So we are giving Chitika a try. This is a company that has had a lot of success with their "mini-malls" and is now branching out and geting into more kinds of web advertising. Currently on our main site(s) we run a mix of Google AdSense ads, banners from Travel Ad Network, and now we are throwing some of this Chitika | Premium in to see how it performs. They describe this new program as:

"A smart, personalized targeting ad solution that provides premium content. This ad unit is CPC and is designed to be your highest performing ad unit (eCPM)."

Posted on June 9, 2008 12:20 PM | Link: Chitika | Comments (0)

Jensense is another site/blog you should be checking out on a regular basis if you are trying to make money from your website - especially if you are using Google's AdSenes program. The site has grown up a lot of the last couple of years and Jen has branched out and seems to be doing more consulting/speaking than writing, but she is pretty authoritative in this field. This latest story from Google that she covered is a big deal:

Google AdSense disabling arbitrage publisher accounts as of June 1st

Numerous AdSense publishers have been receiving emails from Google the past couple of days stating that their use of their AdSense account is an unsuitable business model and that accounts would be disabled as of June 1st, giving publishers about two weeks notice to prepare for the loss of the AdSense accounts... and since it seems that arbitrage publishers are the ones receiving this account disabled email, to give those publisher enough time to shut down accounts or use an alternative source for their outgoing traffic.

Click here for the whole story. Hopefully for content sites like ours her hypothesis is right and Google's current actions eventually bring more money back to the content network.

Posted on May 24, 2007 04:12 PM | Link: Jensense | Comments (0)

From IBD today (via Yahoo! Finance):

"Advertisers who want to park search ads on AOL might be better off driving there directly rather than taking a tour with Google.

AOL's move to sell Google-style search ads last month could be a boon for advertisers who want search-based text ads to appear on AOL but not lesser-known sites in Google's ad network, search marketers say.

Following up on a deal struck in 2005, AOL last month began selling AOL-branded versions of Google's search ads, giving advertisers an opportunity they never had before. It's an opportunity many appear be eager to take, says Chris Winfield, president of 10e20, which helps companies place ads online."

I don't know if this is really "news" or not and will be interested to see how others in the industry spin it. There are some other interesting items in the article - like this - "The problem is that Google's partner network also is inundated with so-called domain-parking sites." Hmm...

Posted on May 23, 2007 08:12 AM | Link: AOL The First In Google Search Ad Network Allowed To Sell Own Ads | Comments (0)

From Reuters:

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Google Inc. (NasdaqGS:GOOG - News) has emerged along with Microsoft Corp. (NasdaqGS:MSFT - News) as a contender to buy DoubleClick Inc., presenting competition that stands to increase the final sale price of the online-advertising company, people familiar with the situation said in The Wall Street Journal.

Posted on April 2, 2007 03:24 AM | Link: Google interested in DoubleClick purchase | Comments (1)

We are seeing much lower eCPMs on our main site this month from AdSense - historically low - and this is usually our best month of the year. This morning we are finally trying something different - I gave a portion of the site inventory to the Yahoo! Publisher Network. I guess we have to give it a few days according to them to see relevant ads. I will post an update when we have some more information.

Posted on January 25, 2007 05:07 AM | Link: Yahoo! Publisher Network | Comments (0)