Adsense 5 Years into the Future?

[JasonDX]

Thoughts about the Adsense program 5 years into the future?

I predict continued decrease in ecpm and it will eventually be another run of the mill ad network like Valueclick, burst, etc... Nothing more nothing less.

The program will have so many publishers that the few good paying contextual targeted ads will be insignificant and the bulk of your revenue will be from third party certified junk networks.

[wyweb]

Could you kinldy provide some real insights/tips what is best to do for success with AS as I had tried with single or multiple sites.

Some real insights are found all over this particular forum. There aren't any secrets, although some people will tell you there are. For 19.95 they'll probably also give you the answers. Play clean. Write good, original stuff that people are interested in. Or, conversely, write crappy stuff as a means of inducing ad clicks. Find niches that aren't already saturated and jump in with both feet. SEO day and night. Get good links from quality sites in your niche. Traffic is king and in this respect there is little difference in making money with adsense and maintaining a successful site.

Ads appear but no income

I haven't had that particular problem so can't really comment.

Back on topic. I have no idea where adsense will be in 5 years. The web is still in it's infancy and evolving rapidly. From all outward signs adsense appears to have settled in to stay though.

I know where I'd like to see it in 5 years, or at least what program policy I'd like to see emphasized. I be happy if they'd simply stiffen up their admittance criteria and quit letting anybody and everybody in the program. Thin the ranks a bit. By itself this could only have a beneficial affect on our bottom lines.

Beyond that I don't know. They could start sending me Christmas presents again. That'd be nice.

[netmeg]

Personally, if I'd been trying something for 7 years without success, I'd probably try something else about 6 1/2 years ago.

[alika]

When Adsense started, I guess the hope was that a strong competitor will emerge in the next 5 years

5 years have come and gone, and YPN has since folded. And no real strong competitor has emerged. Looks like G is on the track to monopolize the space

My hope is that a real alternative will emerge, one that will allow us to generate the types of income we're getting from Adsense. We tried them all, from affiliates to CPM networks, and none even came close to giving what Adsense is giving us. At least for us anyway ...

[Leonard0]

If my CTR continues to drop at 50% per year, I'll have to be making $50 per click to sustain the same eCPM. Obviously not possible, so I hope to see it leveling off to a sustainable rate as soon as possible.

[netmeg]

When Adsense started, I guess the hope was that a strong competitor will emerge in the next 5 years

MSN adCenter has a pretty nice program, with some elements of customization I really wish AdSense had.

The problem is, they don't have any advertisers. At least, hardly any.

Advertisers want to go where the eyeballs are. And the eyeballs are still all with Google.

And it doesn't help that Google is throwing around $100 AdWords vouchers to everyone on the planet. I've gotten probably 50 since the beginning of the year (mostly for me to give to clients) I don't see Microsoft trying to entice advertisers this way (yet)

I keep tellin' em, but they don't listen.

[gmac17]

remember the good old days of $20 clicks?.....

[farmboy]

I predict that regardless of the state of AdSense in 5 years, there will still be an ample supply of people with doomsday predictions for AdSense.


FarmBoy

[farmboy]

remember the good old days of $20 clicks?.....

Yep, last week is easy to remember.


FarmBoy

[Broadway]

This thread reminds me of the quote:
"The rumors about my death are greatly exaggerated." - Mark Twain

[anand84]

My hope is that a real alternative will emerge, one that will allow us to generate the types of income we're getting from Adsense.

Don't you think that for a product like AdSense, monopoly is the best bet. When all advertisers are on the same platform, competition rises, bidding happens much more vigorously and publishers can expect a higher paycheck..

Yes, there are a few risks involved with G deciding to increase its revenue share.

[Swanny007]

I predict that AdSense will be very similar and people will still complain about their performance with the program. Hey, I've been with them for almost 7 years and every year is better. AdSense is my #1 revenue source, I expect that to continue.

[Gone]

Yes, eCPM will fall because everyone in the World is too eager to jump inside my niche and make the whooping 80 eurocents per 1000 impressions!

