On top of the major fiasco of Text Link Ads - getting accepted into their program and still waiting to get listed in their inventory (apparently their system is a little slow at the moment), I have some good news concerning advertising and making some extra income off this blog.
2 days ago, I was contact by the Account Executive of Adbrite, a man by the name of Billy Shipp. He simply asked me whether I would like to make some extra money from Blogtrepreneur. At first I was a bit hesitant in responding. I have had a bad experience with Adbrite, primarily when this blog was in its infancy a few months back. I put the Adbrite code in the sidebar and after a week of waiting, received no buys. I told Billy of my problem and general hesitancy in re-putting the code back. He responded swiftly and professionally to all of my questions (which in fact are not really listed on the site). As a result, I’ll put them down here for everyone to take a look at:
What % cut does Adbrite take out from my earnings?
The revenue share is 70/30. The publisher (us) gets 70% and Adbrite takes out 30% of our earnings (better than the 50% by TLA).
Can I have Adbrite and TLA on my blog?
Yes
Can I have Adbrite’s Network ads and Adsense on my blog?
UPDATE: I received an email from Billy after this article went live telling me that Adbrite network ads and Adsense were allowed on the same pages. AdBrite ads are keyword targeted and not contextual. The AdSense terms only restrict the use of contextual ads. So Adbrite are non-competitive and users can run both AdBrite and AdSense ads on the same page. While the Adbrite description in the setup section says that turning on network ads makes it function more like a traditional ad network, the underlying technology is different allowing Adbrite to work in conjunction with AdSense.
Can you format Adbrite ads to match the look and feel of my blog?
Yes - you can alter the formatting of the text in the snippet of code Adbrite gives you.
Can you promise me some ad sales?
(I was surprise at this answer) - Yes! Billy said that he would work with the Sales Department to get me some ad sales. To help me, he said he would set the prices himself ($1 for a day text link, $10 for a week’s text link) and that he would reduce the amount of ad slots to encourage potential advertisers.
I was so happy with the responses that Billy gave that I decided to put the code underneath the Text Link Ads code (which you can see in my left sidebar at the moment). Then when I got home from school, I realised I had an email from Billy saying that I had some ads to approve! I was so excited, and so I logged into my Adbrite account to see that both my ad positions were taken! One was for a Week Link by Go Big Advertising network, and the other from a smaller company on a CPC basis. Woohoo!
This goes to show how first impressions may be deceiving. I was so aware of the poor quality of the Adbrite site and the lack of features the site had, that I failed to recognise my selling potential. Now, I may increase the number of ad slots to sell more ads and I could up the price to further increase revenue. I’d definitely recommend you check out Adbrite (aff.) and give them a whir.
Furthermore, Adbrite are releasing a new Business Channel feature for advertisers as a part of AdBrite 1.5. It allows them to buy ads in terms of particular “channels” like business, video, etc. It should go live for advertisers this quarter. This sounds pretty appealing for publishers and their sites will have more exposure to potential advertisers! I’ll keep you posted on how I get on with the rest of my first month with Adbrite and with Text Link Ads!
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6 responses so far ↓
1 thatedeguy // Oct 5, 2006 at 10:27 pm
I’m a little confused. In the post you say that you cannot have Adbrite’s network ads on your site along with adsense, and yet you inputted a adbrite ad right above the adsense. Is the adbrite network ads different from what you ended up adding?
2 adnan // Oct 6, 2006 at 8:09 pm
Hi mate. Sorry for the confusion. It turns out I got the information a bit wrong. As you can see I have updated the artice to show that Adsense is actually allowed with Adbrite’s network ads.
The executive sent me an email shortly after the article went live to tell me about the issue. Read about it above. Also, my “adbrite ad” at the moment is not contextual, and it has been bought by an advertiser through the Adbrite system!
Thanks for letting me know about my mistake - and I hope I havn’t thrown you completely off course!
