Archive for the ‘Advertising’ Category
by David Peralty on December 19th, 2006
For those that use the Adsense Beautifier plugin for their WordPress blogs, they might find themselves a little disappointed, as Google has changed the rules when it comes to images next to their advertisements.
The two most important points are:
Can I place small images next to my Google ads?
We ask that publishers not line up images and ads in a way that suggests a relationship between the images and the ads. If your visitors believe that the images and the ads are directly associated, or that the advertiser is offering the exact item found in the neighboring image, they may click the ad expecting to find something that isn’t actually being offered. That’s not a good experience for users or advertisers.
Publishers should also be careful to avoid similar implementations that people could find misleading. For instance, if your site contains a directory of Flash games, you should not format the ads to mimic the game descriptions.
What if I place a space or a line between my images and my ads? Would that work?
No. If the ads and the images appear to be associated, inserting a small space or a line between the images and ads will not make the implementation compliant.
Interesting problem for advertisers and something that many are going to have to change. And to think I was thinking of trying to use images to increase click through rates on my sites…
Check out the full details at Inside Adsense.
Categories: Advertising, General
by David Peralty on December 1st, 2006
Steve Rubel is shaking things up with his recent post entitled “The Imminent Demise of the Page View” where he talks about how many large sites are still wrapped up in the idea of page views being a marketable metric. Thanks to AJAX and Flash technologies, users have to load full pages less and less, and so the idea of page views goes out the window.
This is a dirty little secret in the advertising business that no one wants to talk about. Media companies love to promote how many page views their properties get. They’ve used the data to build equity. They will fight it tooth and nail to protect it, perhaps by not embracing interactive technologies as quickly as they should. But that’s not going to stop the revolution from coming.
An interesting article to be sure, and a good reminder to people that technology is changing, and so the metrics we use to decide our success and interest advertisers will also have to change. Finding that new metric is going to be interesting, and bloggers will have to adapt as well.
Categories: Advertising
by David Peralty on November 16th, 2006
Darren Rowse has posted about increasing Google Adseense advertisement relevancy on his blog Problogger.net.
He looks at things like Section Targeting, Metatags, Keywords, Content, Titles, Sidebars, Pictures and finally Contacting Adsense.
My favourite would have to be Section Targeting:
AdSense acknowledge the problem of irrelevant ads and have come up with a way of helping their ‘bots’ determine what parts of your site you want the ads to relate to (section targeting).
In short – section targeting allows you to put code around the most important parts of your page (ie the bits that you want the ads to relate to) and also allows you to put code around parts of your page that you don’t want AdSense to consider when serving up ads.
When I use section targeting on a blog page I generally put the code that highlights the important bits from just before my post titles to the end of posts. I also tell the bots to ignore my sidebars and footers.
Check out his full post at Problogger.net.
Categories: Advertising
by J. Angelo Racoma on November 15th, 2006
Abe Olandres gives a few tips on optimizing your blog if you’re just starting out with AdSense. The guide focuses on the fundamentals and is meant for those bloggers still new to contextual and pay-per-click advertising. Still, it’s a useful reference for those of us with a bit more experience in blog monetization, especially if you’re experimenting with various ways to improve revenues.
- Ask yourself if you are willing to compromise your blog’s layout and over-all feel by adding ads.
- Look at your traffic and see if it’s enough to draw the crowd. Look at how much of your traffic are coming from organic searches as this is the traffic where we base your potential Adsense income.
- Experiment on varying ad layouts and color scheme.
- Make good use of the Ad Channels. This will give you valuable information which channels or ad formats are performing well.
- Give it time.
I think the last tip is the most useful of all. Many starting on monetization programs give up too easily because they get too impatient and quit early on before they even see any benefits. With AdSense, it can take anywhere from few days to a full week for some adjustments to take effect on your earnings. And do consider the behavior of your readers, too–it takes time for them to react and adjust to changes in layouts and ad placement.
Categories: Advertising, Blogging Tips
by David Peralty on November 8th, 2006
It is always nice to get notices about what is going on with a company that directly effects your income, as Patrick Gavin did by recently sending out an e-mail to Text Link Ads members letting them know they were aquired by MediaWhiz.
He also lets us all know how the changes will effect TLA members in a positive way.
Publishers: by leveraging MediaWhiz’s agency relationships and sales staff we will be able to sell more ad space on your website. We also will be adding the ability to monetize your website in new ways including: CPA offers and CPM display advertising.
Advertisers: TLA will be working with MediaWhiz to offer new ways to drive traffic and sales to your website including: email marketing, CPA offers, CPM display ads and more!
It is important to note that the people you will be dealing with tomorrow at TLA will be the same people you have always dealt with since our doors opened in 2003. Over the next few months we will be moving our office to New York City to join the MediaWhiz headquarters and look forward to meeting more of our clients and publishers in person!
I hope everything goes well for the TLA folks, as they have helped me out on more than one occassion.
Categories: Advertising
by David Peralty on November 3rd, 2006
Jamsi, of Work Boxers, has a post up talking about his recent experiences in link exchanging, and how impersonal some people are when requesting such an exchange.
