Video content publishers face a unique capitalization challenge on the internet today. Sites that rely on new media for the bulk of their content are unable to earn as much from Adsense as those sites that feature more traditional written articles.
Improving CPM in a New Media Era
There are CPM alternatives to the pay-per-click model that can offer video content publishers better monetization than Adsense. These impression based publishing networks have often been around for many years, while some are new to the field and thus have less stringent traffic requirements. While the CPM amount that can be earned varies depending on the niche and number of unique visitors/pageviews per month, for new media publishers this amount is often higher than Adsense revenue.
AdsDaq (no requirement) - While they only provide CPM ads to specific countries, their ability to display backup ads from any network makes them an easy first choice for somebody looking to test the waters of the CPM market.
Ad Dynamix - (no requirement) - While not quite as intuitive as AdsDaq, their minimal requirements make Ad Dynamix quite approachable even though their customer support is poor.
ValueClick (3,000 pageviews per month) - While their pageview requirements are quite low, ValueClick is known to be picky with the type of site they will approve.
Morning Falls (10,000 pageviews per month) - A relatively low traffic requirement, solid customer service, simple implementation and easy to understand reports make this a good CPM publisher for beginners.
CPX Interactive (10,000 pageviews per month) - A relatively new face on the advertising scene, CPX Interactive offers good integration and solid reporting. Meeting the traffic requirements is not always good enough, however, as their internal approval process is on the strict side.
Burst Media (20,000 pageviews per month) - Burst Media is an intermediate advertising publisher. Their overly-complicated integration and reports, as well as their poor customer service hold them back from the upper echelon of advertising networks.
Casale Media (10,000 unique visitors per month) - A good intermediate ad publisher, perfect for an established site that has not quite reached A-List status just yet. Casale Media handles larger sites as well, making them a good long-term choice for many sites.
Tribal Fusion (60,000 unique visitors per month) - A solid pay scale, depending on your niche. Tribal Fusion represents hundreds of sites with a wide range of categories.
Brightroll (100,000 video views and 250,000 pageviews per month) - Along with Video Egg, Brightroll is the only other advertising publisher on this list that is truly centered on new media. Their video view requirement automatically puts them in the advanced category.
Adtegrity (500,000 pageviews per month) - While their orange and green color scheme may make you scratch your head, Adtegrity is known for their quality customer service and is quickly becoming a leader in the advertising network field.
Advertising.com (2 million pageviews per month) - One of the heavy hitters of online ad publishing, their high pageview entry point means only well-established sites need apply.
Video Egg (10 million video views per month) - The cream of the new media crop, Video Egg concentrates entirely on advertising in online videos.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Friday, January 2, 2009
The Top 10 Alternatives to Google Adsense
Google AdSense is the current leader in content-sensitive web-based marketing. Webmasters can place Google AdSense JavaScript code on their web pages in order to allow Google's servers to show context sensitive advertisements (Google Adwords). The left hand side of this page shows an example of a Google AdSense skyscraper displaying a text or image ad.
Google's terms and conditions are very strict such that many web publishers cannot use adsense adverts on their sites. They are either denied from joining the Google AdSense program, or in a situation that is becoming more and more common do not wish to do business with Google. A number of publishers are also finding their Adsense accounts are being disabled for reasons that are completely beyond their control. The problem is that most of the alternatives to Google's Adsense are pretty useless. Most of the good ones (such as doubleclick) are only interested in very large volume customers and so are not interested in the little guy with his blog who wants to earn a small income on the side. For this reason I have compiled my Top 10 alternatives to Google's Adsense that are ideal for the small time publisher.
Google's terms and conditions are very strict such that many web publishers cannot use adsense adverts on their sites. They are either denied from joining the Google AdSense program, or in a situation that is becoming more and more common do not wish to do business with Google. A number of publishers are also finding their Adsense accounts are being disabled for reasons that are completely beyond their control. The problem is that most of the alternatives to Google's Adsense are pretty useless. Most of the good ones (such as doubleclick) are only interested in very large volume customers and so are not interested in the little guy with his blog who wants to earn a small income on the side. For this reason I have compiled my Top 10 alternatives to Google's Adsense that are ideal for the small time publisher.
Has your adsense account been disabled? Then try these top 10 alternatives.
