A Long Conversation with an Account Exec. of Adbrite
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!