Darren Rowse asked the other day Is AdSense Dead? And I think that answer is a resounding No!.
But there are other options that I’ve found to be more profitable…
AdSense is a great tool. Sure, it’s one that is overused by many bloggers, but AdSense has been and continues to be a reliable source of income for us here at BlogMedia.
But AdSense is really just the tip of the iceburg, as Darren hints in his blog.
AdSense has been a part of our advertising strategy at The Blog Herald from the very beginning. We’ve used AdSense in a variety of formats here at The Blog Herald – including horizontal banners and skyscapers, vertical banners and skyscrapers, and the medium rectangle. All with varying degrees of success. It has provided a steady income but not nearly as much as other sources of income for us.
Text Link Ads has also grown to be a strong source of income for us. On a high traffic / high pagerank blog like The Blog Herald, these have outgrown Google AdSense in terms of an income provider. It’s the single largest earner across our network other than private ad sales, which I’ll talk about a bit later on in this article.
BlogAds still accounts for an occasional sale, but doesn’t really provide too much income for us overall.
Feedburner has done well for us in terms of both site & feed ad sales. I can’t complain about their ad team who continue to drive strong CPM earners onto our sites and feeds. And our earnings from this program continue to increase month over month.
Amazon Associates has also become a strong earner for us. Granted, their payouts are relatively small – but they add up quickly over time. Highly recommended for gadget sites and related topics where potential purchases are high.
The real winner though continues to be private ad sales. Even though we lack a fulltime head of sales at BlogMedia, our single largest point of income (other than consulting) is private ad sales. Sales to groups like BetUS dwarf our earnings from AdSense or other tools. And, our buyers keep coming back month over month – so it’s clear that this is a value proposition that works and works well.
So, is AdSense dead? Absolutely not!
But there are other options…
Photo courtesy of inju (flickr)
