Adsense is definitely the most popular way that people make money from their blogs. Not only because it’s from Google, but also because Adsense has a large network of advertisers who choose to advertise on it. However, after recently viewing several of my friends blogs, I was thinking – Is Adsense the only profitable way to monetize your blog? Most of the blogs I visited only display ads from Adsense and none of them used the other advertising platform such as Adbrite, Chitika or Bidvertiser. Are those advertising platforms dead? Or are they out of favour? In this post, I’ll give examples of another income streams you should consider, especially if you have been banned from using Adsense. I’ll also discuss Adbrite and the differences between Adsense and Adbrite.
Adsense vs Adbrite
As you surf the web and notice the forms of advertising that appear on blogs, forums and Internet Marketing sites, you will see that Adsense is still the strong favourite. That’s understandable since Adsense has been around the longest. It has a largest network of publishers and advertisers who mostly arrive from Adwords, the world’s largest advertising platform. Other options such as BuySellAds are only available to sites with at least 100k impressions per month.
Adsense is extremely easy to use and trustworthy because it is backed by Google. But Adsense does have some downsides. You can place only three ad blocks per page, which can severely limit your overall impressions for any one page (especially for long posts). You can also only get your checks mailed in $150 chunks. These are definitely disadvantages for small site owners who might be running their blog for years before they can cash out! I have some friends who are still waiting for that first check from Google.
Additionally, impressions are meaningless as all ads are based on CPC impressions. That means they won’t generate any revenue for you if the ads are not clicked by your readers.
Moving on to Adbrite, the smaller company with a decent reputation. Adbrite has a lot of advertising options for you to choose from such as different ad formats, including CPM and CPC. You can also select inline text ads as well as full page ads. The biggest advantage that Adbrite has over Adsense is you can withdraw the money at lower cashout limits so you won’t need to wait for months before you can cash your first check.
The is no information that will show you how much each ad network will make for you and which one you should choose. For the most part, the context analysis of these ad networks is good which should increase the click through rate. They will never fail in providing ads which relate to your content, thus giving your readers with something interesting to click on.
Conclusion
After researching the differences between Adsense and Adbrite, clearly there’s not much evidence to show which ad platform can make you more money than the other. So don’t just limit yourself to using one ad platform on your blog. Try diversifying the income stream and test out to see which ad platform performs better for you.
What I feel is the major downside of placing any ads on your site is that the ads will take readers AWAY from your site. You should consider not chasing the pennies from these advertising platforms and focus more on affiliate sales. Just one $97 sale at 30% commission will earn you $29.10. To earn the same amount with Adsense will require a lot of clicks, but you could be making many affiliate sales per day if you have good content and do it right.
By Karl Hadwen
Hey Kirk,
I’ve used both and on my niche blogs I find that Adsense works better. I tried Adbrite but it just isn’t worth the effort, it just seems that the small earnings from Adbrite are useless. For personal blogs I think product recommendations are great for making money. Just look at Pat from Smart Passive Income, last month he made an astonishing $11,914.30! — Crazy money, well deserved though! — Pat recommends products that he personally uses, and I can vouch and say that the products that he recommends are truly awesome! — So to conclude, there’s a lot of ways to make money from a blog, don’t put all your eggs in the same basket
Regards
Karl
By Kirk Maxi
Hi Karl, I’m glad that Adsense is working for you. What I meant when I wrote this article is to encourage people to test the different ad platforms, extend their ad choices instead of sticking with just one. Also to talk about another popular ad platform, which is Adbrite.
Pat from Smart Passive Income is brilliant. Everyone should have a read through his posts and also view his monthly earnings. Thanks again, Karl.
By Kharim
I have only used Google Adsense and I have gotten one check from them, it’s pretty cool. I never used AdBrite.
By Kirk Maxi
Good work Kharim. Congratulations.
By Aj
I think you will find much better success using affiliate programs related to your blog’s niche. One adsense click may generate 10 cents, so 100 clicks is only $10. On the other hand an affiliate program may pay you $50 per sale and for every 100-200 clicks you may generate one sale.
By Kirk Maxi
I agree AJ, and I also prefer affiliate sales. But note that some other bloggers might be in a niche where affiliate sales are not so easy… so just slapping on a few Adsense blocks is the easiest way for them to make a few dollars.
