but I look for reviews. Yes, reading reviews is part of shopping. They are easy to find, you just search on [product name reviews]. Give it a try, it's easy. If you just go to online stores, you are a fool.
I read a few reviews, all were extremely positive. These aren't affiliate sales reviews, but people honestly taking about their experiences in fora and on their blogs. Some of these sites had adsense on them. In general, AdSense keyed in on the name of this product really well. It does that more often than not in most areas I'm interested in.
One site was having a sale on the item. It wasn't my preferred color, but it was about 30% cheaper than anyplace else. I bought it and I found several other things to buy as well. I also bought a seed drill, a Japanese grass sickle and 2 soil blockers. Total bill $248.37.
I'll probably write reviews of some of those items on my own blog at some point. If they get a good review (and I would write an honest review) someone might decide that they too would like one of those tools and find an ad that leads to a good price. If that happens, I'll make a small commission for my effort, but I'm not going to try too hard for it.
Somehow I think more people believe my story a hell of a lot more than they believe your's. You've been hanging around the AdSense forum for months, always knocking google, and now you are supposedly thinking about signing up for both adsense and adwords, when you don't believe that anyone will buy anything if they click on your ads, and you think the ads that show on your site will only make you a penny a click?!?!?!?
I've been with AdSense for about 20 months. If you read my posts you would know that most of my income comes from the low end clicks, under 20 cents. I also have some pages that get very few clicks, but they are always over $1 per click. I also run a site that gets more traffic than all my other sites put together, that has no ads on it, to protect the site's reputation as being unbiased like Consumer Reports, so I also look at it from that point of view.
Do you know how I found out how much I would make with AdSense? I signed up and tried it. Do you know how to find out if anyone buys anything after clicking on one of your ads? You sign up and try it.
Just stop imagining that everyone is like you. I don't hold it against a store for advertising their products, and I don't have a problem with an informational site running ads. That's the difference between us and you, we've tried the system. Our world didn't end. In the meantime, we've been making money.
Speculation is also a part of the game, ya know
I'd agree, but what you are doing is trolling. If you were speculating you would be paying attention to the replies you are getting.
I'm not interested in extreme views; I prefer to hear about experience of regular users...
Regular users don't hang out in webmasters forums. You're like asking people if they used a certain consumer catalog to shop for their last car in a formula one drivers discussion board.
You wrote:
I also run a site that gets more traffic than all my other sites put together, that has no ads on it, to protect the site's reputation.
Here may be a clue for you to understand my position. Unlike you or other webmasters, I only have ONE website. I value the site, but I don't have any margin for error or endless experiments. I cannot afford to experiment on it and leave it for another site if I'm unsuccessful. That's why, I ask questions on a public, professional forum for webmasters, even if they may seem annoying at times. The last thing I would want to do for my site is to lose its reputation or search engine positions by putting Adsense on it, for example. But I still would like to monetarize my site, somehow. I know there's no other way to find it out than actually try Adsense or Adwords; but first I want to have professional opinions on the subject.
As per your first post though, I would say that the question of whether or not people actually purchase products from an Adsense click would be better off asked in the AdWords forum, where there are more people that use AdWords.
Depending on what you would like to know, I think many of us are willing to answer your questions truthfully, and to the best of our abilities. I know that is what the members here have shown me in the past.
I'm trying to determine the true value of Adsense ads for the advertisers.
You also mention though in your post that you would like to determine the true "value" of Adsense ads for your user, so I believe I was confused with your first post before. Please correct me if I am wrong, but you would like to know whether or not Adsense would be a true benefit for your users, or just a nusance?
To me, that would all depend on how you use Adsense. In my opinion, I think that we just need to treat with Adsense with respect, and not abuse it. Yes, we would all like to make a lot of money with Adsense, but in the long run, not putting a ton of ads on each page will help us in the long run. Another tip (that I learned the hard way) is that you really want to have your meta tags ironed out. The more they are perfected to the content of your page, the more targeted your ads will become, and the great benefit they will have for your users.
So as you can see here, Adsense can have good and bad benefits for your users, just depending all on how you handle the program.
Hopefully I have been clear in my thoughts, and hopefully this post has helped a bit! I am still a newbie compared to a lot of people on this forum, but I am still glad to help any way that I can!
Christian
When I have used Adwords in the past, even if my clicks didn't always generate sales, I was also happy that my company name was located on the specific sites that I was running ads on.
Christian
Please correct me if I am wrong, but you would like to know whether or not Adsense would be a true benefit for your users, or just a nusance?
But I still would like to monetarize my site, somehow.
Here's the deal, there is NO WAY yo monetize your site and keep a pristine reputation, because there are people like you that think it cheapens the site. That is why the big site is paid for out of pocket with no ads.
But if you monetize it, while still respecting your users, your website, AdSense and the information on the site, you will not lose much in the way of reputation with most people.
but you can't go into it thinking that adsense is ugly, that you would never buy through adsense, that you would never link to a site with adsense, and that no one else will either. If you do go into it with that attitude, then you aren't respecting anyone, you are just whoring your site. You'll just hate yourself for doing it and feel like it cheapens your site.
For most of us this is a endeavor in the field of commercialism. For the rest it
is a hobby or an intellectual exercise. My two bits...KF
Does the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal lose its reputation if they run ads?
Actually, they do lose just a little bit. Consumer Reports has a better reputation for car reviews than Car & Driver who is likely to have an ad for the car that they are reviewing on a nearby page. That doesn't mean that Car & Driver is lying to you in their review, just that their review isn't likely to be seen as being quite as reputable. Though Car & Driver is likely to have more information for an enthusiast than Consumer Reports.
You read them all and you assign a value to the sites. It makes a difference, but it isn't a binary "respectable" or "not respectable".
I agree with EFV in that this question would better be asked by people who know about the ROI, and how the ads work better than the publishers do.
It also seems so generic that it does not matter if you replace AdSense in the title with an Ad.
AdWords Beginners Guide [webmasterworld.com]
