Alternatives to AdSense: Bidvertiser

In the middle of last year, Google wrote to me to inform me that I had to remove AdSense ads from my web site, adwords-for-profit.com, because the site was violating AdSense's trademark usage policy. This was a great shame because the AdSense ads had been performing well, which meant Google was earning, the advertisers were getting targeted clicks, and I was earning too. A win-win-win situation, you'd think. But, whatever, I had to remove the ads. This meant that I needed to explore for myself some of the alternatives to AdSense.

One of the main programs I've been using is Bidvertiser (aff). Now, I've read that some people have had pretty good success with Bidvertiser, however, in my experience, compared to AdSense, it has been a complete and utter waste of time. Since July 14, 2006, I have earned a grand total of $7.24 from Bidvertiser ads on adwords-for-profit.com (thankfully, that is not my only source of income!).

Now, that's a bit unfair because I'm not only displaying Bidvertiser ads, I'm rotating them with other ads, but even so, compared to AdSense, Bidvertiser's performance has been pretty dreadful. So what are the reasons for this? Below are my thoughts on the possible reasons:

1. AdSense's ads were way more targeted to my audience than Bidvertiser's. My site was primarily promoting Google AdWords and Google AdSense and most, if not all, of the ads were very specifically targeted to users of those two programs. On the other hand, Bidvertiser's most targeted ads tended to be about general "work from home," "earn money online" or "get rich quick" programs.
2. The quality of the ads themselves were generally much poorer than AdSense ads. They were often advertising rather questionable products or services and many of the ads were full of spelling mistakes and just poorly written. This was not true of all of the ads, but enough of them to catch my attention.
3. Many of the ads automatically approved for display on my site were either very untargeted or simply downright offensive. Ads were automatically approved for online casinos and the ad with the best payout in my currently approved list is for anabolic steroids!! I also regularly find ads for various questionable financial services and eBay items, which have nothing to do with my site and which I certainly don't want.

My biggest other criticism of Bidvertiser, as alluded to in point 3. above, is that I have to continually monitor the ads being displayed on my site in order to prevent inappropriate ads (to put it mildly) from appearing. This is such a drag. It would be great if Bidvertiser gave us the option to require our pre-approval before selecting new ads to appear.

All in all, even though I've heard of successful Bidvertiser users, my rating compared to AdSense would be 2 out of 10. Perhaps, as this blogger found, in order to earn money from Bidvertiser, you may only be successful when they are the ones advertising on your site!

Technorati Tags: bidvertiser