Using Adz as an AdSense Alternative
Many website owners and bloggers use Google AdSense to try to monetize their websites. Some of them succeeds because they have a good amount of traffic and they have original content that is userful for the society, so AdSense advertising works great to monetize it. Some other try and try to monetize their blog or dating website, or any other website and don't succeed, whatever the time they put in it... there is many other solutions, in fact, there is many other advertising networks. I will focus on one specific, new, online advertising network.
I've been the main person involved in the creation of the "Adz" (by dotmedias) online advertising network. I will tell you why Adz may be good for your website.
- Adz is opened for everyone
We do a manual review of each website that is added to our network, but almost all websites are approved, even if the traffic is very low.
- We always advertise the network through our network
That means that there will always be advertisers on the network, so whatever website you submit, there will be ads displayed on it. Some other networks will not give you ads on your placements right away, you will have to wait until someone buys your placement to place their ads on it.
- Minimum bids are higher than many on other networks
The minimum bids for each different type of advertising is higher. Minimum CPM is USD $0.25 and minimum CPC is USD $0.03. It's not the highest minimum bids, I know some are higher, but we are generally over some networks, like AdSense.
- Adz only take 25% of the advertising revenue
Unline AdSense who takes between 30% and 50% of your ad revenue, we take only 25%. That is one of the smallest advertising share in the industry. I don't know networks who take less, hoestly.
- Adz is dummy-proof
Unlike some other networks (like AdSense) who gives you a very Ajaxyfied interface that is very heavy to load, we give you a very simple interface, auto-documented on each page to make sure that you always understand what you are doing.
Do you need some other advantages ? Maybe, be if you do,
try the network by yourself to find that it is worth a try.
Honestly, it's not only because I've worked on it that I tell you this network is good. It's because I use it for my personnal websites and I love it ! This blog is using it as the sole revenue source. That is great ! I don't need AdSense anymore :-).
Top 10 AdSense alternatives for webmasters and bloggers
Google AdSense is by far the most widely used online advertising network. All webmasters knows AdSense, and many of them already integrates those ads on their websites. It's not because it's the most popular that it is the most high-paying network, it's only because it's Google ! Their ad-serving platform is very fast and displays ads that are very relevant to the websites content.
Like me, you may be disapointed about AdSense because you don't make as much money as you'd expected. Here are some other well-paying networks you can try :
- Adz
- AdBrite
- Kontera
- BuySellAds
- InfoLinks
- Cliksor
- TextLinkAds
- BidVertiser
- BidClix
- Chitika
There is plenty of other networks, but those are the best, highest paying networks. If you don't make money with any of them, it may be because you will never make money with your website.
What is Google Suggest and how does it work ?
Google has recently launched a new feature: Google Suggest. This is really useful and maybe a lot of you already noticed this feature.
What does Google Suggest do for you ?
It will suggest search terms as you type, thus helping you find more specific terms before submiting your search request. It shows you most popular search terms matching the caracters you're typing.
It also shows the number of results each term returns. Actualy I don't know why it does not always display the number of results but sometimes it does.
Also, if you're logged in, some suggestions will be taken from you search history.
If your search terms can lead directly to a website, you will see a site suggestion in the box, as well as other terms suggestion.
If among the terms, some matches advertising (AdWords) search terms, you will see ads in a yellow box "Sponsored links".
If you want (or don't want) to use this feature, you can enable/disable it in the search preferences.
Google AdSense tracking in Google Analytics
Google has finally launched something that will help a lot to track the performance of your AdSense campaings. If you already own some websites that uses AdSense to monetize, you will love this new feature because it will allow you to see detailed AdSense revenue by website, which was absolutely not possible with the AdSense-only interface.
What is it ?
It is the ability to link your AdSense account with your Analytics account. By doing this, every impression and every click will be tracked in Analytics.
Where do I go to see the detailed stats ?
When you link your two accounts, you will see a new menu item appear in your Analytics account, just like this one :
You will see 3 different menu items under "AdSense" (in fact 4, but the first is only the summary of the 3 others). These are the 3 different statistics you can get for AdSense.
What will I see in "Top AdSense content" ?
You will get detailed stats (total revenue, clicks, impressions, CTR and eCPM) for every page on your website. This is simply AWESOME. With this feature I discovered that in my dating website, the page that is generating the more revenue is the registration page.
Here's what it looks like :
Like any other Analytics graph you can change the view to "table", "pie chart", "performance chart" and the "comparison chart". You can also sort the table columns and change the time period.
What will I see in "Top AdSense referers" ?
You will see detailed stats (total revenue, clicks, impressions, CTR and eCPM) for each referer. A referer is a domain name on which your ad has been shown and clicked. For example, if 2 people clicks on your ad shown on www.example.com and clicks 2 ads each (40c each), the revenue for the referer www.example.com will be 1,60$.
Let's take a look at this :
With this feature you can easily track where your ads are being shown and which website leads you the most valuable members. As you can see in my stats, my most valuable referer is hotmail.
What will I see in "AdSense trends" ?
You will see what you already see in your AdSense account : revenue by day, just like this :
The only difference is that you will get a little bit more because you can choose exaclty what trend you want to see, by using this menu :
How do I activate it ?
Now that I convinced you to use this awesome feature, let's activate it. First, I assume you already have your AdSense account and your Analytics account and everything is up and running on your different websites.
1. Go to "Analytics settings" on your Analytics account and click on "Edit AdSense linking settings".
2. Check every AdSense website you want to track in your Analytics account.
3. Select the primary website. I suggest you take your biggest revenue generating website (the one that has the more traffic) or the website that is the least editable, because for each other website you will have to open the source code to add something.
4. Open the source code of your other websites and put the little JavaScript code block at the beginning of all pages (it may be a good idea to have a master page on your website where you can globally put the code, instead of opening every page).
It is very important that the tracking code (just like the one below) be placed in the "<head>" tag. If you don't do so, the tracking will simply NOT work. Trust me, I already tried !
<script type="text/javascript"> window.google_analytics_uacct = "UA-123456-1";</script>
Conclusion
Google is and will stay for a while the best advertising company on the net. Just try to find another service that provides you the same tracking functionality.