Once upon a time, every spammer publisher was using AdSense for their sites monetization and it was making them enough cash to keep them happy. The times have changed since and the evil Google has introduced separate bid setup for AdWords advertisers across the content network (i.e. our MFA sites) so that no matter how much a keyword costs across the search network, it’s a whole different story for the content network and nobody would pay the same amount for ads placed on your and my sites any more.
This gloomy setup has become the basis for the two ebooks by Scott Boulch, Death of AdSense and Life after AdSense. In the second one of these books, he writes about an alternative way of making money online using AdWords content network for advertising your affiliate sites for 5 cents a click.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not saying AdSense is what it used to be (anybody who says that must be blind), nor am I saying that it’s not worth it trying to make more money using affiliate stuff. What I’m trying to do is simply get the facts straight. Sure, exaggeration is good for narrative purposes, but it might not be that good for building a business.
So what have we, let’s look at Google’s AdWords Help Center, namely the part of it that explains what site targeting is. in my opinion, this is a must read for every AdSense publisher. What we want to know first of all is:
Here’s what Google tells us:
Site-Targeted Campaign
How are ads priced?
Cost-per-click (CPC). You set the price you’d like to pay each time a user clicks on your ad. You are charged only when a user clicks. Cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM). You set the price you’d like to pay for each 1000 impressions the ad receives. Clicks don’t matter — you are charged whenever the ad is shown to a user
So there is no such thing as cost per click for content network ads even. Now then, another vital question, what is the minimum bid you can set for each 1,000 impressions?
Quoting Google AdWords Help Center again:
The minimum cost-per-thousand (CPM) bid for a site-targeted ad is US$0.25 or the local currency equivalent.
But wait, even this is not the complete picture yet:
As with all AdWords advertising, you’ll compete for space with other advertisers. If you choose very prominent and popular sites, you’ll need a higher price to win the ad position.
So you can pay 25 cents per thousand impressions and have your ad shown on sites that hardly get any traffic (meaning it’s of no use to you) or you will end up paying no less than across the search network for the sites that are worth apearing on. As we see, there’s more in it than meets the eye.
This whole new setup is fascinating and holds a load of opportunities. I am very eager to test it more and play with it – but what this should teach one is always check your information and always get the facts right before doing anything.
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