By Aj
Click fraud… that sucks. That happend to me one time and took me almost 1 month to get my adsense back up and running.
I see where you are going…I think where I failed to explain was that adsense isn’t necessarily bad. It is adsense abuse that is bad. You know, like people that exchange their navigation bar for one of those link ads. Or people that put the huge 300×300 text ads at the top of the posts so you have no idea where the content starts.
My main issue is that about 90% of people that use adsense try and trick their visitors into clicking them. Which in my mind is a horrible way of retaining loyal visitors.
However, if your blog is already established with a good reader base then you are right. they probably will not mind – and may even click on them for you
By Aj
Big $$ are in affiliate programs. My website is about 5 months old and making around $2,800/month. Not bad for my first site
By Kirk Maxi
That is awesome for a 5 month old website. I think I should interview you about your blog.
By Suresh Khanal
2800$/month for a 5 months blog is a huge success man! You rock. Would love to hear some tips from you!
By Aj
Well, my site isn’t really a blog – that is the difference (blogs are harder to make profitable – after 1 month I gave up
). I am not a big fan of interviews. My website is more like a hobby since I have a full time job. I do enjoy commenting on other blogs but not a big fan of so much PR.
By Daniel Sharkov
I’m currently using Google’s AdSense and I have to say that this method of blog monetization is not of the most effective out there. As I see things Adbrite won’t be much different than Adsense – I’ve tried it out once and it is pretty much the same thing.
By Kirk Maxi
That’s right Daniel. The big $$$ is in affiliate marketing.
By Harsh Agrawal
I used to use Adbrite when adsense was not in the list of my accounts… But as soon as I had approved adsense, I moved to adsense and removed adbrite..I have not tested both of them recently but from the past experience all I can say is adsense is undoubtedly clear winner….
By Suresh Khanal
The most profitable way to monitize will always remain direct selling as long as you can get it. Otherwise becauuse Google has the largest network of advertisers, adsense will be the best opportunity to publishers. But still, there is no harm in testing different other services as well. Yes, Chitika is emmerging lucretive but it is not accepting new registrations for our part of world.
By Praveen
Try Clicksor with infolinks, a good combination.
By Jeff
I heard the Using Adbrite can hurt your SEO somehow is that true?
By Kirk Maxi
Haha, if that was true then Adbrite would have gone out of business by now. It’s not the truth at all. In fact, every ad company like Adbrite will put a nofollow attribute to their links so it won’t affect SEO at all.
By Maria Pavel
It’s really nice to see you in good shape, writing excellent articles as always. I’m really looking forward to trying AdBrite, I’ve heard some good rumours and opinions about them and I guess it’s time to find out what’s up with them. Keep up the good work and thank you for sharing this excellent article!
Best regards,
Maria
By v1dz
Thanks for the article, i was looking out for something similar, moreover i wanted to know which ad network other than Adsense is great.
Since your post is showing a heavy comparison with Adbrite, i take it that other than Bidvertiser or Chitika, Adbrite must be good.
Since you can really use Adsense and Adbrite together why should we have a dogfight amongst them.
I guess Adsense’s T&C allows us to use together.
I might try that out.
By Kirk Maxi
Chitika and Bidvertiser is also good. I have seen a friend of mine earn approximately $100 – $200 a month with both advertising networks. However, Adsense has more advertisers with good content so that captures more clicks than other ad networks.
You still should try other ad networks, as well as ad forms and the ad position. That will help you gain more experience in PPC and discover which ad network will earn more.
By James
I got my adsense account banned and i am seriously looking for alternatives.
By Michael
Adsense is a good source of income for most bloggers. However, there are some bloggers I know felt disappointed with it because their accounts were banned without them knowing the reason behind it. Luckily, there are some alternatives available like adbrite.
By Terrel Smith
I believe in the idea of “different strokes for different folks”. Clearly, Adsense is not the only way to make money on the net. But if it works for you, why not stick to it? And since there are other ways, it is also healthy to try other options. I guess there will be more options available in the near future. We all just have to wait. Nice post, Kirk!
By Naeem
awesome comments i think adsense good for online earning if you use high paying keywords