Adsense: Beginner’s First Option, Professional’s Last
I don’t have a problem with contextual ad programs like Adsense or Yahoo’s Publisher Network. The problem I have is that too many bloggers are starting to feel that these are their only options. Chitika became a big deal for many because they felt they could be making more with their site than what Adsense was offering and they were right. However, they were looking in the wrong place.
Yaro does an excellent job of explaining why he is keeping away from Adsense and I totally agree with him for the most part. I think Adsense works wonders for sites just getting off the ground and receive under 30k-40k pageviews a month. However, once you start to break the 1,000 pageviews a day mark it might be time to explore other options and the major one is finding advertisers/sponsors yourself.
Why wait till you break 1k pageviews though? Well, in my experience many of the advertisers I have dealt with don’t wish to bother advertising on sites that don’t provide them a large amount of eyeballs a month. Most think that it would be better to pay $100-$200 to get an extra 50k impressions on another site.
If you are a “pro” blogger or are looking to do this stuff for a living and you go around telling yourself that you don’t have time to look for sponsors then maybe you should be thinking twice about this who problogging thing. It really doesn’t take that much time to craft an email selling your site and sending it to a couple of companies a week.
Initially you shouldn’t have a problem just selling ads on a time basis. What I mean by this is allocating slots for 30 day increments. However, as your site grows more and more popular you may feel that you can get more bang for your buck selling ads on a CPM basis and for this you will need some ad serving software. I only have experience with phpAdsNew and I liked it a lot. In fact, you might see it a bit more in 2006 with the things 9rules has planned.
How Much To Charge?
I think this is the biggest fear that everyone has with regards to taking on advertising for yourself. It’s never easy to setup a rate card if you don’t have the experience, but I can tell you this. Sell your ads for whatever the market will take. If you can’t find anybody buying ads on your site for $500/mo maybe you should lower the price. If you find too many, then you shouldn’t have a problem raising the price. Sure it might take you 2-3 months to get the right pricing schedule, but it is well worth it because this is guaranteed money unlike Adsense where you are not sure what you will earn from one day to the next.
Even better is that you no longer have to worry about ad placement and the best way to show your ads to get more clicks. While you do want to help your advertisers a good CTR you don’t have to cater to them as you would with Adsense. With this model you can actually get back to writing for your readers, which is something you shouldn’t have stopped doing in the first place.
Does this mean you should abandon Adsense completely? Of course not. As the title suggests you should always have some sort of way to make money if you can’t cover the ad inventory for your site and this is where Adsense comes into play. Sure Calacanis likes to talk about how much they are making with Adsense, but I can tell you that they are making a lot more with banner ads. When you run and Joystiq and are receiving millions and millions of pageviews a month, charging $9-$12 CPM looks much more attractive than making $1-$3 with Adsense.
So try not to put all of your eggs into the Adsense basket. There is so much more money to be made out there if you take the time to look.
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POSTED IN: Online Money
14 opinions for Adsense: Beginner’s First Option, Professional’s Last
Yaro
Dec 14, 2005 at 8:30 am
Thanks for the link-up mr scrivs. Any chance you have that spare 30 minutes yet for a podcast interview over skype. I know the world is waiting for it ;)
I certainly would like to know a bit more about where your networks are going…care to elaborate just a tiny bit? I can play the inquisitive reporter, you play the reluctant to give away secrets CEO…
Paul Watson
Dec 14, 2005 at 8:58 am
Any plans to do this with FineFools sites that are doing well?
Josh Pigford
Dec 14, 2005 at 11:03 am
Great post and great point. It’s almost as if Adsense has it’s own little cult following of people who think it’s so great when infact they’re probably making the least amount they could with Adsense next to actually not advertising at all.
Scrivs
Dec 14, 2005 at 12:20 pm
Yaro: Yeah I have been holding off on that one. Biggest problem is the time difference. Can you wait till January? We have two major announcements happening then so it might be better for you to see some of those plans first.
Paul: Of course my man. ILC is on the brink, we just need to get you guys up a couple more steps on the ladder.
Josh: Ease of use goes a long way in clouding people’s vision.
Andy Hagans
Dec 14, 2005 at 12:44 pm
Scrivs, I couldn’t disagree more.
For SOME topics, direct sponsorships will get a premium, and will perform better than Adsense.
But the figures you point to are telling:
“When you run Engadget and Joystiq and are receiving millions and millions of pageviews a month, charging $9-$12 CPM looks much more attractive than making $1-$3 with Adsense.”
You cite $9 CPM on Engadget. Keep in mind most sites will never approach that prestige or name recognition and will be lucky to get half thatfrom their own direct sponsorships.
Meanwhile I have many different blogs that run solely on Adsense, and I’ll be damned if any of them make less than $20 CPM (they average over twice that).
Scrivs
Dec 14, 2005 at 12:52 pm
Andy: In that case I totally agree with you. I wrote this article based on my experiences and the only time I ever see a CPM that high were for my little sites which did nothing for me.
However, getting half of what Engadgets does, let’s say $4-$5 CPM is still going to be much better for a large number of sites than what they make with adsense. Obviously you are creating sites that are directed towards Adsense more, but a site like Damn I’m Cute does squat with it.
I definitely should’ve put in the disclaimer that this doesn’t apply to every site, but I was looking more in a broader sense.
Nick Aziz
Dec 15, 2005 at 3:11 pm
We sell direct leader, skyscraper, and rectangle ads, and run adsense contextually in the content area. This seems to be, by far, the best of both worlds.
Scrivs
Dec 15, 2005 at 3:22 pm
Nick: Do you have a salesperson taking care of the direct sales or do you handle that yourself?
Nick Aziz
Dec 15, 2005 at 6:22 pm
Myself and a colleague of mine are responsible for that. We just got into doing direct sales recently, as the site has only been online since later September.
BlogMoney.us
Dec 15, 2005 at 6:24 pm
AdSense Not For Pros?
Mr. Scrivs over at Work Boxers has just posted an article entitled “Adsense: Beginner’s First Option, Professional’s Last.” The argument is that AdSense, Yahoo, and other contextual advertisers are taking a chunk of your earnings, …
miscblogger
Dec 20, 2005 at 3:54 am
great advice. I’ve never thought of that. I know how everyone seems to tout adsense. I’ve always wished there was more. maybe when i have more visitors, i’ll try your suggestion.
WorkHappy.net: killer resources for entrepreneurs
Dec 29, 2005 at 2:10 pm
Happy Links
Case studies for a bunch of folks making a fortune on Adsense. The needle, the vise… and the baby rattleSeth opines on the three types of marketing. Two that work (needle and vice) and one that doesn’t (baby rattle). Some
Yaro
Jan 5, 2006 at 3:08 am
Scrivs - I just read your comment. January is obviously fine and the time difference should be a problem. I generally sleep a slightly modified timetable and “exist” online. We should just get each other added to our skype contacts and whenever you see me online and you have a spare 30min say hello.
Jeff
Aug 14, 2006 at 7:25 am
I’m not gonna show you my site, but my ctr w/ adsense is huge and I’m making way more than 20cpm.
Could it be, you didn’t know how to use adsense correctly?
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