AdBrite
Clicksor
Bidvertiser
Revenue Pilot
Chitika
AdToll
Yahoo Publisher Network
Target Point
Fastclick
ClickThruTraffic
Clicksor
Bidvertiser
Revenue Pilot
Chitika
AdToll
Yahoo Publisher Network
Target Point
Fastclick
ClickThruTraffic
1) AdBrite
Adbrite is currently one of the best alternatives there is to Google's adsense. While they do not offer the same large selection of ad formats that Clicksor and Google Adsense provide you they do offer the most commonly used ones. In addition they offer inline page links with have some great click through ratios as well as interstitial full page ads which offer an excellent way to monetize all traffic to your site not just traffic that clicks on your ads. Their payouts are also very competitive. They have more relaxed terms and conditions than Adsense and are much more accepting of smaller publishers including bloggers.
If you're a publisher, use AdBrite to set your own ad rates, and approve or reject every ad that's purchased for your site or just have AdBrite auto accept ever ad. AdBrite enables you to instantly sell ads to your visitors via a "Your Ad Here" link, in addition to selling through AdBrite's marketplace and sales team.
Revenue is typically split 75/25 in your favor. Through a small snippet of HTML placed on your site, they handle serving, scheduling, billing, customer service, and sales. About half of AdBrite's sales are generated from the marketplace and sales team, while the other half are generated from users clicking "Your Ad Here" on your website.
While AdBrite can provide publishers with more revenue and better ads than traditional ad networks such as Google AdSense, they work fine along-side them as a way for you to generate additional ad revenue by selling ads directly to your visitors -- something the other ad systems don't do. Ad Brite also lets you select your own minimum bid prices and give you the option of showing an alternative ad service such as Clicksor when bid prices fall below your minimum.
If you're using AdBrite on your website you also have the option to turn off AdBrite's "run-of-network ads" and AdBrite will only display ads that have been approved by you allowing you to prevent competitors ads being shown on your site. If you have no ads running, AdBrite will display nothing but "Your Ad Here" or your alternative ad provider.
Note, from my experiences it can take a day or so from when you signup with AdBrite and put their code on your website to actually start seeing relevant ads showing up. So if you see the message "Advertize on this site" just be patient and give it a day or so and you should start seeing relevant ads showing up.
If you're a publisher, use AdBrite to set your own ad rates, and approve or reject every ad that's purchased for your site or just have AdBrite auto accept ever ad. AdBrite enables you to instantly sell ads to your visitors via a "Your Ad Here" link, in addition to selling through AdBrite's marketplace and sales team.
Revenue is typically split 75/25 in your favor. Through a small snippet of HTML placed on your site, they handle serving, scheduling, billing, customer service, and sales. About half of AdBrite's sales are generated from the marketplace and sales team, while the other half are generated from users clicking "Your Ad Here" on your website.
While AdBrite can provide publishers with more revenue and better ads than traditional ad networks such as Google AdSense, they work fine along-side them as a way for you to generate additional ad revenue by selling ads directly to your visitors -- something the other ad systems don't do. Ad Brite also lets you select your own minimum bid prices and give you the option of showing an alternative ad service such as Clicksor when bid prices fall below your minimum.
If you're using AdBrite on your website you also have the option to turn off AdBrite's "run-of-network ads" and AdBrite will only display ads that have been approved by you allowing you to prevent competitors ads being shown on your site. If you have no ads running, AdBrite will display nothing but "Your Ad Here" or your alternative ad provider.
Note, from my experiences it can take a day or so from when you signup with AdBrite and put their code on your website to actually start seeing relevant ads showing up. So if you see the message "Advertize on this site" just be patient and give it a day or so and you should start seeing relevant ads showing up.
2) Clicksor
Clicksor is one of the current leaders of the small publisher Adsense competition. They have payouts upto a market leading 85% and unlike a number of alternatives the cost per click bid values are high enough that you can earn a decent income. They are also, in my experience, much more tollerant than Google. Their terms and conditions suggest that you should only place one copy of their code on a page but as long as you only place a single pop-up or DHTML code on a page they seem happy to let you place many context sensitive ad blocks on a single site.
Clicksor also has a big advantage over a number of the lower ranked alternatives on this site in that their ads are truly context sensitive. Thus while you can provide keywords they have technology that will also show ads targeted to the content of your site. This means your visitors are exposed to ads of the same subject as they were searching for when they reached your site and thus vastly increases the click thru ratio and thus your sites earning potential. The context sensitive nature also saves you the hassle of having to specify keywords for all of your sites and decide in advance what people might be looking for.