He points out one that he recently got that is a great example of how not to do it:
To Whom It May Concern:
We came across your website today and would like to exchange links with you. If you are interested, please let us know how you would like to be listed. Our website, (name removed), is dedicated to listing resources helpful to those who search our website on various subjects. We currently get over 300 visitors daily.
We were hoping that you might consider linking to us and invite you to review our website at your convenience. If you think that a link to our website is appropriate, please add it to your site at your discretion. We suggest the following link and description:
Link details blah blah
Check out his article for tips on how to do it better.
Categories: Advertising
by David Peralty on November 3rd, 2006
Darren over at Problogger, got his first payment from Performancing Partners, a new ad network that has been getting a fair bit of buzz.
He mentions that he only got mid-three figures with the network so far, but I think that’s pretty great for a first month, and while that might be down from other ad networks in similar places, he needs to put it into perspective. If he is getting mid-three figures a month from one ad position on a bunch of sites, he is doing better than most bloggers out there.
It wasn’t a massive amount (in the mid ‘three figure’ range) but not bad for a first month. I’m not sure exactly how much of it was from advertisers and how much was from the affiliate program (they say there will be better reporting next month) but it was a nice little bonus to get for the month.
Also, being that it is their first month, the number of advertisers on the Performancing Partners network might not be as full as it will be in coming months, meaning more revenue for the publishers.
It looks like this might be another advertising network to watch as we bloggers continually try to find new ways to monetize the work we do, without annoying our readers too much.
If you have been paid from Performancing Partners, please let me know. Darren’s results on any ad network are going to be a little different than most average folks.
Categories: Advertising, Blogging Sense
by David Peralty on October 26th, 2006
If you are one of the few people that is currently using Bloggers new beta version, you can now add Adsense ads to your blog easily using the AdSense widget.
1. First, log into the new version of Blogger with your Google Account. Click on the Layout link next to the blog where you’d like to feature Google ads.
2. Next you should be taken to your Template – Page Elements page. Click on one of the Add a Page Element links
3. In the pop-up window, click the blue Add to Blog button underneath the AdSense option.
4. If you already have an AdSense account, simply sign in with your AdSense login; if not, you can create an account directly on this page. After signing in, you can select your preferred color template and ad format. When you’re finished, click on the orange Save Changes button.
5. Now you can easily drag and drop your AdSense ad unit anywhere on your blog’s template — or delete it if you need to make changes. When you’re all done, click the orange ‘Save’ button on the upper right corner and go view your new blog!
I am sure that will make many bloggers using the new service quite happy, and others more excited about the upcoming release.
(I know you can already add AdSense to your blogs, it will just be easier for non-coders)
Source: Inside Adsense
Categories: Advertising, Blogging News, Blogging Sense
by David Peralty on October 24th, 2006
Liz Strauss realized something in her recent accidental click on an advertisement: it’s not such a bad thing.
Her first reaction though was somewhat different.
The second the ad came up, I automatically looked away. NO! I’m not an ad clicker. No, no no! I needed out of there right away!
I looked around for a witness to my reckless clicking. No one here saw. Still I knew Some place, somewhere, in some stats, someone already had tracked me there.
Then I had an epiphany. Okay, I woke up.
What Was I Thinking?
What was this self-imposed ad rule about? It doesn’t cost me to click an ad, and yet for some reason, I think it’s smarter to check the website and go there direct. Talk about taking the long way home.
She then lists the reasons why she (and pretty much all of us) avoid advertisements like the plague, from thinking all ads are just deception (anyone get a free xbox 360 just by hitting three cows?), to trying to dodge strategically placed ads so that we don’t feel “caught”.
The best part of the article though is where Liz says that we should all be upfront with our visitors in where advertisements fit on our site. I know for a fact that I could not afford to spend the time blogging that I have if advertisements hadn’t taken some of the financial burden off my back, and that is thanks to viewers feeling that the ads shown were worthy to be clicked on.
A very impressive article from Successful Blog, and something to add to your must-read list.
Categories: Advertising, Blogging Sense
by David Peralty on October 18th, 2006
John Chow, becoming more and more well known to me over the last while has decided to take the time to compile a list of all the advertising opportunities that a blogger might want to research and be part of.
He not only breaks them up into different categories, but does not use any affiliate links in the list, so you can check them out without lining his pockets.
This list will be part of a new webmaster resource site that will feature discussions and ratings on the listed advertising companies. The site will be launching soon. In the mean time, I have decided to give you a preview of the master list. The list is pretty big at 130 companies. I wonder how many will still be around in a year or two?
He makes a great point. What I am noticing is that because more and more companies are getting into the business of helping bloggers get advertisers on their sites, it is getting so diluted. Some networks probably can’t even fill one tenth of the members needs, due to advertisers not moving as fast to fill the advertisement slots, as bloggers are at making them.
With such a large amount of companies doing this, some are definetly going to fail, which brings back the safeness of Google Adsense. I know it will be around in the next year or two.
Categories: Advertising, Blogging Sense
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