Back in April, I posted a review of several different monetisation techniques I’d tried in the hopes of breaking even on my hosting fees. Blogging Tools 2: Experiments in Monetisation was one of my most successful posts and still gets hits, so I thought I would write an update to it, as I had only just started seriously using ads at the time, and my feelings about some of the services I reviewed have changed a little with experience.
First of all however, you may have noticed the new BlogHerAds tower in the right-hand column. I’ve only just started using them, but so far I am exceedingly impressed. In fact, I earn more overnight with BlogHerAds when I’ve made a good post that day than I do in a month with some of the other services I’ve been using.
So, here’s my review of BlogHerAds so far, in the style of the previous article, as well as some updates regarding the other services I’ve been using.
Similar to Adsense in that you can choose the ad size, however the first ad has to be placed at the top of the site and has branding and headlines attached. Supplementary ads can also be placed elsewhere on the site, and earnings are calculated by page impressions.
Pros:A constant stream of revenue as opposed to relying on click-throughs, good choice of ad sizes and probably the highest-earning ads I’ve used yet. Excellent, friendly customer service when they didn’t receive my contract (bloody postal strikes!) and I had to re-send it.
Cons: There are a lot more regulations than some of the other ad servers, so these must be carefully studied before placing the ads to ensure you don’t break the rules! Also, they can be a bit of a pain to set up, as papers must be printed, signed and then scanned and emailed or posted in, however their customer service is first-rate so any problems are sorted out quickly and efficiently.
You don’t have to be a woman to show BlogHer Ads, and I’d recommend them to any blogger hoping to make back their hosting!
By the time you read this I will probably have removed Adgitize ads from my the site. Earnings are about a quarter of what they were when I first started using them, and it appears the only way to earn reasonable amounts from these is to spend a significant amount of time clicking on other users’ ads – time I, unfortunately, don’t really have.
This is another service that hasn’t been a very high earner for me. I’m wondering if it would improve if I set a minimum price for ads, but to be honest I think that may deter people from purchasing them altogether. For the purposes of experimenting however, I have cancelled all current bids on my ad boxes and set a minimum price of $0.01. I’ll let you know what happens.
Advertising on other peoples’ blogs using Project Wonderful however, seems to be quite good. Depending on where other users have their ads placed, I have seen an increase in hits when my ad is on their site.
Every time I consider removing Adsense ads altogether, a little money trickles in and I persevere with them. I don’t think I’m using them as well as I could be, but all-in-all, I think Adsense is a better option for higher-traffic sites than mine.
This one’s still paying out at £5 a month and I would recommend them as perhaps the perfect ad solution for lower-traffic blogs.
I hope this post is useful to people, and if you have any other tips for generating a little cash from your blog to pay for your hosting, please share them here! Equally if you’ve had a different experience with any of the services I’ve tried, I would love to compare notes.
That’s a really useful post! I’ll have to look at BlogHer more closely I think.
I found with Project Wonderful it took a while for the average price on my boxes to rise as more and more people bid for them, but now I’m making around $15 a month, not masses, but a nice little bit to help cover hosting fees.
I’ve also found Google Adsense more effective with image ads rather than text units.