Mixing up your monetization methods
When I noticed my Adsense earnings slowly drop over the past 6 months I decided that it’s time for me to try out new ad programs and mix in new ones. So I have been seeking out alternatives to Adsense that can payout well and possibly replace Adsense if it continues to perform poorly. Besides, the same principles that apply to investing apply to monetizing your websites. It’s important to diversify!
I’ve tried Yahoo publisher network and terrible targetting and equally terrible results only to switch back to Adsense a month later. I’ve even tried out a smaller niche publisher network called ApexGamingAds to no avail. Lately I’ve been using AdBrite on one of my forums and am interested to see how they turn out, but my initial results haven’t been amazing. The next couple ad networks I’m going to test our are Bidvertiser and CasaleMedia. Another avenue I’m looking towards is private advertising as well, which I believe can be one of the biggest money makers if you can find advertisers that are looking to target your niche. I’ve already sold a couple of ads on my World of Warcraft Forum that made more than twice as much as Adsense did for the month and I didn’t even have an “advertise” page up.
At the start of next month I expect to switch over an entire forum to another publishing program in an effort to get some data that I’ll share with all of you here, and provided detailed stats for your viewing pleasure. Besides, it’s always good to find ways to make more money by utilizing different publisher programs.
Besides looking for replacements to my Adsense units that run on nearly every forum I have, over the past several months I’ve also been focusing on complementing my earnings with programs that can easily stack on top of other ad programs without the need to sacrifice a whole lot of extra ad space. One of these main complementary ad networks I’ve been using a lot on almost all of my forums is text-link-ads which has been a nice extra boost to my earnings for no work. And I’ve sold a least one ad on nearly every site I own, but again it’s not really something that replaces the ad space I’ve previously reserved for Adsense. I still recommend you use TLA on your websites as I continue to see success with them. I’ve also been using Kontera for about six months on my largest forum but haven’t had the best results so today I applied for Vibrant Media and intend to try out their program instead.
What have you tried doing to reduce your reliance on one advertising program? Click here to see what programs I recommend.
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Yah that stuff all sounds good. If you want to make the most money from a website it’s important to diversify.
Thanks for the tips!
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I had signed up with adbrite but for some reason after like 5 months I cannot log in anymore. Also, a malware program I use removed their spyware cookies from my computer, so I do not know what to tell you on adbrite. Bidvertiser ads look just like google adsense in alot of ways but I had 0 luck getting earnings with them. When I was making money with adbrite, the earnings were pathetic like 12 cents a day or less. I tried Clickzor and didnt make anything with their program. Have not tried YPN out but I hear it is crappy because not alot of advertisers are using it yet. Best to stick with adsense although they have tight policies and frequently check your website to try and “find” mistakes that could lead to adsense suspension. I noticed from 2006-2008 adsense earnings have dropped on everyone.
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