The Top 10 Alternatives to Google Adsense
Google AdSense is the current leader in content-sensitive web-based marketing. Webmasters can place Google AdSense JavaScript code on their web pages in order to allow Google's servers to show context sensitive advertisements (Google Adwords). The left hand side of this page shows an example of a Google AdSense skyscraper displaying a text or image ad.
Google's terms and conditions are very strict such that many web publishers cannot use adsense adverts on their sites. They are either denied from joining the Google AdSense program, or in a situation that is becoming more and more common do not wish to do business with Google. A number of publishers are also finding their Adsense accounts are being disabled for reasons that are completely beyond their control. The problem is that most of the alternatives to Google's Adsense are pretty useless. Most of the good ones (such as doubleclick) are only interested in very large volume customers and so are not interested in the little guy with his blog who wants to earn a small income on the side. For this reason I have compiled my Top 10 alternatives to Google's Adsense that are ideal for the small time publisher.
If you are a advertiser then you may be interested in these best alternatives to adwords.
Has your adsense account been disabled? Then try these top 10 alternatives.
1. AdBrite
2. Clicksor
3. Bidvertiser
4. Chitika
5. AdToll
6. Exit Junction
7. Yahoo Publisher Network
8. Target Point
9. Fastclick
10. ClickThruTraffic
Note: The descriptions are based on personal experience and do not represent any form of endorsement.
1) AdBrite
AdBrite, is currently one of the best alternatives there is to Google's adsense. While they do not offer the same large selection of ad formats that Clicksor and Google Adsense provide you they do offer the most commonly used ones. In addition they offer inline page links with have some great click through ratios as well as interstitial full page ads which offer an excellent way to monetize all traffic to your site not just traffic that clicks on your ads. Their payouts are also very competitive. They have more relaxed terms and conditions than Adsense and are much more accepting of smaller publishers including bloggers.
If you're a publisher, use AdBrite to set your own ad rates, and approve or reject every ad that's purchased for your site or just have AdBrite auto accept ever ad. AdBrite enables you to instantly sell ads to your visitors via a "Your Ad Here" link, in addition to selling through AdBrite's marketplace and sales team.
Revenue is typically split 75/25 in your favor. Through a small snippet of HTML placed on your site, they handle serving, scheduling, billing, customer service, and sales. About half of AdBrite's sales are generated from the marketplace and sales team, while the other half are generated from users clicking "Your Ad Here" on your website.
While AdBrite can provide publishers with more revenue and better ads than traditional ad networks such as Google AdSense, they work fine along-side them as a way for you to generate additional ad revenue by selling ads directly to your visitors -- something the other ad systems don't do. Ad Brite also lets you select your own minimum bid prices and give you the option of showing an alternative ad service such as Clicksor when bid prices fall below your minimum.
If you're using AdBrite on your website you also have the option to turn off AdBrite's "run-of-network ads" and AdBrite will only display ads that have been approved by you allowing you to prevent competitors ads being shown on your site. If you have no ads running, AdBrite will display nothing but "Your Ad Here" or your alternative ad provider.
Note, from my experiences it can take a day or so from when you signup with AdBrite and put their code on your website to actually start seeing relevant ads showing up. So if you see the message "Advertize on this site" just be patient and give it a day or so and you should start seeing relevant ads showing up.
AdBrite also accepts Blogs and Bloggers as sites so if you are fed up with other programs turning you down because their terms and conditions restrict Blogs try AdBrite.
2) Clicksor
Clicksor is one of the current leaders of the small publisher Adsense competition. They have payouts upto a market leading 85% and unlike a number of alternatives the cost per click bid values are high enough that you can earn a decent income. They are also, in my experience, much more tollerant than Google. Their terms and conditions suggest that you should only place one copy of their code on a page but as long as you only place a single pop-up or DHTML code on a page they seem happy to let you place many context sensitive ad blocks on a single site.
Clicksor also has a big advantage over a number of the lower ranked alternatives on this site in that their ads are truly context sensitive. Thus while you can provide keywords they have technology that will also show ads targeted to the content of your site. This means your visitors are exposed to ads of the same subject as they were searching for when they reached your site and thus vastly increases the click thru ratio and thus your sites earning potential. The context sensitive nature also saves you the hassle of having to specify keywords for all of your sites and decide in advance what people might be looking for.
The online stats provided by Clicksor are not perfect but they are enough for you to keep track of the trends with your site. They also allow you to add as many sites / domains as you want under a single account. You also only need the root page of your site approved. Once this is done you can place ads on all of your sub pages.
