Advertise Space - Blog Avertising » Google AdSense

While I’m doubtful that I will have a part II until there is a seriously updated version, I thought I’d leave it open anyway.

So, anyone who has read my previous rants on why I hate Google AdSense part I, and part II might be more than a little surprised that I’m writing this post.

Is there anything really to Love about AdSense? Sure…

1. Anybody is welcome. Yes, if you are super small have almost no traffic you can still get in. It’s like a nightclub that has no bouncers, no age restriction and no dress code. Anyone can get in.
2. No discrimination. All international traffic is A-OK. A lot of advertisers and ad networks are not interested in certain countries, especially 3rd world countries where the value of a visitor or click is sometimes virtually useless. Google wants it and can monetize it.
3. Set it and forget it. Probably one of the lowest maintenance things you’ll ever have to do to make at least some money off any blog. Even if you only do a few blog posts, and give up blogging completely for the rest of your life and never go back to you own site, it still might generate some traffic and money for you.
4. They Pay on time. If you ever have enough traffic on your site to reach that $50 minimum you will get paid, and it will show up each month like clockwork. (Which makes me also ponder…How many millions or 10 of millions of super small publishers never hit that min payout? Where does all that money go…Google Vault?)
5. It gives you a benchmark. I use AdSense as a floor benchmark, I kind of always see it as one of worse case scenario if you can’t monitize your banners any other way. Pubmatic also now has an AdPrice index that gives you guidelines of what you should be earning, and it breaks it out depending on your blog size.

So I know there are tonnes of raving fans…What do you love about AdSense?

OK the long overdue follow up post to my last year’s shit storm post on why I hate Google AdSense: 

- The Rich get Richer. Well it’s a joke really that the only ones making any money are the owners of Google. If you are the one actually producing any of the content that they get rich off of, most likely you are still a broke ass. It is the sheer gap of wealth from the amount of money being printed to the actual publishers that makes me the most angry. With a 200 billion market cap, they could pay their top ONE MILLION publishers $100,000 and still have 100 billion left over. No but Google Officers like Doerr are cashing in 43,475 shares for a cool $30,000,000. He must need a new set of rims for his hummer?

- The Poor get Poorer. Yes, you guessed it. If you have been using AdSense as your only source of blog income you now know that AdSense blindness is setting in on your readers and they are clicking less and even if they do click, CPC’s are down. The money you used to buy your daily coffee with is now only paying for the soy milk upgrade.

- Lack of customization. Color palette change, rounded edges. Wow. Some customization. In the gaming world it’s common place to be able to customize your character to look almost identical to you or anyone you like, and this coming from much smaller development companies, let alone a billion dollar behemoth. Too busy counting their money I guess. I mean when the geek sitting in the cube next to you is worth 4 million on paper, why work? He is too busy twittering and checking out his net worth.

- Loyal promoter? We don’t need you. OK so you’ve been doing a money making blog for years and sending tonnes of fish over to the big shark as an affiliate referral. They pay you a bounty and then suck millions out of your referrals, but now depending on where you live, they might not want your krill. edit  - (OK they fixed this since I wrote this post a while ago, but now they still don’t accept certain countries.)

- Still only a CPC model.  Wherever there is someone paying for a certain call to action there is a way to game the system.   Yes, click fraud is alive and well and Google really doesn’t care that much about it, especially since the buzz about it has died off over the years.  Why not let the publisher decide what format to charge?  CPM, flat rate?  Adify.com allows these options for publishers. I’ve always preferred flat rate, and you can’t game a fixed price.

- Follow our rules or else. Want to sell your own text links on YOUR own site. Forget it. Cutt’s will even get you to sell out your own mother down the river for making money on the side. Big G will come down on your ass like a Columbian Coke lord on a cocaine farmer for chewing on leaves…

 -          Level 1: Bottom Level = Google AdSense.  Yes, even though I strongly dislike AdSense, it can be used to soak up and remnant ad inventory that you have on your site.   Google, the biggest pimp in the ad industry world, will take any traffic they can get which includes the international traffic that most ad networks avoid.  Average CPM = $1
Level 2: Affiliate programs:  Either directly from the supplier or through a network like Commission Junction affiliate programs are still one of the lowest forms of revenue you can generate from your blog.   For example if you have a video game blog and you link to Buy.com to purchase a PlayStation it might get you the odd sale, but the best way to do it, is to do a blog post on a very relevant product to your site, with an affiliate link to the offer.  (Use full discloser that the embedded link is an affiliate link as well)
-          Level 3:  Ad Networks.  ContextWeb, ValueClick, AdOn and hundreds of others.   There are loads of Ad networks out there that will re-sell your banner inventory for you and everyone you speak to will ‘guarantee’ the highest CPM’s in the industry, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of the ads they display on your site will be low quality and the fill rates may be only 25% - 50%.  Another thing about ad networks is most of them only want US traffic so they will push back any international traffic you get.  Average CPM’s $1-$2
-          Level 4:  Automated Text link Ads.  Yes, text link ads not only outperform AdSense, they blow away ad networks when it comes to eCPM’s as most text links are bought on a monthly fixed rate and not on a CPC basis.  The pure industry leader in this game is http://www.textlinkads.com  One thing is you should do is manually approve the links bought on your site to ensure that they are at least somewhat relevant.  The best part about TLA is the pure automation of it, set it and forget it.  And another wonderful thing is it will even continue to make money long after your audience moves on. ( A distant second in this field is TextLinkBrokers.com)  Average price $25 per link x 6-8 links
-          Level 5: Fixed Text link Ads:  These are the direct buys you get from someone contacting you about buying a fixed link on your site.  Don’t let Matt Cutts  find out your doing this J Average price $50 per link.
-          Level 6: Graphical Banner Ads:  Getting advertisers to buy ads on a CPM basis on your site that you yourself set.  Put together your own rate card and have it on your ‘Advertise with Us’ page. Anywhere from $5CPM to $20CPM. 
-          Level 7: Fixed Monthly Sponsors - Graphical or integrated:  The top of the food chain and the top of the money chain.  Getting a sponsor to pay a fixed flat monthly rate to have a graphical ad or an integrated ad on your site is the single highest paying and best option for your Blog.  Even one sponsor of your site, can potentially beat out all your other forms of revenue generations combined.  This one takes pounding the pavement and contacting relevant companies, but the payoff is sweet.  This is the Holy Grail…Good Luck.