Pay-Per-Click or PPC in short, is an effective marketing scheme for the Internet. If you have a personal blog/site that attracts moderate to high traffic, and you want to generate some revenue from it then PPC is a very good option for you. There are many companies, including the major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! etc. that offer PPC ad-serving applications for webmasters and publishers. After registering with the company, all you have to do is put some JavaScript code or HTML in your pages and activate the advertisement. The company tracks how many times the ads have been viewed and clicked and makes your payment at the end of the month.
In this article we will take a look at some PPC ad serving applications and try to help you decide which one could be the best option for you.
Google Adsense
Google AdSense is the current leader in content-sensitive web-based marketing. Webmasters can place Google AdSense JavaScript code on their web pages in order to allow Google’s servers to show context sensitive advertisements (Google Adwords). Google uses their search engine ranking technology to decide what ads to show on your site, and on specific pages on your site. On a post about photography on your site, for example, Google might show ads for digital cameras. This type of targeting is very effective and results in good click-through rates in most circumstances. How much you can make with Google Adsense depends entirely upon the niche of your website. The more competitive is your niche, the higher the CPM. However, many web publishers have complained about Google’s terms and conditions of being too restrictive. As a Web site owner participating in AdSense, you are fully prevented from knowing which ads were clicked and how much each click brings to you. They have $100 payout policy, which means you’ll receive their payment only after the your revenue exceeds $100. Many publishers have found their Adsense account suspended by Google out of the blue, for reasons beyond their control. In spite all of these, for relative ease in use and targeting strategy, Adsense is the pioneer in PPC ad serving area.
If you have a WordPress blog then you can use the Simple Adsense Integration plugin that will make your ad management a little bit easier on your blog.
Microsoft PubCenter
Microsoft PubCenter is Microsoft’s answer to Google’s AdSense and Yahoo’s Publisher Network. I have heard that some users of PubCenter are receiving three times more in revenue from Microsoft than Google AdSense. PubCenter also allows the publishers to be able to set background images for ads.
Chitika
Chitika has an innovative ad serving application name ‘eMinimalls’, something they refer to as ‘impulse merchandising technique’. How it works? Let’s say you have written a review for a new digital camera in your blog. Chitika ad widgets will display ‘interactive’ ad boxes, showing links for this camera and other competitor cameras. If people purchase these cameras you get a paid a commission. It also allows you to display targeted products based on what people searched for to get to your page and you get paid for clicks. You are paid 60% of ad revenue generated. Payment is made to your PayPal account once the balance reaches $50.
Choosing a well established ‘Pay-Per-Click’ platform is a vital step in monetizing your website. PPC allows you to monetize your website by your customers clicking on ads.
BidVertiser
BidVertiser is a well known ‘Pay-Per-Click’ platform that has been operating since 2008. BidVertiser promote themselves for being on time with payments and allowing the website owner to optimize their traffic accordingly. BidVertiser offer pre-screened traffic sources to help you begin to monetize your website.
Revenue Hits
Revenue Hits is an ad platform that displays the most relevant campaigns to your customers. Revenue hits offers a variety of different ad options that allow you to choose where and what the ad looks like on your website. Currently this platform offers: CPA, CPI, CPL and CPM pricing models.
Propeller Ads
Propeller Ads offer a quick and easy sign up process that allows you access to their ad platform within just a few minutes. Their ads can be viewed on all screen sizes allowing you to earn a high overall revenue. Using Propeller Ads, the campaign with the high eCPM value is displayed on your website first.
Info Links
Info Links is a Pay-Per-Click platform that delivers intent driven ads to your customers. Info Links is the sixth largest advertising network worldwide and gives you control of the ads you wish to show. Info Links displays ads that are not invasive to your customers while still achieving a 90% view-ability rate.
AdNow
AdNow is the perfect PPC platform for medium traffic blogs or websites. AdNow provide you with support and advice on how to further monetize your website using their platform. This PPC platform guarantees no viruses or malware, local language support and a five minute setup which once complete you can begin to earn money in seven days.
Old Pay Per Click Ad Networks
The following ad networks no longer work.
Yahoo Publisher Network(YPN)
Yahoo!, in an attempt to catch up with its rival Google, has stepped into the contextual ad serving game with Yahoo Publisher Network. As of this writing, it’s in beta phase and only available to US-based sites. The best thing that can be said about YPN is that it allows other Yahoo! services to be integrated into your web site, including Add to My Yahoo! (RSS), Y!Q etc. They are as strict with terms and conditions as Adsense and very selective about who they accept to use the service.
AdBrite
Adbrite got acquired by sitescout.com.