[nethead]

Well for one, adsense should be very picky in adding new publishers. I cant tell you guys how many times I've seen junk sites, extremely spammy sites with adsense ads. I know that adsense is good at banning but why not be selective when approving new sites so they dont go around banning them after months and sometimes years later. If they are selective that will certainly help the good publishers who have developed and are maintaining quality sites. Why should the bad ones take our clicks ?

[Petrogold]

@wyweb
Thanks for time & insights.

[incrediBILL]

I cant tell you guys how many times I've seen junk sites, extremely spammy sites with adsense ads.

Those probably earn the most.

People hit them, see nothing of value except the ads, and click an ad to escape.

Besides, 5 years into the future most ads will probably be on mobile devices and most of us aren't positioned to take any mobile ad revenue yet so brace for impact.

[wyweb]

5 years into the future most ads will probably be on mobile devices

I've read some of your posts regarding mobile Bill. My initial thoughts have been "Where am I at on this." The answer is way behind.

I don't think the desktop is dead yet though, nor will it be in 5 years. I can certainly see a shift in that direction though.

[incrediBILL]

I don't think the desktop is dead yet though, nor will it be in 5 years. I can certainly see a shift in that direction though.

I never said desktop would be dead, it will either just be a smaller player in the number of searches as it won't be the only device a person uses.

When people are searching for stuff at home they'll be using a desktop, laptop, netbook or tablet device and when mobile most likely a smart phone, tablet or netbook.

One report I just read puts iPhone sales alone somewhere around 43M units total and 8M new per quarter. The iPad sold almost 800K units the first month it was released and people expect the numbers to soon be in the millions. Google has put millions of Android phones in the market with Android tablets quickly looming. Microsoft also has lots of Windows phones out there along with Palm, etc. and there are Windows tablets about to launch as well.

So the stark reality is that rapidly almost everyone with a cell phone will have a decent browser available when they upgrade their phone if they didn't already.

If you're sitting at lunch and decide to search for something, do you grab the phone and do it mobile or wait until you get back to the desktop?

Many are doing it mobile, I'm doing it mobile, the wife is doing it mobile, everyone at the bar is clicking on stuff while sipping a pint, it's reached the tipping point (pun intended) IMO already.

Here's a simple example of my problem:

My phone displays AdSense on my site, but the site isn't formatted properly to shove AdSense in your face the same way it does on the desktop. The content the surfer wants is all in a column that you can easily scroll down the phone screen and never see the ads. Sticking ads on the left or right column simply doesn't work because of the dimensions of those little screens. The ads need to be right in the mix with the rest of the data or anchored with CSS so they're always present on the screen.

All I need to do is reformat to make sure the ads are either mixed in with the content or anchored on the screen with CSS, but it's a HUGE site and it's a big job.

However, it's getting to the point it must be done to capture the revenue rapidly being lost otherwise someone else will do it first and make a better mobile experience than my site.

[netmeg]

I am definitely seeing more and more mobile traffic on my sites. But like Bill says, it's a big job. Gotta deal with it some time, though.

[HuskyPup]

If you're sitting at lunch and decide to search for something, do you grab the phone and do it mobile or wait until you get back to the desktop?

I know where you're coming from with this however I feel that not all subjects lend themselves well to mobile browsing and would you agree this is more likely to be consumer-oriented rather than business-led?

Trialling as a retail consumer I have tried every gismo there is for my industry and anything less than netbook size is pointless, I just wonder how many other industries are there like that?

Don't get me wrong, it is going to be big and it's not going to be very easy at all to get the right info out there and at the same time monetise it...headache after headache I can foresee.

[alika]

I think the biggest competitor will be Facebook -- and whether Facebook can actually draw away Google's advertising dollars. Their open graph seems to have massive potential for ad targeting, and if they are able to leverage that well, then that could significantly impact Google (and Adsense's) income.

I'd be curious to see in the next 5 years how well Facebook will actually take over the Web -- and what impact that will have on Adsense dollars (which for many, is already shrinking)

[jaiganeshv]

I guess this program will go good even after 5 years. There should be some changes in TOS sometime soon. The only concern to the ad owners is the fraud clicks, there should be more and more techniques to minimize it..