Do you have a strategy? Adblockers or low income?

We've been talking about the problem, what about solutions?

[explorador]

First I'm not so sure about adblockers are 100% the exact or only reason for low income. We've been having this for years [u]on a trend[/u]. Sometimes the same daily traffic can bring terrible income and other days decent, or good. Still the trend is to lower and lower bits. We've been having terrible ads for quite a while. In the past you could search, find and read read articles about adsense but not quite like today, a HUGE amount of articles now include a complain "terrible ads of adsense" or just becoming a nonsense, so I suggest we keep that in mind.

Adsense related stuff

Waiting for them to fix it. Well, not to be mistaken with a complain instead of a contribution but, since when G or Adsense has done something to help-you? If waiting for them to do something is an alternative, I suggest we grab a chair, a nice book and some coffee for the long wait (and a blanket).

Server side options. We can find a way on serving adsense via server side but it's a long way ahead, specially about the TOS, and the need for such option given by them with their blessing perhaps as an extra program. I wouldn't mind, specially if you can only apply to it IF you have at least X amount of impressions per day or unique visitors per day.

Your own ad server. Sure this is outside the Adsense area but it's still an option, something that SHOWS UP not after replacing or shutting down your adsense account, it could be there when adsense doesn't shows up. Been making numbers and it's a huge amount of impressions what's being wasted.

I'm not trying to break away from the discussion of adblockers, it's about thinking outside of it too (too, not instead and not just along, with-it). Yes, the market challenges are something outside our hands, but suddenly I'm seeing branches of this forum in a different way, wasn't this a place where we can discuss how to make things happen? and go after it? since when we depend only on what others fix for us? I'm not seeing G doing anything in the short future about it, never did.

I'm seeing new potential to my traffic around articles and pictures, it's not just about ads.

[Leosghost]

Serverside adsense is simple to implement..( it is how Yahoo and MS supply their partners with ads via "feeds".. ) depends on G..
Bear in mind that Yahoo require at least 2 million unique IP visitors per month and one does not "apply" one is contacted by them..
Not all countries ( traffic ) are eligible..
MS ran their own service ( feed ) in the U.S.A..
Google premium partners were / are required to have 20 million unique IP visitors per month..
That 20 million figure tells us that G consider that below that figure, G isn't interested in providing the kind of publisher support that running a "feed" requires..
Take a looooooooong time to get a site's numbers up to 20 million IPs per month..so the option would only be open to the largest sites..
How would sites monetise themselves before hitting that figure..?
20 million unique IPs per month is expensive to serve..
So are 10 million per month..
So are 5 million per month..on what income if adsense is no longer there until one hits 20 million per month..?

Own adserver is simple..requires selling adspace..returns are well worth the work..

Paywall / Subscription..easy to put in place..site has to have genuinely unique / high quality content..requires protection against scraping and republishing by paying members..requires having free, search engine indexable areas ( to get traffic / interest ) and paid access ( search engine forbidden / blocked ) areas..

All of the above require money and or coding skills..

"Cut and paste" ( adsense type code "solutions" won't work )..requires a far more "professional attitude" than many adsense publishers have made / are willing to make..

The plus side... is that it ( adblockers ) will eventually get rid of 99% of scrapers..why scrape if the scraped content cannot be monetised..

IMO..the rise of adblockers will be a good thing for those who run unique , quality sites, and who are prepared to invest the time or money or both in them..

Bring it / them on...:)

[trebuchet]

You have both summed it up pretty well.

My only concern with direct ads is that they're only an option for some niches. Informational, educational and educational sites may find it difficult to convince advertisers to buy space. I've sold direct ads on my sites (on request) but not many. I doubt I could sell enough to make it a viable form of monetisation on its own.

@explorador is right about Google not doing anything in the short term. I'm not sure whether that's because (a) Google is flummoxed (b) Google couldn't care less, or (c) Google is hoping adblockers will purge Adsense of dross publishers. I suspect when Google does offer a 'solution' it'll be pitched at a select few.

Interesting times ahead.

[keyplyr]

Of the approx 10 adblocking methods I've test drove, none are removing my direct ads. I do serve them in a unique way and avoid the buzz words.

I have an edu/info niche site and a large part of income is from direct ads. Even the newer mobile adblocking browsers aren't blocking the direct ads I hand code.

What they are blocking is anything Google... even Google+ "like" buttons. Interestingly, the Facebook, Twitter & Youtube equivalents are not blocked.

[farmboy]

Just keep in mind that what I'm about to write isn't costing you a dime. I write this as someone who started with AdSense from the beginning.

There have always been people who see the end of AdSense just around the next corner.

