AdMoolah News and Views

Darren at ProBlogger has posted about a new AdSense Online Advisory Council that some AdSense publisher have been asked to join. This council will be made up of publishers who will be able to provide feedback to Google and help test out new products. Of course, everything that the members of this council get to know about will be confidential.

It would be interesting to know what the qualifications for membership are. The invitation email starts out with “Congratulations on your success with the AdSense program. Given your extensive experience with AdSense, I’m happy to invite you to join AdSense’s Online Advisory Council”. I wonder what kind of figures Google sees as a “success” and what it considers “extensive experience”. I would guess that Google wouldn’t simply say “anyone who earns more than $x per month and has been in the program for y months gets an invite”. I would think that they would look at other factors such as quality of traffic, and then pick a nice cross section of publishers of different sizes from different niches.

Overall I think it’s a good thing for Google to do. The more feedback they get from publishers the better. I just hope that they kep listen to all of the publishers out there.

I finally got around to updating my AdSense Revenue Sharing list. It’s been about 9 months since I updated it, so there were quite a few changes. Many sites were added and removed.

As usual, if you find any problems, or you know of any additional revenue sharing sites, let me know. You can leave a comment in this post or email me. I’ll try not to wait 9 months to do my next update.

AdSense is a great way for beginning Webmasters to make some revenue. There is a lot to like about AdSense – it’s easy to set up, it can display ads in almost any niche, once you have it set you can just forget about it and watch the money build up in your account. A lot of publishers seem to get overly focused on AdSense, and forget that there might be other options out there. But that’s a mistake.

It seems like most people I know who make good money from Websites tend to use more than just AdSense. AdSense may be a good default, but there are so many different ways to make money, people usually diversify and find a lot of different programs that bring in some good income. I do pretty well with AdSense, but a few months ago I tried an affiliate program on my top AdSense site. It ended up paying out more than AdSense does, and my AdSense income hasn’t dropped at all. I’ve also gotten checks from Amazon, Text Link Ads, direct sales, ReviewMe, affiliate programs, and other sources. And I still experiment with different programs all the time.

Look at Darren Rowse, his number one money maker is Chitika, AdSense is #2 on the list. And he lists six other revenue streams.

Look at John Chow, he makes more money from various affiliates, ReviewMe, Direct Sales and Text-Link-Ads than he does with AdSense.

Every webmaster should experiment with different programs for two reasons:

1. It’s good to have diversified income streams – never put all your eggs in one basket.
2. You never know which program or combination of programs will make you the most money. Try lots and lots of affiliate and advertising programs. Some will make you nothing, some will do OK, and then you might hit on one that will make more for you than AdSense ever did. You never know until you try what will make you the most money.

Don’t get me wrong, AdSense is a great advertising network, and should be in the mix of every publisher’s revenue stream, but don’t limit yourself. If AdSense is the only thing you’ve ever tried, go ahead and do yourself a favor and try something new. Here are a few (affiliate) links to try out:

Chitika
AuctionAds
BidVertiser
Text Link Ads
ReviewMe

Google announced today that the new referrals program is out of beta and will soon be available to all publishers.

AdSense referrals is a program that lets you put ads on your site, but instead of being payed per view or per click, you get payed per action. That means in order to get paid the user has to click on the ad and then complete some action such as joining a newsletter or making a purchase. This means that you don’t get paid as often, but when you do get paid its usually a much higher payout then you would for a click. These pay-per-action models are usually associated with affiliate programs.

I’m lucky enough to have been in the initial beta and I have experimented with the referral program. I have had some success, but nothing very dramatic. I think it is worth a try, but I think there are some disadvantages with it compared to some other CPC programs. The two main ones are:

1. You cannot choose the text you want to link with. One great thing about most affiliate programs is that you get to choose what text you want to link with. This makes it easy to slip the link into your normal content with it sounding awkward. This can help raise conversion rates significantly.
2. You cannot choose which page to link to. With most affiliate programs, you can link to any page on a site you want. For example if you are an Amazon.com affiliate and you write a review of a book, you can link directly to the book’s page on Amazon. With AdSense referral you are stuck linking to the page the advertiser chooses, usually the home page.