The payment schedule with Clicksor is also much better geared to the small site owner. In any pay period in which your earnings exceed $50.00 ($20.00 with PayPal), payments are made either by check or instantly through PayPal ($20.00 minimum for PayPal). Revenue totaling less that $50 (PP $20) will rolled into the following period. The pay period is based on a 15 day schedule so you can get paid much more frequently. Clicksor also do not require a Social Security (SSN) or Individual Tax Identity Number (ITIN) to join and so while this 'technically' does not help US site owners with their tax liability it does make it much easier for non US citizens to join up and start earning revenue.
Advert wise Clicksor features:
Multiple formats available including text, image and animated ads.
* Text Links
* Image Ads
* Flash Ads
* Animation Ads
* Banners
* Pop unders
* Interstitial Ads (NEW)
* Dynamic (DHTML) highlighting
Click here to visit Clicksor's website and sign up for an account to try it out. There is no obligation and no fees ever. Note, once you start adding the advert code to your site it can take up to 24 hours for Clicksor to get up to speed as it were so initially you may see some ads that don't appear to be relevant. Once their contextual engine kicks in, however, the relevance quickly improves.
3) Bidvertiser
Bidvertiser can be a useful alternative to Google and offer some intriguing ad formats including what they refer to as free design. This lets you specify the look and dimensions of your text ads. While a useful feature I have not investigated how well it works but imagine that while it sounds good on paper it could result in lower priced ads being displayed. I.e. most advertisers will probably want to keep control of the layout of their ads and so turn off support for Free design ads.
Bidvertizer pays you either in $25.00 increments by check or $10.00 increments by PayPal.
Customize the layout of your ads: BidVertiser gives you a simple point-and-click tool to help you customize the layout of the ads to fit your site's look and feel, in order to retain the high quality of your website. Bidvertizer also offers the opportunity to block unwanted ads. The reports provided by Bidvertiser are adequate but not outstanding. The only real problem is that they can be picky with who they accept into their program and can be quick to ban users whose websites show what may be perfectly valid fluctuating visitor behaviour. Click here to visit Bidvertiser's website where you can either sign up as a publisher (show peoples ads on your site) or as an advertiser (show your ads on other sites).
As an advertiser you can get $20 in free clicks by following this link: Bidvertiser Advertise and get $20 in free clicks.
4) Chitika
Chitika - The Leader in Impulse Merchandising
Chitika (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka) was founded in 2003 and is the industry's leading impulse merchandising company. Chitika was founded in May 2003 and is based in Massachusetts. Chitika (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka) helps web publishers generate revenue using innovative publisher-side advertising and merchandising solutions and services.
Chitika doesn't really stand alone as a single advertising solution but instead provides you with a way to compliment your existing advertising / publishing program with some additional Ad Units which are altogether different from the standard ad boxes, pop-unders etc that everybody else provides. Instead of displaying these 'industry standard' advert boxes with text and image ads that all look the same they instead provide active boxes that show targeted products from different manufacturers. If you run a blog for example and discuss a product you may find the chitika box showing links for this product and competitors products. If people purchase these products you get a paid a commission. This is referred to as impulse marketing in the form of Premium Ad Units (eMinimalls). Feel free to give it a try although I think the ideal use of this service would be as a compliment to another advertizers service. E.g. you could show Clicksor context sensitive ads on your site and then compliment these with Chitika's eMinimalls.
For advertisers and media buyers, Chitika is a proven channel for targeting on-line consumers and qualified buyers. For all publishers, Chitika is an easy-to-use platform for earning daily ad revenue. If you visit a site showing Chitika's ads from a search engine then the Chitika premium ad unit kicks in showing you ads that are specific to your searching - otherwise you can have it show an alternative ad provider, such as adsense, or you can just have it collapse away to show nothing.
Chitika allows you to display targeted products based on what people searched for to get to your page and you get paid for clicks. It provides a robust comparative shopping experience for your visitors. Visitors will love the interactive search code -- and it makes you money
Click here to visit Chitika's website and sign up today.
5) AdToll
AdToll pays on a CPC basis. Their user interface is great and navigating through the user panel is both easy and pleasant. Payments are available via Cheque, Paypal, ePassporte and Wire/Bank Transfer. It is also possible to use the revenue you earn as a publisher to advertise your website further. Such integration is something that is entirely missing from Google's adsense-adwords.
The newest technology by AdToll is a Peel Away Ad technology that shows a peel on the top right hand side of a web site. When the mouse moves over the peel it opens smoothly to reveal the advert within. This new ad format allows you to make use of the lesser used, yet highly visible top corners of web sites. It is very non intrusive to the site visitor. Since it uses a small amount of space, it is efficient use of web site real estate. An additional plus is that such a new advertising format always draws curious clicks for visitors.
Click here to visit AdToll and sign up for a no obligation account today.