AdBrite is considered one of the best alternative to Google Adsense. They offer most commonly use ad formats, including interstitial full page ads which offer an excellent way to monetize all your incoming traffic, not just traffic that clicks on your ads. Through a small snippet of HTML placed on your site, they handle serving, scheduling, billing, customer service, and sales. Their payouts are smaller($20) and revenue is typically split 75/25 in your favor. They have more relaxed terms and conditions than Adsense and are much more accepting of smaller publishers including bloggers. The weakness of AdBrite is it’s lack of variety in the ad formats offered.
Clicksor
Clicksor provides excellent context sensitive ad serving similar to Adsense, plus you have option to put in some keywords yourself. They have payouts upto a market leading 85% and unlike a number of alternatives the cost per click bid values are high enough that you can earn a decent income. They also allow you to add as many sites / domains as you want under a single account. In any pay period in which your earnings exceed $50($20.00 with PayPal), payments are made either by check or instantly through PayPal. Revenue totaling less than the minimum will be rolled into the next period.
Bidvertiser
The coolest thing about Bidvertiser, another contextual ad server, is that they let you design their ad formats. They offer a simple point-and-click tool to help you customize the layout of the ads to fit your site’s look and feel, in order to retain the quality of your website. It pays you either in $25.00 increments by check or $10.00 increments by PayPal. However, the ad pool seems a little limited and it can be picky with who they accept into its program.
WidgetBucks
WidgetBucks claim to be the Internet’s fastest growing ad network. Widgetbucks allows you to insert ‘dynamic’ ads that cycle through a handful of products in real-time. One thing to keep in mind is that the ads are very colorful so if you are looking for something that blends in with you site then Widgetbucks is probably not your best bet. WidgetBucks performs very good on a product review site.
AdToll
AdToll pays on CPC(Cost-per-Click) basis. It has introduced the innovative ‘Peel Away Ad’ technology that shows a peel on the top right hand side of a page. When the mouse moves over the peel it opens smoothly to reveal the advert within. This new ad format allows you to make use of the lesser used, yet highly visible top corners of websites, saving valuable space in the content area. Also it is very non intrusive to the visitor and most likely to draw her curious clicks! AdToll likes to boast their 75% payout, which is indeed more than the majority of ad networks pay. Payments are made via cheque, paypal, wire/bank transfer or to your AdToll Account Credit if you are also an advertiser. Cheques require a minimum of $40 in earnings, $20 for PayPal and $1,000 for wire transfers. Payments to your AdToll Account Credit have no minimum.
ExitJunction
ExitJunction offers a unique approach to advertising. They focus on showing ads to users as they leave your site rather than as they arrive. By adding a small piece of their code to the header section of your site, visitors are shown an ad as they hit the back button. If someone came to your site from a Google search and then immediately hit the back button to return, she would be shown an Exit Junction Ad in between your page and the Google search page, and you get paid for this impression. The ad is directly targeted to the search term that brought the visitor to your site in the first place. It’s an ideal way of complimenting your existing ad services and increasing your revenue without having to switch from your current ad provider. Also they cover all countries so you get paid for all traffic exiting you site regardless of its origin. They offer fee free payout via Check or PayPal with earnings of as little as $25 on a monthly basis.
ClickThruTraffic
Not the best option, but if nobody else picks your site, you can always rely on ClickThruTraffic. They claim to pay 6 to 20 cents each time a surfer clicks on the ad on your site. They offer textual links, buttons and banners.
There you go. We have covered 10 PPC ad serving options, from the big players to small timers. If you have any other suggestions, feel free to share in the comments section.
great informations, thanks a lot, I have never heard about Microsoft PubCenter. you can also add about affinity, Bidvertiser. And one more thing, Yahoo Publisher Network is no more available, yahoo & bing combines and launch media.net, which is a very good alternative/rival of google adsense.
Advertisement list program you have shared is awesome. Google AdSense is really a great program to earn revenue by placing relevant advertisementson your website.
Well researched reviews. Thanks. Very helpful.
As I market to the internet marketing community, I was losing a lot of potential as Google don’t allow display of ads via traffic exchanges so I tried clicksor.
Easy enough to setup and all seemed fine but I just got a virus warning from Norton which could only have come from the clicksor ad. Really not good as a visitor wouldn’t know and would think it was MY site trying to plant a virus. Also, it requires Java to run ads, which some people don’t have installed, producing annoying requests.
Lastly, if the graphic ads can try to plant a virus, it may also be placing cookies, which, for UK, is now illegal without permission.
Don’t think clicksor themselves are doing wrong, just need to keep a tighter control on what ads they accept.