One advantage of AdSense referral programs is that you can chose the keywords you want to use to display ads. If you have ever had trouble targeting AdSense for Content ads, this could be a great option for you. You can even choose individual ads that you want to display on your site. Again, if you are in a small niche, this could be a great way to get some very targeted ads.

Again, even though there are disadvantages to it, I would advise most publishers to give it a try. You never know which advertising option is going to work best for you.

Advertisers in Google AdWords program now have the ability to get data on the individual sites where their ads are being run. For each domain or URL, advertisers will now be able to see impressions, clicks, and conversion data. This means that advertisers will have good information to decide exactly which sites they want to advertise on.

This should be good news for sites which perform well for advertisers. Sites with data that the advertisers don’t like will see less competition for their ad space, resulting in lower bids.

Found via Search Engine Land

AdSense has updated their program policies with two significant changes:

1) A new paragraph has been added to the Site and Ad Behavior section

Publishers using online advertising to drive traffic to pages showing Google ads must comply with the spirit of Google’s Landing Page Quality Guidelines. For instance, if you advertise for sites participating in the AdSense program, the advertising should not be deceptive to users.

This sounds like it is simply enforcing what Google did when they sent out their emails cracking down on low quality sites. This won’t effect most publishers and will probably only worry those doing arbitrage with MFA sites.

2) AdSense now allows three link units on a page. Previously they only allowed a single link unit. Link ads are fairly small and unobtrusive, so I think this will be a good way for some publishers to increase the number of ads on a page in a way that is not too annoying for users.

JenSense is reporting that Google is disabling arbitrage publisher accounts as of June 1st. Some publisher are getting emails stating that they have a business model that is not a good fit for AdSense, and their accounts would be disable. The publishers will get to keep any money they make before June 1st.

One thing that is not 100% clear is what exactly determined which accounts got the emails. Reading a thread at Webmaster World, which includes comments from many webmaster who received the email, it is not clear what the exact problem was. Were they banned strictly for doing arbitrage, or was it because it they had MFAs (Made-For-AdSense websites)?

My personal opinion is that Google is cracking down on accounts that have sites which provide a bad user experience. We all know those websites that have very little content and the ads are the only obvious way to leave the site. Kim Malone has already stated that Google does not like these sites. This is from a Search Engine Watch article:

Kim Malone, Director of Online Sales & Operations for Google, gave the generic search engine response. “We’re interested in a positive user experience,” she said. She did share, however, that misleading users is not acceptable. For example, you cannot offer something for sale in a PPC ad and then direct consumers to a landing page full of ads instead.

Google has nothing against arbitrage itself. It is possible to do arbitrage, and still supply a good user experience. I have a site where 25% of my traffic comes from AdWords. Almost all the income from this site is from AdSense. But, I know this is a good user experience because users who get to my site from AdWords spend an average of over 5 minutes at the site reading an average of 10 pages each. All the content is unique and relevant to the ads that I display. Google’s AdWords system also recognizes the quality of the user experience, because most of my keywords rank a “Great” quality score. The quality scores measures the relevance of you page content to the keywords you use for your AdWords ads. This great quality score allows me to keep my bid prices very low. The high page count per user at my site means I don’t need a huge CTR on each page to make a profit. For example, if I pay 5 cents per click on my ads, and I have a page CTR of 3.33%, and my pages per visitor is 10, I only need to make 15 cents per click to break even. Add to that the fact that the user has had a good experience at my site and is likely to come back and recommend it to others, I am way ahead. I don’t think Google would complain about this type of arbitrage.

I think one source of confusion is that many people equate arbitrage and MFAs. This is because almost all MFAs engage in arbitrage, and most arbitrageurs use MFAs site. But, as I have shown above, it is possible to do arbitrage in a way that provides users with a positive experience.

The other question is whether or not this will be good or bad for publishers. There are a few factors at work here.

First, Google’s disabling of many MFA arbitrageurs accounts means there are going to be fewer AdWords advertisers as well. Fewer advertisers means less competition, and lower click prices. That’s bad for publishers.