6) Exit Junction
Exit Junction is relatively new and, I believe, a spin off from the now defunct Revenue Pilot. While Revenue Pilot has stopped running, however, Exit Junction is going from strength to strength. Exit Junction offers a unique approach to advertising that is compatible with all the other Ad Networks included Google Adsense. The key to Exit junction is that they focus on showing ads to users as they leave your site rather than as they arrive or as they browse. This approach offers you an additional way to monetize your traffic and also capture ad revenue from those that stumble upon your site from a search engine and then immediately leave.
By adding a small piece of Exit Junction code to the header section of your site users are shown an advert as they hit the back button. For example, if a user came to your site from a Google search and then immediately hit the back button to return to that search they would be shown an Exit Junction Ad in between your page and the Google search and you get paid for this impression. The ad is directly targeted to the search term that brought the visitor to your site in the first place. Hence Exit Junction is an ideal way of complimenting your existing ad services and so increasing your sites revenue without having to switch from your current ad provider.
Exit junction also covers all countries. You get paid for all traffic exiting you site regardless of its origin.
They offer fee free payout via Check or PayPal with earnings of as little as $25 on a monthly basis.
Click here to signup with Exit Junction for a free no obligation account.
ExitJunction.com - Make Money From Your Exit Traffic!
7) Yahoo Publisher Network
Yahoo are currently playing catch up to Google and are trying to release their own context sensitive advertising service. This promises to be an excellent alternative to Google Adsense but in reality is likely to be a simple copy with the same restrictive terms and conditions as Google, including $100 minimums on payouts. The system seems to have been in beta test for several years now, perhaps explaining why Yahoo as a company is suffering. Unfortunately while you can visit their site and sign up to register for an account don't expect to actually hear back from them. They are either extremely selective or are simply not accepting new publishers and advertisers, either way they won't even bother to get back to you to let you know this and most applicants won't even receive a reply saying their application has been rejected. Thus until it goes live and it becomes clear what type of website owners Yahoo will be targeting I cannot place it any higher in this list.
Advert wise Yahoo Publisher Network will feature:
* Display ads related to the content on your site. You'll earn revenue from qualified clicks.
* Integrate other Yahoo! services into your web site, including Add to My Yahoo! (RSS), Y!Q and much more to come...
* This beta program is just the beginning. Our mission is to deliver products and services based on the needs of the publishing community.
8) TargetPoint
Targetpoint's services are particularly publisher-oriented, you have absolute control over the appearance of your ads. They provide supervision over ad content. The payouts tend to be reasonable but they can be quite choosey regarding which sites are accepted.
Advert wise Target Point provide:
* Adpoint generates content-relevant, revenue-evaluated ads.
* Exitpoint helps utilizing the full capacity web exit traffic.
* Imagepoint serves visual ads. Known to the rest of the world as Image ads.
* Underpoint serves pop-under ad windows.
* Searchpoint (beta) features enhanced search capabilities, which enhance your users� experience and generate additional profit.
Registration is free and they pay back a minimum of 60% of the total on-click revenue. Payment options include Bank checks, PayPal and Wire transfers (if eligible).
9) FastClick (Now known as ValueClick)
At first look FastClick would appear to be one of the better alternatives to Google's Adsense however, they are one of many online advertising companies that tend to favor the large customers. You'd think companies would have learnt from Google's success and accepted that the way to make money is to target both large and small. Remember Excite? They went the way of the dodo because they only targeted the top 100 companies rather than the small guys who can't afford large TV adverts and have to advertise on the Internet instead. Anyway, I digress. If you can get yourself accepted to FastClick (now called ValueClick) then you will probably be able to run some reasonably high paying adverts on your site but most small website owners will find that FastClick simply aren't interested.
Advertising wise FastClick (ValueClick) offer an industry-average 65-percent monthly payout on all advertising revenue your website generates. Fastclick pays by the 25th of the month for the previous month by check or PayPal.
Formats include:
* Text Ads
* Image Ads
* Interstitial
* Pop-Under
* InVue
10) ClickThruTraffic
Not the best alternative but if you can't get accepted by any of the above you can always try these guys. They claim that you will earn between 6 and 20 cents everytime a surfer clicks on an advertisement on your site but in reality I think you are more likely to see rates around the 0.5c to 2c range. However, feel free to try it out and see how you get on. Advert wise they offer text links, buttons and banners.
You can find some suggestions on optimizing ad layouts here. Click here for an unofficial list of high paying keywords.. Click here for a comprehensive list of Google Adsense Alternatives. If you are a small business owner looking for cost effective alternatives to adwords then see this site. A list of the top 10 alternatives to Google Adwords is available here.
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