What are you using to make money with your AdSense Alternate?

[Jeremy_H]

On my websites, I get targeted ads from Google. But when/if the inventory runs out in the day or month, I've set up a page for AdSense Alternate ads.

Right now in the spot, I advertise my other websites, but a pending redesign project will make that content redundant.

I want to make money from the alternate, and am considering using some hand-picked Amazon recommendations. But from hearing comments in the forum about the Amazon program, I hear it's hard to make money from it.

I'm wondering if there is a better way to use the AdSense Alternate spot?

What do you use it for?

[jetteroheller]

I use Amazon, but I make no money with it

Current prognosis show, that I will receive 2015 my first Amazon money.

[Mauricio]

I put a Google/Adsense Search Box for a few cents a day.

[DamonHD]

Hi,

TribalFusion (and I've just started testing AdBrite too).

But in fact I get very few PSAs, and in almost all but the first slot I collapse ads rather than use alternates.

Rgds

Damon

[frox]

I collapse ads rather than use alternates.

Yes, if the alternatives are for a few cents a day, then I think that collapsing the ads is better for the positive influence it can have on ad blindness.

i.e. if the user goes on a page without ads (because they collapsed) and then goes to anoter page with ads the ads are less likely to be ignored.

If only I could adapt easily my site to collapsing ads...

[21_blue]

jetteroheller wrote:
>I use Amazon, but I make no money with it
>Current prognosis show, that I will receive 2015 my first Amazon money.

Ditto. Perhaps the best way to make money from Amazon is to run a sweepstake on when you'll receive your next payment :-).

DamonHD wrote:
>I get very few PSAs, and in almost all but the first
>slot I collapse ads rather than use alternates

Ditto again.

However, we also take an approach similar to Jeremy_H in that, on pages that either pay peanuts or display PSAs, we put in links to other pages on the same site that display ads and might be of interest.

[r3nz0]

hey,

I made some $$ with AdBrite , but its not much; 15 $ or a little more a month..

But that was history sinds the minister here is thinking about making advertising for casino's illegal.. so i stopped the casino ads and that also stopped my income ;)

Building some nice adversize system for my own will be the best thing..

Goodluck with all your work!

[lilyfr2k]

I stick with CJ for alternative. This month is fairly good. I made in average 1-2 sales per day.

[annej]

I want to make money from the alternate, and am considering using some hand-picked Amazon recommendations.

I use Amazon ads to books that fit my site topic. At least it fills the left column with something related to my topic. I have no idea if it makes much though as I have other Amazon ads throughout the sites.

I'm in a niche topic with books that aren't easy to find in local bookstores so that helps. Still I only make about 1/4 as much on Amazon as I do with AdSense.

[jetteroheller]

Still I only make about 1/4 as much on Amazon as I do with AdSense.

This is sensational good.

My Amazon ads are also with the theme of the site,
but I even do not make 0,1% of my AdSense revenues.

[annej]

This is sensational good.

Or maybe my adsense earnings are sensationally bad. ;)

I do get a lot of well related ads but not high paying ones. That may be the difference.

[Jeremy_H]

Thanks everyone for your input,

With much thought, I've decided to combat ad blindness on my site (in the long term boosting my adsense income), rather than trying to generate a small amount of income in that spot.

What I have in alternate section are links to premium content on my site. No other links exist to this premium content on my site, and though the use of my .htaccess file, I block all access to this content, except for from a link on my site.

The link is structured to look like my adsense ads with the only difference being it doesn't have the Ads by Google on it. (I checked with Google, they checked my alternate and my alternate was in accordance to the TOS).

I'm thinking of this as a reward to my audience. When my ad inventory runs out, you get a prize.

Hopefully this will make people look at this space more often, because of the mix of content and ads in the spot.

What I'm thinking about doing as well is for some of my sites where I don't have any premium content, I could write some really great ads for some other websites my visitors would be interested in.

