Have You Thought About Getting Rid of Adsense? | Bloggers Lair | Yakezie Forums

Hey guys,

 

I just wanted to open up a discussion of adsense. Do you feel that it's worth it? I personally find that it takes up too much prime real estate on my blog and doesn't compensate me as well as I would like it to. I've been considering getting rid of adsense lately. What do you think about this?

Funny to see this.  I just finished adding adsense to my site all of 5 minutes ago.  It is my first and only advertising..  I guess I'll see how it goes for a while..  not expecting riches or anything.  Just put some text ads in the sidebar, wasn't too craft about it.

Suba @ Wealth Informatics said:

I would love to get rid of adsense; at least remove partially if not entirely. But I don't have any other source of income. It is either adsense or direct ad sales (not textlinks). I still have not figured out a way to get company pay for my space/ lucky enough to be contacted. If you have advertisers contacting you, I guess it would definitely make more sense to diversify. I would love to add some different streams of income to my blog. Any one has any pointers on how to make that magic happen? How do you get direct ads?

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I haven't made a ton of money off my blog so far, but 90% of the revenue I have made has been from being contacted directly by advertisers or being involved in Yakezie campaigns. Adsense only contributes 10%.

 

I think one of the keys to getting contacted directly is to be accessible (i.e have a contact page, an advertising page, and a guest writers page).

Suba @ Wealth Informatics said:

I would love to get rid of adsense; at least remove partially if not entirely. But I don't have any other source of income. It is either adsense or direct ad sales (not textlinks). I still have not figured out a way to get company pay for my space/ lucky enough to be contacted. If you have advertisers contacting you, I guess it would definitely make more sense to diversify. I would love to add some different streams of income to my blog. Any one has any pointers on how to make that magic happen? How do you get direct ads?

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Advertisers beget advertisers.  Get one, you'll then have ten.  Everyone wants to put their ad where their competition is. 

 

I have a site in another (financial-related) niche that went 2 years without sponsorship.  Then, one day I got an email and sold a 160x600 skyscraper for $15 CPM.  Fast forward through a few companies and its up to $30 CPM, and they renew each and every month…

 

I'm a little so-so on adsense.  I use it on a number of sites, but sometimes I think it's…well, ugly as sin.  I'm picky, though, and some are sure to disagree with me.  I think it almost gives off a vibe of lacking credibility, since most of the "big names" have like 20 125x125 private sponsorship placements.  That's just me…and I'm super critical.  LOL

I don't make a ton of money from AdSense, but it is legit and easy to install across multiple sites.  Just play with the ad position (read more on Problogger and similar sites) until you find your best formula.  I am about to get my 3rd payout.

Not a chance.  My AdSense income has been steadily rising each month and it's an integral part of my long term plans.

Suba @ Wealth Informatics said:

@JT Thanks for the info. For that first ad, did you contact the advertiser or did they come to you?

@everyone who has private ad space. Do you contact that advertiser? If so, how do you approach them?

 

I agree adsense is not for everyone. Some content converts well, some doesn't. But right now, that is my only source of (small) income. So it is not going anywhere

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The advertiser reached me through an email that was on my whois.  Interesting approach, considering I have a contact page…

 

After that I just slowly raised rates on them as time went on.  I always look for a renewal one month before the contract is up.  If they don't renew, I fire up my promotion machine.  As for pitching them, just put together an attractive media packet.  

Make it easy to read, and a nice design goes a long way, as well.  Include relevant stats, but not too much that you dilute the single large line-items.

Some really important elements are any media mentions, Alexa rank (if attractive), links in (if attractive), as well as demographics and traffic sources.  Try to center around a particular niche, if possible.  If, for example, most of your traffic is made up of people looking for introductory articles on IRAs, you could make a pitch to a brokerage firm and make note that these are people who probably don't have an IRA yet.  

Since many of your visitors don't have an account, brokerage firm X could really build an equity position in this key demographic!

 

See what I mean?

I don't use Adsense on Tight Fisted Miser but I use it on my other sites.  It hasn't performed well on TFM so I use that space for affiliate ads instead which bring in more money although it isn't as steady as Adsense.

I have no plans to let it go. I'm finally starting to see it inch up. I've made $16 since January 1st, but I have hopes for growth.

One thing I don't see people discuss a lot is the number of visitors needed to make Adsense worth it. I'm getting approx. 30-60 visitors per day and one or 2 clicks a week. I've heard that to really make payout consistently, you need 100 visitors/day. Any thoughts on this?

Text link ads are great in the sense that you get a lot of money up front for little work, but they're crazy inconsistent. I sold my first TLA in May of 2010, 5 months after I launched. I didn't sell another one until August. I sold my 3rd one just recently in December. And my fourth one just happened in the last few weeks. But I might not sell another one until July. You just don't know. And while the pace is picking up, you can only go so far with TLAs. I don't want my site cluttered with them.

I'd much prefer the stability of consistent payments from Google. I know there's the risk of Google dropping you from search or signifcantly decreasing your traffic, but I think most of those problems are temporary. Traffic usually rebounds.