PDA

View Full Version : [ARTICLE] What Ad Type is right for you?



mclarke1987
07 May 2009, 05:57 AM
This article is going to cover various types of ads, not all of them but the 3 main types currently used on the internet. It will help aid you in making the decision as to which will produce you the most revenue. These don’t need to be used individually and can be combined; it all depends on your website as to what method is most profitable, these are just guidelines.

First I would like to cover Adsense, they offer a few different styles and some customization; so you can make it fit your colour scheme; its ran by one of if not the most successful internet company in the world so you know you’ll get paid. However, these types of ad’s take up space on your site; this space could be used for more content of your own. The big decision is how much space do you have spare. If your site is built up of allot of pages but all of them containing very little content then Adsense will be a good option for you. It’ll utilize the empty space and produce some revenue.

Now we’ll take a brief look at in text advertising, this is by means of hyperlinks that when the mouse hovers produce the ad, Again there are several types, text, image or video. This type of advertising suits very content heavy websites, blogs, forums or tutorial sites. This is because it doesn’t take up much space on the page but it’s their to produce revenue if the users decide to make use of it. The current market leaders pay the same as most Adsense ads so you’re not really comprising on price per click.

The final option I want to look at is sold space. This is when you sell space for a link, banner or vide to another company/group. They pay on a variety of methods whether its impressions, clicks, sales generated from clicks or timeframe. Some offer “affiliation” which means you get paid based on the revenue they generate through you. Each have different benefits but you’re likely to make more money using this method provided its related to your site.

Ok so now which is best for you? It all depends, we’ve covered where each may “slot in” to the design, but what would your users prefer? You don’t want to risk losing to many users because of ads, and it’s a big incentive for people to stop using the site as they can get annoying. So how do you find out? You could always just ask, send them out an email explaining you wish to start making some money from the site to cover your expenses, which method would they find less intrusive. That would make your decision for you.

You can decide which is a good fit just by running each method for a set period of time and watching your web stats and the income generated, this is a good hands on way of finding out, it will take a little time to produce accurate stats but at the same time your earning a little something during this phase.

The key element I want to really point out is that you should never put your ads above your users, Just because you want to make some money doesn’t mean you can afford to lose your visitors, These are the people that produce your revenue & should come above all else.