Is there any serious competition for adsense?

[Automotive site]

I mean the same model they use as far as publishers are concerned i.e. earnings per click.

You would think Microsoft would be competing to take away share from adsense, but I haven't heard too many good things about them. And I am not even sure they are even available to UK publishers.

The only viable alternative I have seen is Chitika. But Chitika is pretty small and their inventory isn't nearly as large as adsense.

- They have an image next to the ads which isn't always ideal when you want to embed ads aligned next to content.

- They only show ads to search visitors from the US and Canada. What about the UK? Most of my sites get second most number of users from the UK (behind the US) and I am sure this is the case for many other publishers.

The performance of adsense this week has left me in a situation where I wish I could just replace their code with that of a like-for-like competitor. But at the moment we are stuck with them because they are still the best, and also in the hope that things will return back to normal in a day or two.

[bw100]

While doing research for a client this afternoon, I somehow segued over to a site that had some interesting stats about the distribution of advertising networks. Without the methodology it is at best superficial, but nevertheless, presents an interesting, and probably somewhat valid perspective on this industry segment. Since the data is presented somewhat objectively, and isnot too self-serving (you can find the self-serving aspect fairly easily if you dig a bit), I'll post the link.

[trends.builtwith.com...]

This might be good for this thread. There's some nice ad network vs. site ranking data that is very interesting. Also, there's a nice listing of some other advertising networks. Perhaps that would be good for some additional comments / discussion. Certainly fuel for the fire.

[The subject of advertising (sources of ads to run on websites) seems to be increasing in popularity due to some of Gs recent actions. Perhaps the execs here would consider adding a section for "Advertising Networks" in the Advertising topic section (or something in the WebmasterWorld Supporters area), since most of these networks don't properly fit the other categories (Pay per Click Engines / Affiliates / Paid Inclusion Engines)]

My two cents for this afternoon. Back to the grind.

[Freedom]

I disagree with some of the posters. If you're expectations are moderate, then there is one program I am happy with, and is used across a lot of very major websites, but you would never know it because they don't brand. Their income is a little bit lower, but without the peaks and valleys. I'm happy with them.

Netseer

It's like adlinks, but performs 10x better. Many of the earnings per click compete very well with adsense.

[centipede]

> What's your split? Oh, that's right. They don't tell you

@wheel - The split is 68%, that's been public for a year. [adsense.blogspot.com...]

A 32% commission isn't bad - a commissioned ad sales person would get about that much.

[centipede]

Netseer appears to be yet another purveyor of "sponsored text links".

[Freedom]

I did research on others and it seems there are actually about 100 advertising networks out there. Most of them are not going to survive and many of them have cut their own throats like Chitika - which is being abandoned in droves. Search for "List of online ad networks" - or something like that, and then when picking out names, search for - name company review

Don't read anything that is less than 6-9 months old. Who cares if Chitikia was great in 2008. They shot themselves and their publishers and are bleeding out.

[Freedom]

Have you seen a screenshot of a netseer ad? They are not sponsored text links like Kontera.

[wheel]

centipede, you are spreading google fud. google pays that percemt worldwide. they dont pay YOU that percent. unless you think google pays you the same as the big players. lol.

no, you are getting a lot less than sixty eight percent. you're still google's **********.

you know how much the folks i sell ad space for get? well, thats not for me to disclose here, but my partners know. to the penny.

[centipede]

"This means we pay 68% of the revenue that we collect from advertisers for AdSense for content ads that appear on your sites." is pretty straightforward to me. Seems like you're the one spreading the FUD, wheel. If some people are getting less than 68%, I think Google has invited itself a huge slap in court. (And FWIW, I am one of the biggest AdSense players.)

But it doesn't matter - it's a business decision about how the ad space is sold. AdSense isn't right for everyone; selling ads directly isn't right for everyone. The question was: is there any serious competition for AdSense? And I think the answer is: yeah, sell ads yourself.

[Freedom]

No offense, but I think you had your mind made up and if there was one even better than adsense, you still wouldn't like it.

If there is a better one out there for you, you find it.

[wheel]

"This means we pay 68% of the revenue that we collect from advertisers for AdSense for content ads that appear on your sites."

I collect $100. I give your neighbor $50, and I give you $18. Seems I paid out 68%, just like Google says they do. Is that simple enough for the centipedes of the world? Centipede's a player, maybe he's got a deal with Google. Do you? What side of the 68% average do you think Google's paying you? If they've got a big player who's negotiated a 75% cut, what's that doing to your percentage? Probably putting it down around 30%.

There's something fishy here anyway. Idiots are biting on %'s like it matters. I work as the middle man on some ad sales in a niche. And my published cut is higher than Google's. Yet even with that, the publishers I work with are making 3 to almost 10 times more a month.

Just about any alternative out there is going to be better than running some variation of adsense.