1. Do whatever it takes to stop accumulating any further debt.
2. Start today at reducing any debt you already have.
3. You probably didn't grow your debt overnight, so it will take more than one night to get rid of it.
4. As netmeg and others have said, work on adding more than solely AdSense to your income stream.
5. Google will develop ways around this "ad blocking" problem, regardless of whether it's a big problem or just the topic of the day.
6. There has always been a "problem of the day" and there probably always will.

FarmBoy

[londrum]

i wouldn't mind selling text links again -- adblockers can't touch those. i made quite a lot of money with that, but of course you can't do it these days.

if a lot of people lose their google adsense money and take the ads off their site then i can see a big return to it, because they won't be so worried about upsetting google anymore

these days i see quite a lot of sites having one big huge ad on their background as well (so it acts as a border around the site). its almost like the site is sitting inside a frame, with the ad all around it. im pretty sure that adblockers can't touch those because its just a background.
you can probably sell those for big bucks, because it is site wide

[creeking]

i wouldn't mind selling text links again -- adblockers can't touch those. i made quite a lot of money with that, but of course you can't do it these days.

the advertisers will have to do something. if it's text links that will be seen, that's what they will buy.

[nomis5]

I've re-signed up to two major affiliate schemes and placed some image and text link affiliate ads on my pages. They work fine with adblocker on. They use very little bandwidth because, firstly, text links cost almost nothing and secondly, the images (my own created images) have been optimised well. That's in addition to three "one to one" advertisers I already have, their ad slot presence has been increased significantly.

One nugget of information that is beginning to gain more credence in my mind is that those advertisers who use affiliate schemes don't tend to use Adwords. Maybe just a mistaken idea which will be corrected as time goes by, but that's certainly my first, strong impression. What use can be made of that conclusion, in conjunction with the findings of the first paragraph, I'm not yet 100% sure but it does seem significant.

I'm taking adblockers very seriously, but even if I'm wrong it has forced me to take a very different view of monetising websites. That alone has to be a major advantage to all of this. I'm also thinking differently. It was always a concern but the fire has truly been lit for me.

My view is from that of informational sites, not quite sure where e-commerce go from here but the affiliate side of things may well be the key to driving customers to your site. Who knows, if your business was in a affiliate scheme I might well sign up for it and drive traffic to your site.

The more i think of this adblocking stuff though, the more I wonder where this leaves big G. If their plan is to ignore it hoping that it will purge the www of competition, the more I think that they are looking at the creation of a new business model that doesn't have them at the centre.

If their Adwords / Adsense business goes down the pan then it may well mean that others see opportunities to edge into market and create viable alternatives. That in turn may well impact their SERPS business. Maybe, just maybe, this time they have wandered too far from their core business and their core business is now increasingly becoming at risk.

[mcneely]

i wouldn't mind selling text links again -- adblockers can't touch those. i made quite a lot of money with that, but of course you can't do it these days.

Who says you can't do it these days? Google? -- You put yourself out there enough and you'll see a return regardless.
Used to be that both Google and the text link sales paid well .. Now Google doesn't pay, and you aren't allowed to sell ad space on your own. Guess we just have to jump through all of the Google mandated hoops and go home broke, right? ..

Rubbish -- If Google won't pay your bills, then by Sunny Jim someone else will ... Pick some white space and sell it ... it's your property. Build it into something that's worth something. Go static and the adblockers won't stand a chance -

Big media/corporate does this all the time -- They sell their space to the highest bidder Google-Be-Damned and that's it. Truth be known, these sites can put better ads on than Google can.

[tangor]

Adblockers or low income?

As others have noted, neither of the above PREVENTS you, the webmaster, from monetizing your site any way you can. As they say, when one door closes, another door opens.

As stated in the topic title, one side might constrain where you get that ad income, the other side is a choice you make if butt too lazy. :)

Direct will win, every time, but that's dang hard work.

Other strategies are there as well, some will be shared, others will be held close secret for as long as possible, else, once out there every Tom, Dick and Harry will bail on and spoil the fun (and income).

That said, none of these "secrets" are actually secret, just a different aspect of doing what has been done since advertising of any kind began back in the 18th Century.

[netmeg]

(by Sunny Jim?)

[tangor]

or Burma-Shave :)

[tangor]

And if netmeg and I have not given some great insight to what you MIGHT do with your advertising, then... well...

Great!

[tangor]

Taking this a step further, in the realm of adblockers et al there is a new business for the creative, the driven, the determined and that is

wait for it

Madison Avenue

If you have the chops, the skills, and the desire, create your own ad agency that feeds Direct Ads via a clientele you build, service, and listen to. Look at "history of advertising" for guidelines in that regard. This one I will share.

