Lots of conversions coming from a few select content sites

Should I be thinking about contacting them directly?

[Hubie]

I've noticed from my tracking logs that most of my content network sales are coming from a few select websites.

is it time i think about cutting my content budget and just contact these few websites directly about advertising my site?

It seems I should, but I've never gone down that road and wanted to hear from some experienced advertisers out there...

[vincevincevince]

I suspect it would be in breach of the Adwords Terms and Conditions, however practically speaking I imagine that you could both benefit from this through:

No middle-man taking a cut

Ability to place your advert more effectively (formatting options, etc.)

Predictable income for the publisher

Diversification away from Adsense dependence

For you, a layer of insulation against Quality Score and other price-increasing changes from Google

Continued traffic even if your account is terminated (e.g. hacked and used for fraud, etc.)

Some things to be careful of:

Calculate your current spending very carefully for each site and don't spend more under the new arrangement

If it falls through the other sites might ban your ads from their domain (i.e. now they know of them, they don't like your ads and ban them, etc.)

You are now probably only paying for impressions or clicks from users in certain geographical areas - you need to implement geotargetting for your new site partners, or be wiling to pay for worldwide traffic.

[T_Media]

Unless its costing you a bomb already, I'd say, no - don't contact them directly, otherwise they'll learn of their worth to you and expect more money from you.

If the sites are content sites, perhaps an idea is to help them out, write them a good article and ask them to reference back to your website with a link. That way you'll get some free advertising.