Comments on: Why Faceless Untargeted Ads Will Exist For a Long Time

By: Nicole

Nicole — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 15:50:43 +0000

I had to kick adsense off my Site (am still working to get it off all my webpages), because I’m siting right now in Hungary. They don’t like ME countries. I gave my address in Germany, but need to verify a bunch of stuff.
So I said, screw it and they are off.
I’m advertising my own shop now and a few ads by Project wonderful. Small nickles and dimes still, but mainly fellow artists that end up there. Fine with me.
I didn’t like the themes that popped up with adsense anyway.
Amazon seems to be a “be lucky or not”. Sometimes it works a bunch and then nothing for weeks.
It’s off now as well ;)
I’ll follow your tips and see what you come up with.
But let me tell you, it sucks not to be in the US for this business ;)

By: Why Faceless Untargeted Ads Will Exist For a Long Time | Brass Blogs Web Design

Wed, 03 Dec 2008 01:17:38 +0000

[...] Why Faceless Untargeted Ads Will Exist For a Long Time November30 As I explore the different ways people make money from the web, it’s interesting to see what works and what doesn’t. I’m on the advisory board of Izea for the same reason. I want to better understand this. I follow Angel Djambazov’s work on Revenews for the same reason. I learn from smart people like Jim Kukral, Darren Rowse, and by going to shows like the Affiliate Summit. read more » [...]

By: Russell Tripp

Russell Tripp — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 06:16:57 +0000

When you pick things you think people who read your blog might like, you’re adding an element that has a built-in bias – you. No matter how objective you try to be, you never can be totally objective in determining the most appropriate ad targets for your audience – the total of all of your experience is going to color the results. Compare that to an algorithm that is programmed to pick ads based on content and you’ll see why the “faceless” ads will usually win. Not saying that it will always happen, just that it is the most likely outcome.

By: LisaNewton

LisaNewton — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:29:09 +0000

I’ve never used Google ads for the simple fact that I knew the ads would be for some products I wouldn’t endorse.

I know it’s not the same for everyone, but my interest is in helping people achieve a healthy lifestyle with small steps, not quick fixes, bogus products, and magic bullets, so I choose not to run them.

By: chrisbrogan

chrisbrogan — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 15:03:15 +0000

@Dan Thornton- well, good point, but I can’t exactly *tune* AdSense, right? That’s my point there.

By: Danny Brown

Danny Brown — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 12:41:38 +0000

Although I have 4 advertising spaces on my blog, at the moment I don’t use them for “proper” advertising – they
are more for charitable causes or where my blog is listed (Alltop badge, for instance).

I think if I did go down the advertising road, it would most definitely only be for something that I feel would benefit my readers. After all, they trust me for my opinions on my niche or they wouldn’t visit/subscribe in the first place – and that trust is something I most definitely appreciate and wouldn’t want to break.

By: Dan Thornton

Dan Thornton — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 10:45:46 +0000

There is one thing that’s slightly misleading with this post – presenting Adsense as untargeted.

Yes, it’s done by keywords, and can vary wildly from appropriate to completely random, but it is attempting to target appropriate content, no matter how badly.

If you ran Adsense, hand-picked advertising, and a generic lifestyle brand and compared the three it would be interesting, and might be a better guide…at the moment it’s a bit apples and oranges, although for the record, my own stats are in total alignment, although the numbers are smaller!

By: Joanna Young

Joanna Young — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 07:50:30 +0000

Thanks for sharing some of the results and reflections Chris. I find all of this area a mystery so it’s good to learn from the efforts of others!

One thing – as an RSS reader I do sometimes find it visually distracting to see the ads at the top – I sometimes start reading the ad works by mistake, or get confused as to what I’m looking at. I think maybe this is worse if there’s a photo near the top too.

I would much prefer you put them at the bottom (so I could ignore them!) but maybe that reduces your income. I know it has affected my reading though, and means I’m skimming over more of your posts than I used to in order to avoid the visual clutter.

By: Dragos Roua

Dragos Roua — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:36:36 +0000

Making money with anything, not just a blog, is a matter of providing value to people who need it. The ways are endless. AdSense is just one of them. Amazon is another.

What really matters is to focus on your value not on the ways. I used AdSense and other advertising strategies. Some of them are better than others but none of them is totally tied up to your needs. There will always be gaps between what you know you can make and what they’ll give you, because they have to satisfy an enormous potential market. The highest advertising value you can get is the lowest common denominator of the sites in which it runs.

By: Shawn Collins

Shawn Collins — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 04:21:16 +0000

Hey Chris -

Did you rotate the AdSense and Amazon ads in the same spot at the same time?

I’m not sure where all of your ad placements are located, but I see the FreshBooks ad goes direct to the program and not through an ad server.

If you’re not using one, I’d highly recommend the hosted version of OpenX: http://www.openx.org/ad-server/get-openx-hosted

They provide lots of analytics to look deeper into which ad placements are working for your audience.