Clicksor is one of the current leaders of the small publisher Adsense competition. They have payouts upto a market leading 85% and unlike a number of alternatives the cost per click bid values are high enough that you can earn a decent income. They are also, in my experience, much more tollerant than Google. Their terms and conditions suggest that you should only place one copy of their code on a page but as long as you only place a single pop-up or DHTML code on a page they seem happy to let you place many context sensitive ad blocks on a single site.
Clicksor also has a big advantage over a number of the lower ranked alternatives on this site in that their ads are truly context sensitive. Thus while you can provide keywords they have technology that will also show ads targeted to the content of your site. This means your visitors are exposed to ads of the same subject as they were searching for when they reached your site and thus vastly increases the click thru ratio and thus your sites earning potential. The context sensitive nature also saves you the hassle of having to specify keywords for all of your sites and decide in advance what people might be looking for.
The online stats provided by Clicksor are not perfect but they are enough for you to keep track of the trends with your site. They also allow you to add as many sites / domains as you want under a single account. You also only need the root page of your site approved. Once this is done you can place ads on all of your sub pages.
The payment schedule with Clicksor is also much better geared to the small site owner. In any pay period in which your earnings exceed $50.00 ($20.00 with PayPal), payments are made either by check or instantly through PayPal ($20.00 minimum for PayPal). Revenue totaling less that $50 (PP $20) will rolled into the following period. The pay period is based on a 15 day schedule so you can get paid much more frequently. Clicksor also do not require a Social Security (SSN) or Individual Tax Identity Number (ITIN) to join and so while this 'technically' does not help US site owners with their tax liability it does make it much easier for non US citizens to join up and start earning revenue.
The payment schedule with Clicksor is also much better geared to the small site owner. In any pay period in which your earnings exceed $50.00 ($20.00 with PayPal), payments are made either by check or instantly through PayPal ($20.00 minimum for PayPal). Revenue totaling less that $50 (PP $20) will rolled into the following period. The pay period is based on a 15 day schedule so you can get paid much more frequently. Clicksor also do not require a Social Security (SSN) or Individual Tax Identity Number (ITIN) to join and so while this 'technically' does not help US site owners with their tax liability it does make it much easier for non US citizens to join up and start earning revenue.
3) Bidvertiser
Bidvertiser can be a useful alternative to Google and offer some intriguing ad formats including what they refer to as free design. This lets you specify the look and dimensions of your text ads. While a useful feature I have not investigated how well it works but imagine that while it sounds good on paper it could result in lower priced ads being displayed. I.e. most advertisers will probably want to keep control of the layout of their ads and so turn off support for Free design ads.
Bidvertizer pays you either in $25.00 increments by check or $10.00 increments by PayPal.
Customize the layout of your ads: BidVertiser gives you a simple point-and-click tool to help you customize the layout of the ads to fit your site's look and feel, in order to retain the high quality of your website. Bidvertizer also offers the opportunity to block unwanted ads. The reports provided by Bidvertiser are adequate but not outstanding. The only real problem is that they can be picky with who they accept into their program and can be quick to ban users whose websites show what may be perfectly valid fluctuating visitor behaviour. Click here to visit Bidvertiser's website where you can either sign up as a publisher (show peoples ads on your site) or as an advertiser (show your ads on other sites).
As an advertiser you can get $20 in free clicks by following this link: Bidvertiser Advertise and get $20 in free clicks.
Bidvertiser can be a useful alternative to Google and offer some intriguing ad formats including what they refer to as free design. This lets you specify the look and dimensions of your text ads. While a useful feature I have not investigated how well it works but imagine that while it sounds good on paper it could result in lower priced ads being displayed. I.e. most advertisers will probably want to keep control of the layout of their ads and so turn off support for Free design ads.
Bidvertizer pays you either in $25.00 increments by check or $10.00 increments by PayPal.
Customize the layout of your ads: BidVertiser gives you a simple point-and-click tool to help you customize the layout of the ads to fit your site's look and feel, in order to retain the high quality of your website. Bidvertizer also offers the opportunity to block unwanted ads. The reports provided by Bidvertiser are adequate but not outstanding. The only real problem is that they can be picky with who they accept into their program and can be quick to ban users whose websites show what may be perfectly valid fluctuating visitor behaviour. Click here to visit Bidvertiser's website where you can either sign up as a publisher (show peoples ads on your site) or as an advertiser (show your ads on other sites).
As an advertiser you can get $20 in free clicks by following this link: Bidvertiser Advertise and get $20 in free clicks.
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