Next, eliminating MFAs from the AdWords advertising pool and making the user’s experience better means people may be more likely to click on ads in the future. If someone has an experience where they click an ad and are led to a spammy page with more ads, they are less likely to click on ads in the future. That’s good for publishers.

Finally, some advertisers do not use the content network because they do not want their ads to appear on MFAs. Banning MFAs from the system will mean more advertisers are willing to use the content network in the future. That’s good for publishers.

So, I think there may be a slight, initial dip in publishers earning as the MFA arbitrageurs leave, but in long run I think things will even out.

Update: Shoemoney has a video on the subject. He says many big time arbitrageurs have not been kicked out of AdSense.

Autopilot Moneymakers are programs that make it very easy to earn money on your website. Sign up for the program – cut and paste some code, and your done. Sure, there are sometimes ways to make more money – direct sales and affiliate programs, for example – but they take significant effort to sell properly. Webmasters and bloggers love autopilot moneymakers because they don’t have to put a lot of effort into getting revenue, they can concentrate on making better websites.

The five programs listed below are among the favorites of bloggers and webmasters, they are the proven money makers. (Most of the links are affiliate links.)

AdSense

This is the best known program of its type. It’s ubiquitous on the web and is often the first program considered for new sites. It works well on a large variety of sites. AdSense has options for CPM (payment per impression), PPC (Pay-Per-Click) and PPA (Pay-Per-Action).

Yahoo! Publisher Network

Yahoo! Publisher Network is Yahoo’s attempt to catch up to Google in advertising on third party websites. it is currently in beta and limited to US publishers. Many webmasters report targeting issues, but many also report earning that are far better than they got with AdSense. It is worth giving a try to see if it works in your niche. YPN uses PPC ads.

Check out Yahoo! Publisher Network

Chitika

Chitika ads are interactive widgets that display keyword targeted merchandise for sale. They work very well for websites that are geared toward some specific consumer product. Chitika uses the PPC method for payouts.

Chitika Overview

AuctionAds

AuctionAds is a relatively new network, but there have been a lot of good reports about them. They display EBay ads that are targeted to the content on your website. Like Chitika, they are good for websites focus on consumer goods. Auction ads uses CPA.

AuctionAds Homepage

Text Link Ads

Text Link Ads are a little different from the other programs on this list in that they don’t display full ads that pay per impression, click or action. You insert Javascript on your site and advertisers can purchase a simple text link on a monthly basis. This makes Text Link Ads a good compliment to other ad programs.

Go to Text Link Ads

This post is part of ProBlogger’s Top 5 Group Writing Project

Google has started beta testing what have been dubbed “Gadget Ads”. These are AdSense ads that go beyond text or image ads. Gadget ads are widgets that advertisers can create. Widgets are like mini-applications that can run on a publishers site. The idea is that the ads will be much more interesting and engaging that standard ads.

To get an idea what gadgets ads will look like, you can take a look at Google’s Gadget page. Now imagine what an advertiser could do with this type of interactivity. There could be some interesting and creative ads built with this technology.

These ads will come in standard AdSense sizes, and will be available on a CPM or CPC basis. Like usual, there is no word on when these would become available to all publishers.

Even though Google is the clear leader in online advertising, it is great to see them always innovating and trying new things. More options for publishers means more revenue possibilities for publishers.

Found on Niall Kennedy’s blog.

Google just posted an entry on the Inside AdSense blog about avoiding accidental clicks. They warn against placing ads close to interactive elements on your website.

Some implementations that could lead to accidental clicks include placing your ads:

- In close proximity to Macromedia Flash games
- Under pop-ups or download prompts
- Near site navigation controls on your pages, such as drop-downs or menu links

This looks like another issue that is going to cause a lot of confusion and concern amongst publishers. It also goes directly against the advice Google gives about optimization: “Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page.” So which is it? Do we place ads near navigation or not?

I can understand where Google is coming from with this. If you make it difficult to click on something on your site because it is so close to an ad, that could bring accidental clicks. But, this latest warning just seems way to vague.

This will be similar to the “Don’t place images besides ads” policy that has created so much confusion in the past. I’m sure there will be a lot of complaining in he forums about this one. My advice is to do what is reasonable – as long as you aren’t trying to trick your visitors, things should be OK.