I've been doing it for 321 clients for five (5) years and while okay, I am not in the position to grow it any larger (other personal issues involved, much to my chagrin and regret) but if one has the dollars to fund this kind of agency properly (you are a website doing this), have fun.

I am selling off this property in a few weeks. Can't keep it single as there are other issues involved.

G ticked me off about eight years back. No satisfaction trying to work with them, so went into business on my own. Eventually grew into a three man shop working a US southwest region and living wages possible for all. Still making money but I cannot grow it for various reasons to the next level, and even if I could, I might not live long enough to guide it further. As I said, other issues.

For those who are looking for an answer to adblockers, or the very real concept of making a living on the web, this is one avenue. It works. I've shared all I will share, but the bright folks will know what to do, what needs be done, when, for how much, and go from there.

Else you are a website that is a dependent on corporate handouts (adsense).

Having said that, I will keep my info sites while I can and enjoy them for what they are and not worry about "income" as they are supported by donations... and have been for years. And that works, too, if there is value, a personalization and interaction with the visitors, and good folks in the world. That keeps the sites up. That is also not a living wage, and never was meant to be.

Pick your poison, kiddies.

Find a way, or die.

[eek2121]

This is my strategy going forward for my personal site.

1) Implement a premium membership option. Users can still get the content for free, but if they are a free member, they get to wait a couple weeks for access to the content in question. Becoming a member gives them immediate access to all the content, ad free viewing, ePub and print friendly PDFs, as well as other perks. Of course, this requires discipline on my part. I need to produce new content on a regular basis. I've already begun to work on this.

2) Nag bar at the top for those blocking ads. I might even possibly limit access slightly for ad-blockers.

3) Eventually reduce reliance on AdSense. I plan on doing this via direct ad buys from advertisers. I've been approached a number of times in the past, but they've had difficulty competing with AdSense. I've found a few that are competitive. They have traffic minimums, so i need to keep growing the site to reach the minimum.

[trebuchet]

Implement a premium membership option

This seems the best option for me. Down the track it seems like it'll be a case of view the sites free with ads or pay a small amount to view it without them. Adblockers will have to either whitelist, pay up or move on.

I guess this also provides some protection if Adsense goes belly up or kicks me to the curb.

Selling direct ads is a nice idea but it's got only limited potential on my sites. Plus who knows if some self empowered twit down the road will decide he doesn't like looking at those and develop something to block them.

[netmeg]

I think the premium membership is an excellent way to go, but I think you have to 1) provide more perks than ad-free and 2) keep it pretty cheap. You're probably competing with mobile apps at some point. At least I will be. So the value has to be really really clear and compelling, and the price has to stay competitive and reasonable.

[explorador]

Oh yes farmboy I remember your posts from years ago and I agree on that being a good strategy (but many fail to grab), I think more than an Adsense thing or web thing, it's a business strategy: more money or other sources of income doesn't mean we should take it for granted or expand any kind of activity, it's about saving (not about-not-spending). Just yesterday has a meeting where someone with years of experience (gladly) supported this approach. I remember some old threads of people doing good with Adsense using that money to create more sites and try to replicate only to fail. Yes I tried that to some degree and it was very little money what I used there.

Nice to see the reactions now, WebmasterWorld it's about getting things done and doing what we can, while Adsense became a dark mysterious thing, grief almost!. Anyway, I agree on a good strategy is looking for affiliates or other advertisers. So then this thread is about an initial related matter and then going sideways? nope. I believe, while everyone is focused on Adsense... will not work. I believe things will work for everyone if statistically we stop making Adsense the forever growing user mass there. Sometimes things get better the less we invest there.

I'm planning my business model to try again direct ad sales, build a new ad serving thing for me integrated to my CMS, etc. I truly believe adblockers will do nothing, they won't be able to do anything.


Sidenote: perhaps this one is outside the topic but, what about the direct-advertirser including YOU? I mean, many of the things we do to build a website are a business per se, like writing, photography, multimedia, etc. Many times (I think) great webmasters build a huge set of abilities to create something... to monetize it with advertising, but fail to see the potential of advertising themselves (their company). Think about it.

[tangor]

Query:

How can you monetize a website?

Query:

By ads alone?

Query:

Ever thought of any other methods, besides subscriptions/paywall?

Query:

Have you looked to your local market?

Non Query:

You can, of course, sell stuff... but what do you sell? And if you are an info site, what kind of products?

Think outside the box. Might have two sites, one for market, te other for info, each supporting the other.

No matter what you do, 10,000+ are already doing it, and probably better than you ever will, but that is no reason not to TRY!

(hint: ads are not the be all, end all for monetizing a site! no matter how much a website looks like a magazine page)

As long as it is legal, the sky is the limit!