[universetoday]

I use Amazon, a few advertisers through CJ, and some direct advertisers. In total, I probably earn about 1/4 through everything else and 3/4 through Adsense.

[moTi]

obviously amazon like many others has no incentive to change the payout or to strengthen their advertising program because they live good from people who try it, earn nothing but keep it in their ad spots.

don't support this cheap approach. i've made the experience, that almost all affiliate programs exploit publishers. kick the low payers out consequently and replace them with content/links or let the ads collapse. you're no charity.

[freaky]

Hi,
As a AdSense Alternate ads I used shaadi dotcom a program called Shaadi Rewards that meen they will only pay if they get a lead and if someone pay to them they will pay a part of that to you testing this for a complete 2 months till yestarday I earned ZERO so I felt it best to keep the Adssense code intact so that where there are no ads with google the ads which will showed a s alternet ads by google is for nobal cause I would wont add alternet ads till i find someonthing best commented on some website :-)

[europeforvisitors]

I haven't set up alternates, for two reasons:

1) AdSense does a good job of supplying enough ads for my pages most of the time.

2) PSAs offer free publicity to worthwhile causes, and I think it's great that Google serves PSAs when AdSense ad space would otherwise go unused.

[nubbin]

Hi,
This is a useful thread for me. I have been using collapsing ads, but this thread got me thinking about this again. So, I am planning to make an alternate ad of my own which is linked to to a page on my site with a fresh article that attracts high paying adsense ads. I am hoping that will be a win/win for visitors and me: They get to know about a (hopefully) useful new article; and I get more visitors to a page with some high paying ads on it that are hopefully relevant for the visitor.

Anyone else tried that?
Cheers

[annej]

I just realized I wasn't too clear. I do use Amazon for my alternative ads but they practically never show up as I seem to get a lot of good related ads on adsense.

So, what I meant is about 1/4 of my earnings are from Amazon but not the adsense alternatives but from my Amazon ads that show all the time.

[Jeremy_H]

Nubbin, that’s a great take on the alternate ads, using them to bring people from a page on the site without running ads, to another section with the higher paying ads.

I haven’t tried it, but I will definitely put it into action if the opportunity presents itself.

[frankray]

tried amazon, but can not make anything. Now using cj and something new clickbank/hopads

[steve_c]

I am using VibrantMedia to replace AdSense, it's a contextual ads where it scan pages in real time and auto links a few keywords. When users mouse-over the links, the ads are revealed.

Quite good click-thru rates though on my site CPC rate is not as high as AdSense.

Some friends recommend TargetFirst but I don't know anything about it. Currently I am trying AdBrite but can't tell you much how it performs as I just started a few days ago.

[Ankhenaton]

We left Amazon 6 years ago ..

Useless to the extreme ...

[Garfieldt]

I used amazon too until recently, last quarter I made a whopping $1.26. I now advertise my other sites.

[medowl]

Any one know if Amazon will pay sub $100 amounts if an account is closed out? I have about $50 in my amazon account, but don't see it making the $100 mark for a check anytime soon.

[ionchannels]

This is a great thread! I think the most valuable idea I got from this is to intersperse content with the ads, and perhaps not just as an adsense alternative, but rather as a matter of course. This should go a long way to reduce ad blindness. This would be most effective for sites with lots of return visitors. Currently I'm using Chitika mini malls and making about 1% of my adsense income, so it's really not worth the trouble...

[Atomic]

I've pulled AdSense from the bottom of pages and replaced them with a call to action followed by affiliate links. I figure that if someone makes it to the bottom of the page they are pretty interested and I am not wasting that interest on a .10 Google search box lick when affiliate leads are anywhere from $1 - $50 each. The trick seems to be in getting the right affiliates for the subject matter and prefacing or intermingling the affiliate links with some related text written in such a way that the reader knows that clicking the link or banner or filling in the form is exactly the right fit for their needs. Do that right and you'll ditch AdSense completely.