Meantime, very pleased to have found this page so I can try out some other alternatives.
Thanks again
Andy
Great list of ads that can be put on your site. I’ve been using Adsense for most part and it works for me. I’ve had no need to look into the other as yet, if I do, then this list has been most helpful. It’s nice to know that there are alternatives out there to Adsense.
This is a great list of resources for anyone looking to earn some revenue from their site. However, it is important to note that serving ads on a website or blog reduces the overall experience of the user if the ads are distracting or obtrusive. Hence it is important to note and integrate the ads into the design of the site before building it. Thanks for the great list!
Hey im new here.
Nice to meet everyone!
Hope you all have a good day
It’s really hard to even put another PPC network in the same league as Adsense. I’ve tried networks like Bidvertiser and Adbrite and they only earned like 1% of what I was generating from Adsense
Thanks. My much appreciation goes beyond writing. This article is am eye opener to me about many ad programs that the internet offers.
Google adsense so far is providing extra income and I can say that it works really fine for my website, I also included chitika because these two can work with one website which can provide more income for us. I highly recommend these two PPC ads to other web owners.
I was desperately in the need of this type of information about advertising. Thanks for the nice content about PPC Ad.
Great info. I never heard of MicrosoftPub Centres high payment. Well researched information. i will give a try. Thanks for sharing these.
Thanks for sharing this. Good post with good info. appreciate it
Digged this
Thanks for the tips, more power!
One thing I forgot to mention but People who use Google Adsense to make money, also have to think about layout of google adsense. When i started adsense, it was not making much money. But I change it’s style and layout in my post. Now I am very happy with it.
It’s like my extra job.
I think Google adsense is best for PPC and making money. But I am always confuse how do they calculate money per click or per visit or traffic? I know click is the most money making but I have heard that traffic also counts with google.
Microsoft PubCenter Beta for US only.. but thanks for the list.. great job pal..
Thanks for the tips, i actually searching this..
hope i can use one these ads.
more power!
hi dear! i see that all advertising programm work all just the best one is adsense. I love to work on it just the problem is i cant get paid due to my country is just coming from war anyway we are just on one step to the modern time. Of course, i could earn a bit big from adsense. the problem is i cant cash out; So if somebody could help me to earn by percent from your adsense, i am please to include your ads in my site and you can pay me by paypal or other means which could benifit both you and me.
Hope i will be get best reply.
Great post you included several programmes that I have not heard of. Nice to know that there are several options available.
Thanks for this wonderful post.
I am only using Google Adsense for my web and because my site is for the user of one specific country so the earnings are not relatively high.
I think I need to setup another profitable Niche :S
Thanks for this information, you have given me more choices besides adsense, and I have tried some of the ads here, I will try the rest of them. It’s not always easy to get income from PPC ads, I found that the key to get good income from PCC are traffic and good placement of ads. Now I’m trying to generate my traffic, I hope my income from PPC will increase too 🙂
Thanks for this tip. I didn’t realize there were so many other options to AdSense. I also didn’t know AdToll had a 75% payout! I’ll definitely look to using them in the future.
thank you very much for this helpful article. I intend to setup three blogs early this year..different niches of course..
I would use Facebook advertising, it’s very affordable and you can really target your visitors. Besides FB, I think the next best places to advertisers are Google and MSN.
Nice list of networks but i am unable to open ClickThruTraffic , whenever i visit it , it just keeps on redirecting me
I am searching PPC that pay using paypal, and I found you.
Thank U for very usefull information.
Adsense is the way for me, if you choose the keywords you are targeting correctly then you can avoid the 5 cent clicks, my minimum clicks are around 25 cents.
infoadsense.com/context_sensitive_targeting.html
In this website I have told exactly how to add HTML syntax in your website for context sensitive targeting.
Thanks for the list. I am already checking exitjunction. Seems like a great addition to the usual revenue.
About the adsense: there is a small problem with their cookies based add targeting. What I mean is that the value per click decreased almost 35% but the click through rate only grew 10-15% after April when they started considering the cookies.
What I hate most about them is that there is 0% transparency 🙁
Hope there is at least one ad network ready and willing to step-up.
Thanks again for the list
I’m currently using both Google Adwords and Microsoft PubCenter and finding traffic from Microsoft PubCenter converts better.
thanks bro
good article thanks
Thanks for this nice article rounding up all the contextual ad services. I am liking the Microsoft’s PubCenter.
Thanks so much for the info. I’m trying to find ways to advertise on a budget that Google is not supporting. AdToll and Exit Junction look very interesting.
I love this blog, btw. Found it searching for wordpress “stuff” and now check my tweets for updates!
Thanks again,
Kim