Google AdSense – no need to explain this one. It has been one of my best producers and my CTR is midway between 0 and 10% – I can’t put in details because it’s against Google’s TOS.
Direct Sponsorship – this has paid off well for me. I sell different packages and have most sponsors pay a monthly fee through PayPal subscriptions. The bigger clients are invoiced regularly. Tip: put an advertising page on your website and a note in your signature about your special packages. Mine reads: Want to reach more small business owners? Reply to this email with ‘EC-Promo’ in the subject line and get a special discount off of our Advertising packages.
Exelate – this is a company that contacted me on behalf of a major client of theirs. They want to reach small business owners and we worked out a CPC arrangement. They have been great to deal with so far.
Kontera – they do inline ads. My CTR is just over 1% with them and I’ve found it to have very low payouts per click compared to AdSense. I have reduced my involvement with them but still have some pages with Kontera.
Chitika – I tested them out but found I was not getting a good CTR. My website is about small business and not products though so it may not be a good fit. I still have some pages with Chitika but it is not very prominent.
ReviewMe – I’ve tested this with one of my blogs and have had some success but not enough to make it meaningful – I will continue testing.
The other programs I have recently signed up for an am testing are: adbrite, adify, right media, auction ads. I read about them in business 2.0 or online. I have only done limited testing but so far none of them have brought in the kind of numbers I’m looking for to expand with them. Again, it could just be my site and the content I have on it.
I have also tested affiliate programs like ClickBank and CommissionJunction but have not had too much success here in compared to the other programs I have already mentioned.
The key is to test, try it out, optimize the best you can, see if it works, and if it doesn’t move on to something else.
Overall the web has been good for me. It supports me, my building, the people who work for me and lets me create my own work schedule.
I’m looking forward to seeing what everyone else has to say about what works for them!