3 Dave Starr // Oct 6, 2006 at 10:15 pm
Funny to see this come up. Just a few weeks ago I got into a big discussion on a guy’s blog where the blog owner was recommending a contextual ad service which he was running alongside his (fairly lucrative) AdSense ads. I asked him how he reconciled the other ad service with AdSense’ terms of service and he replied the competitor company had assured him that it was ok. I advised him to check with Google and he argued for about three days, preferring to stand upon his reputation of being a “pro blogger” until a third blogger posted an email received direct from Google. explaining the simple fact that AdSense is “contextual”, that is, it serves ads buy reading the words on your site in context until it decides what you are talking about and then matching that subject with an ad. _ALL_ contextual ad competitors are against AdSense’s terms of service … and the place to ask is not with the competitor, or on someone else’s blog, but direct with Google.
Now you certainly can serve all kinds of competing ads along with AdSense as long as they are not “contextual”, meaning you give the ad company keywords or subjects or channels manually that you want ads for. Some products, like Chikita can work by supplied keyword _or_ contextually … Chikita allows you to specify this when you sign for an ad.
But anyway, didn’t intend to get so long-winded … Adnan knows that’s one of my fatal flaws, my point is, get your Google advice from Google, it’s safer … I want to branch out into other services but I won’t risk my Google account, my income doubled last month and I’m not a good gambler.
4 adnan // Oct 7, 2006 at 11:32 pm
Oh right, thanks a lot from the heads up Dave. I didn’t realise that the other companies weren’t going to give it to me straight - but then again they all want a piece of the action, so I realise now their incentives to lie.
Im sending off an email to Google to ask whether Adbrite’s network ads are OK, so I’ll tell you what the outcome is.
Thanks a lot for warning me mate!
5 Dave Starr // Oct 9, 2006 at 1:58 am
Hi Adnan, say I just want to clarify something in your response to my last comment. I wasn’t trying to say that Google competitors would lie … I didn’t use that word and I would hope that most companies and individuals were more trustworthy than that.
My point is that asking company “X” about company “Y” is the wrong way for getting the info because:
1. One company may not actually _know_ the other company’s policy … they have to, by nature, focus on their own rules.
2. Company “X”’s folks have to, by normal business rules, be focused on selling their own products. If the advertiser were to lose his/her company “Y” account because of a ToS breach, the company “X” guy or gal has no vested interest … only the publisher is at risk.
Of course, someone might lie *sigh* but I’m more worried about an honest mistake or a too eager pitch by a salesman. Here in the US if a salesman makes an actual, provable lie he/she is probably headed to court … but if it’s just sort of an over-enthusiasm the law calls it “puffery” and it come sunder the heading of “buyer beware”.
real estate sales are a prime example … if they are selling you a house and state that everything is perfect and roof falls in on you, they probably committed fraud. But if they say, “Lovely cottage, just needs some TLC (Tender Loving care) then it becomes kind of an arguable point if TLC means replacing a few lost shingles or hiring a builder to replace the whole roof structure.
Anyway, let us know what they say and Ya’ll have a great week, I’m going to be enjoying our quaint American holiday tomorrow where we celebrate the man who didn’t have anything to do with discovering our country … Hmmm, is Columbus Day a lie, or just puffery? LoL
6 adnan // Oct 9, 2006 at 5:38 pm
Sorry for misquoting you Dave. Yeah you’re probably right, I don’t think everyone’s always out to get each other (although that is the case with a large number of companies unfortunately - did you hear about the Starbucks secret coffee that caused them to make a loss?)
Thanks for that info. on US law, its pretty interesting to know. I think if the same thing happened hear in the UK - none of us could be bothered to go to law and to sue mainly because of the high charges that are involved.
Anyway, I have sent an email off to the Adsense department (I sent it a few days ago) but as of now have not got a response. I will tell you what they say though.
Thanks mate, and have a great week yourself.
And I think Columbus day is probably a puffery - he probably had some miniscule part in the discovery of America - but Im no genius in history!
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