How many of you have Adsense ads on your site?

You know, those little ads you proudly display, hoping to earn an amazing $0.04 each time someone clicks on them…

What a joke. Granted, when Google first came out with adsense, it was a great idea. The payouts were high (I used to get over $2 per click in some niche markets). The click through rates were high because novice web users didn’t know they were ads. Many website owners got rich, and Google’s success stories flooded the media.

Then reality set in. Advertisers started paying attention to the lack of ROI they were getting. Click fraud started taking over and advertisers were getting fed up.

They dropped their bid prices as a result. This began hurting Google’s pocket, so Google reduced the percentage split they were paying to their publishers like us (just my theory, no actual proof on this, but it makes sense).

The result: A couple years later Google has millions, maybe billions of websites serving their ads for them and they can hand out a few pennies per click and get away with it because of their saturation.

It was a brilliant plan on Google’s part. They used the power of first mover’s advantage and took over the market of contextual ads. Other companies tried to get a piece of the action, but it was too late. Change is difficult for many people, so removing the adsense ads and trying a new company is just too much work for most people, so they settle for whatever money Google wants to throw their way.

Publishers like us are now feeling the pain. The websites we put so much effort into are now earning $20 a day from adsense, down from the $200 a day they used to make.

But don’t worry, I have a solution that works like pure magic. I’ve been secretly using it for months, and now I’m going to share it with you. Can you keep a secret?

Ok, here it is…

As you probably know by now, I’m not a huge fan of using advertising as a monetization model because of what I just explained above. But, if your site DOES depend on advertising to make money, especially via adsense or Yahoo Publisher’s Network, here’s something you need to test (here are some action items you can put into use immediately).

Selling advertising can be tough sometimes, well at least it used to be. This is a super sneaky way of finding an unlimited number of advertisers for your website.

  • Step 1 - Put Google Adsense on your website.
  • Step 2 - Wait.
  • Step 3 - Write down every URL of the advertisers that shows up on your site (you can usually keep hitting refresh on your page to get new ones)
  • Step 4 - Contact these websites and sell them direct ads instead.

Here’s why this method works.

Website owners want to get the most bang for their buck. When they advertise through Google, they are paying both Google and you to display their ads on your site. Why not cut out the middle man? This also works with Yahoo Publishers Network or any other contextual ad program.

Here’s an email I use to convince website owners on the idea…

Hi (name of contact person I find on website),

I see you were placing Google ads on our website www.mywebsite.com. I hope you were having great success with these ads.
The reason why I’m writing is to let you know we are in the process of removing the Google ads from our site. We’ve had websites contact us asking if they could put an “adsense like” ad on our site directly rather than going through Google. It makes sense considering Google takes their cut of your advertising dollars, which is an extra cost for you.

So, aside from getting the same high quality traffic from our site that you are getting now, you would be able to write better ads (not limited to whatever number of characters Google limits you to). Plus you get the search engine optimization benefits of have a direct text link. In other words, you get three times the value you are getting now, for probably less than you are currently paying Google.

Anyway, we’ll be pulling off the adsense ads shortly, so I wanted to touch base to see if you wanted to continue advertising with us. We are limiting the number of advertisers we can accept because we will be displaying the ads in premium locations on our site, and obviously there’s only so much room available.

Let me know either way if you would like to stay on our site. The spots are available on a first come, first served basis.

Thanks for your time and wishing you success with your business.

Yourname

When they write you back asking what your rates are, you can give them a breakdown of different options. For example, you can write a paid review of their site which will give them a permanent link from your site. You can offer a monthly “inline” text link that is part of your website’s content and doesn’t look like an ad or a paid link. Or you can setup a Sponsored Links section very similar to the google ads they were using on your site previously.

So how do you determine how much to charge for advertising? Easy, just look at your adsense account and view the report from the last full month of earnings.

Let’s say you made $202 last month from adsense by selling 3366 clicks @ $0.06 per click. This means you need to make at least $200 to “break even”.

In this case, I’d try to sell the private ads for $40 per month. Getting 15 advertisers to take you up on the offer is fairly reasonable, which will triple your income compared to what you were making from adsense (15 x $40 = $600).

Think $40 per month is too high? Let’s see how much that comes out to for the advertiser.

Assuming the number of clicks is the same, take the 3366 clicks you got last month and divide it by 15 advertisers. Each advertiser would get about 224 clicks each give or take. $40 divided by 224 is about $0.18 per click.

But wait, $0.18 per click is more than $0.06, so it would cost more to the advertiser, right?

Wrong. The $0.06 per click was YOUR CUT of the income the advertiser was paying. The advertiser paid google much more, exactly how much more nobody knows. Some say Google keeps 50%, others say they keep 25%, I’m guessing it’s probably around 70% to keep their shareholders happy.

That means the advertisers are paying google about $0.20 per click and you are getting $0.06 of that.

So, by having 15 websites pay you direct for ads, you will triple your income, your advertisers will save an average of $0.02 per click PLUS get a static text link AND more flexibility with their advertising message. Looks like a win-win to me…

As long as your site gets reasonable traffic for your niche market, this should be an easy sell. You may have to provide some traffic stats to the advertiser to convince them to go direct with you.

If you know your site gets weak traffic and the click volume to the advertiser is going to be low, then be reasonable with the pricing. Provide value to the advertiser and you will have a customer for life. Then you have a guaranteed income each month, no matter what kind of changes Google makes with their adsense program in the future.

Oh, and an even more important benefit of having direct advertisers vs an adsense site is when you try to sell your site (you are planning to sell aren’t you?).

What sounds better to a potential buyer?

a) We have a strong relationship with advertisers who pay us $600 each month consistently,

or

b) We have adsense ads on our site, which make anywhere between $90 and $250 each month, depending on the mood of Google.

Makes sense?

Let me save some time for the skeptics and critics real quick. I’m sure someone will say “Doesn’t this violate Google’s terms of service?”

I have no idea. I haven’t had my attorney read through their thousands of lines of legal jargon. It may very well be, probably somewhere in the same section where they state they can close your account at any time for any reason and you forfeit any money accrued in your account. Yup, it sounds like they play pretty fair too.

If you still have issues with putting adsense on your site and writing down the ads that show up, then don’t do it. You can just as easily do a search for a keyword related to your site and get advertisers from there. Or go to your competitors sites and see which ads are showing up on their sites. Or see who is advertising on Yahoo’s network, or MSN’s network, or…ok you get the point. Just find websites that are already paying for ads. You know they have at least some kind of ad budget.

PS - Only use this method if you want to make more money…

Has anyone else been doing this, or is it just me?

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