[mcneely]

(by Sunny Jim?)

Yup :)

the advertisers will have to do something. if it's text links that will be seen, that's what they will buy

Exactly -- If advertisers think they can make money from it, it won't matter what Google or anyone else thinks - They'll jump right in there.
Who knows? Nothing wrong with actually doing something by hand -- I mean, if you want it done right, you've got to do it yourself, right?

Might even cull the herd a bit as well -- Be rid of all of the automation minded lazies and spammers who don't have the stomach for actually doing a bit of work now and again.

Driving traffic through static ads actually still works, and might even be a boon for many of the niche sites that are out there too -- Nothing at all wrong with going out and shaking a few hands over a cup of coffee -

[EditorialGuy]

Our information site earns most of its money from relevant affiliate links that solve a problem for the reader. AdSense (one ad unit per page, at most) is just the icing on the cake. If the icing gets too thin, we'll stick with the cake.

Leosghost makes an interesting point about scrapers. His comment that ad blockers" will eventually get rid of 99% of scrapers" could also apply to content farms.

[radix]

You can certainly sell ads directly, sell links, do the affiliate links or even set up a pay wall - but, you might expect your punishment from Google, SERP-wise. In case you rely on G traffic, of course (partly or mainly).

[Leosghost]

Leosghost makes an interesting point about scrapers. His comment that ad blockers" will eventually get rid of 99% of scrapers" could also apply to content farms.

As you know..I've always considered "content farms" as "human powered rewriting / spinning scrapers".. as distinct from "automated rewriting / spinning scrapers"..and then there are pinterest and its clones "human powered crowd sourced image scrapers"..

Very few scrapers of any variety existed before adsense..when adsense and other automatically syndicated/ distributed 3rd party ad systems are blocked to the extent that they wither and die, I would expect the scrapers of all varieties to follow them to withering and hopefully dying..

I will mourn the loss of neither the 3rd party automated ad systems ( adsense et al ) nor the scrapers that they begat..

[nomis5]

You can certainly sell ads directly, sell links, do the affiliate links or even set up a pay wall - but, you might expect your punishment from Google, SERP-wise. In case you rely on G traffic, of course (partly or mainly).

I'm selling direct ads and also doing the "affilaite thing". I would really appreciate it if you have any hard evidence evidence at all to back up your claim about the effect on Google SERP-wise. Please share your experience, statistics etc to back that up. If what you say is true it would be a real game-changer for some of us.

Currently I do do not see any effect similar to the one you suggest.

[radix]

Please share your experience, statistics etc to back that up.

No evidence, no experience to share, sorry. (I understand, though, that paid links is a no-no if you want some G love.)

Just a thought with Google's advertising interests in mind. Which, eventually, might affect their search results. I mean _might_.

[explorador]

Interesting spin on "punishment". I've been seeing this over the net for a while, still can't say solid evidence, or first hand experience, but I do wonder if direct sales/removing adsense will have some impact on traffic, why? because anyway you have G code on your site and they use it, sure they use it. What's the relation? remember the "push" on Google+ and the pressure on that being important for G to get positions and existing on their spiderweb.

Perhaps having no relationship with G will hurt, as they will get "no" info from us, or perhaps such punishment (if any) will not be relevant considering the benefits of speed gained after removing such scripts.

[ken_b]

Do you have an strategy? Adblockers or low income?

I scored a like new double door refrigerator carton from behind the appliance store and some barely used Styrofoam packing sheets to line it with, AND a primo spot under a nearly new bridge with a river view!

I'm all set! :)

.

[Leosghost]

The discussion about adblockers has gone "mainstream"..

BBC article today following the release of the adblocker incorporated by apple..including how some large ad agencies see the evolution..
[bbc.co.uk...]

[trebuchet]

Once consumers understand that they may have to pay for an ad free online experience, ad blockers may wane in popularity, particularly if the other alternative is a website full of commercially biased editorial. But some observers believe the rise of ad blockers provides an opportunity for consumers to strike a new deal with publishers and advertisers... Others believe this shift in internet economics will simply put more power in the hands of Facebook, Google and, increasingly, Amazon.

Interesting article that repeats a lot of what we've been talking / arguing about. I wouldn't mind betting the reporter visited at least one of our threads here.

[explorador]

From all that I've read including apple, adblockers, etc and adsense, a lot comes from abuse, bandwidth consumption etc. But many things point to a better web and clearly to ad-serving. That's the strategy.

It will take time for adblockers to develop IA analyzing what some scripts or server side print on the browser, and it will take a lot of time. Some tools allow right click "block this resource", but that's another story. Anyway as long as we use new ad serving techniques everything will be ok (just respecting the user and AVOIDING the same mistakes that make people hate sites).