Chitika’s Mini-Malls Reviewed at ProBlogger
September 30, 2005
During the past few weeks, Darren Rowse has been beta-testing a new ads format for Chitika’s mini-malls.
It seems so far like an interesting revenue, albeit still in its first stage, and thus lacking certain tracking functions useful to properly analyze and optimize one’s ads placement. As a little “bonus”, you can also check Rachel’s testimonial, who started using Chitika’s mini-malls after having read Darren’s entry.
In any case, don’t hesitate to head out to ProBlogger to read his great review. It made me consider it myself, although I’m not sure yet on which of my blogs I could test it.
ProBlogger Turns One-Year-Old Today
September 22, 2005
Darren says, at the end of this post that ProBlogger is the one site of his that he is the “most proud of”. As well, he should be! With so many people trying to make money with blogging, Darren is the “go to” site for information on making money from blogging. In celebration of this one year mark, he listed the “20 Most Popular” posts from the last year. It’s also interesting to note that he is “one subscriber” away from 1000 readers on FeedBurner.
In his list, I found a gem that I had somehow forgotten about. “How the Most Highly Visited Blogs Earn Money” points out that only 8 of the “top 20″ blogs use AdSense. BlogsAds seems to be the most popular, followed by donation buttons and Amazon links, and then AdBrite text ads.
It could be that because these are highly visited blogs, the rates that they can charge for BlogAds out-perfoms what AdSense could do, but it is an interesting look at how money is being made. I should also point out that Darren, himself isn’t using BlogAds on the ProBlogger site, as far as I can tell.
YPN: New Ad Category Targeting
September 10, 2005
Jenstar reports that Yahoo! Publisher Network has now added a new ad category targeting feature for publishers, this in order, of course, to create tighter ad targeting. Here’s what YPN says about this feature, too:
In addition to the contextually-matched ads that Yahoo! serves, Ad Targeting enables you to target your visitors with ads based on their specific interests. You can choose up to two ad categories to apply to your web site (e.g., http://pets.yahoo.com), a specific directory of your web site (e.g., http://pets.yahoo.com/dogs/) or a content-specific web page on your site (e.g., http://pets.yahoo.com/dogs/toys.html). Your ad category selections, in combination with our matching technology, will determine what types of ads will be displayed. Selecting ad categories for a Targeted URL, however, does not guarantee that only ads from those ad categories will appear.
There’s now a total of 20 categories and 134 sub-categories to choose from (read the full post to see them, as Jenstar lists them all).
A great variety of categories are included, as you can see. Although some do strike me as a little on the odd side, such as the inclusion of tattoos/piercings and botanical gardens. And some seem to overlap, such as telecommunications selections. Publishers can select up to two categories per URL (can be targeted on a site, directory or page level), which would make the overlap workable for publishers with sites or pages in those areas.
AdSense vs Yahoo! Publisher Network
September 7, 2005
Search Engine Roundtable links to a forum post about comparing the benefits generated by AdSense and YPN ads:
I run Adsense and YPN on the homepage of my main site interchangeably to test which is better (equal pageviews at the end of the day, same weights). Both ad networks are both on target, although Adsense ads show more “less sophisticated” adverts (no brand name, mostly mom and pop operations); while YPN shows brand names. Google’s Adsense gives me double digit CTR, while YPN only gives me 1/10 of Adsense’s CTR. At the end of the day, even if YPN gives me higher earnings per click, Google gives me better revenues.
It seems that G’s targeting is designed to show what ads fit the page AND what ads are most likely to get click (probably due to some historical data of my target audience or whatnot). On the other hand, YPN only shows what ads can possibly be targeted to the content, but not really designed to generate high click thrus
Both from this post and from Rustybrick’s observations, it seems so far that if the CPC is high on YPN, the CTR is lower than on Google. However, YPN still being very new, can things still change in the future? Case to be followed…
The Ethics Of It All
September 1, 2005
Should You Pay Me To Blog About Your Product or Service?
Dave Taylor writes:
For us to be able to get somewhere with this topic, though, it’s important to split out the discussion into the different aspects of this issue. First off, there’s the question of should bloggers accept compensation of any sort for writing about specific topics, then there’s the entirely separate question of should bloggers reveal that they’re being compensated and, finally, should bloggers detail the exact nature of their compensation?
And later, he goes on to say:
The fact is, any medium, whether radio, TV, newspapers, magazines, or even gas stations, where the refrigeration units are ‘free’ if they include advertising for specific brands, and bookstores, where the books neatly displayed on what the publishing industry calls “end caps” have a specific pricetag attached, are all influenced by advertiser and public relations dollars.
Corporate Blogging
September 1, 2005
Blogging Becomes
A Corporate Job
In its short lifespan, blogging has largely been a freewheeling exercise in online self-expression. Now it is also becoming a corporate job.
A small but growing number of businesses are hiring people to write blogs, otherwise known as Web logs, or frequently updated online journals. Companies are looking for candidates who can write in a conversational style about timely topics that would appeal to customers, clients and potential recruits.
Last year, Christine Halvorson was hired as chief blogger at Stonyfield Farm Inc., a Londonderry, N.H., organic yogurt company owned by Groupe Danone. She applied for the job after responding to an ad posted at Monster.com. A former freelance writer and Web content editor, Ms. Halvorson now writes four blogs for Stonyfield, including a blog about the company, the Daily Scoop, and Creating Healthy Kids, about healthy foods in schools. Her job entails researching, linking to news and providing personal insight.
For more on what Web professionals earn and other pay data, visit CareerJournal.com.
“It’s wonderful to write every day,” Ms. Halvorson says. “The only challenge is keeping up with this rapidly changing blogging technology, like audio and video blogging,” she adds. She earns an annual salary in the mid-$40,000s, she says.
