Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Are ads worth it?

Hi all,
I am pondering whether or not to begin running ads on my blog and hope some of you who run ads on your blogs could weigh in with your own experiences.

I'm interested in whether it's profitable (and if the revenue they bring in really offsets the downsides like the space you lose and the fact that the ads tend to be a bit distracting no matter how appropriate they are to your topic), and which service you use?

Thanks so much!

-Eve from The Garden of Eating
http://www.gardenofeatingblog.com

40 comments:

Dawn0fTime said...

I find BlogHer ads both tasteful and profitable. No, I won't quit my day job because of it, but it's pretty decent. It more than offsets the cost of running the blog, and I have a bit more than your average hosting package. It also drives more traffic to your site, since your posts can often "headline" just below the ads.

Although I have no personal experience with them, I also find FoodBuzz ads non-invasive. I don't know how well they pay though, or if there are other benefits.

Eve Fox said...

Thanks, Dawn. With BlogHer ads, do you have the ability to say yay or nay to individual ads or do you just get what you get?

Unknown said...

yeah it is worth it if you are running a website that drives more than 1,000 hits per day! then you would making a bit of money there.

foodbuzz is alright but in the contract it states they will only pay for impressions from the US. so that was a big disadvantage for me since most of my viewers are from australia and asia.

try google adsense. most people use this. their ads match up with the content of your site. read their their terms and conditions thoroughly. you cant click onto your own ads otherwise u will get banned. i heard that some people got banned for no reason. im not running google ads cause they banned me cause they THINK i fraudulently clicked on the ads. well cant win.

The Purple Foodie said...

Totally agree with Ann - no point in placing any ads if you have below 1,000 hits a day.

FOodbuzz pays $3 CPM (only US)and blogher says their ads pay between $5-12 CPM - but after some number crunching and calculating Blogher's 55% share, it boils downs to $3CPM as well. Which is excellent if you are in a non-US territory because otherwise Foodbuzz will just pay you $1CPM.

Another ad network that's relatively new is platefull. You might want to assess it's offerings as well before making your decision. And do report back because I'm curious to know what their pay structure is like!

Menu Spotlight said...

Ads are worth it for three reasons even if you have less than 1000 hits a day.

1)Never underestimate. With Adsense, you can sometimes get several dollars a day with a only 200 hits website.

2)It keeps you motivated.

3)It will cover some of the cost (e.g. domain name registration)

If you are providing a useful information (which you do :-)) I am sure your readers won't mind small boxes that take their attention away once in a while.

The Cooking Collegiate said...

I'm planning on eventually trying Adsense but I've heard the thing of blogs sometimes getting deleted randomly, not sure if it's true but I guess I'll soon find out. For now, I'm just working on getting recipes up on my blog and got my first one yesterday, chicken pozole.

Caleb said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Caleb said...

I've never used any ad service, but adsense so I can't comment on the others.

My experience with adsense has been good. I drive enough traffic to my site where I steadily earn a couple bucks a day. Foodie related material is not a big bucks niche according to adsense/adwords so I don't expect to break the bank with my earnings. However, my earnings are enough to pay my sites bills and treat me to a nice dinner every month.

I'd say that's a good pay off considering all I'm doing is writing about food.

However, it's been documented that some people are getting paid hundreds and even thousands of dollars a day from their adsense earnings. Some of those high paying niches are on the topics of health, technology, student loans and how to make money online. I would love the money, but those topics just bore the hell out of me just talking about them. I could only imagine blogging about them. Yuck.

Amalia said...

I would say it's worth it. Most sites these days don't even look professional to most people without at least one ad somewhere. If you design your page right, it can fill dead space instead of taking up active space. Also, if you place at least link ads after content such as a post people are more likely to click. They reach the end of what they are reading and wonder "what am I going to do next" so you give them something. The money will vary on the traffic of your site, which you can improve by working with other bloggers and getting your blog added to food lists. Even if you barely make anything, it is a great motivator as was said before. Google adsense can also be paired with Google Analytics to give you a much better idea of who is visiting your site, what pages and posts attract them the most and how much the ads are working.
I am a big proponent of online ads because it keeps online services free. And no matter what you make, a little extra money can never hurt.

Unknown said...

I have great success with both Adsense and Foodbuzz. The more traffic you get, the more money you make. You just have to be patient. Blogher is not currently signing up new blogs at the moment.

Jono Tosch said...

I just started using AdSense about, oh, maybe a month ago. So far, I haven't done anything to boost traffic (and therefore revenue) (because I'm busy), but AdSense is easy to use and the $60 bucks a month doesn't hurt. I mean, it's a start.
oilchanges.blogspot.com

lazymancooking said...

I had just applied for the google adsense and currently waiting for their approval. Hopefully I can earn my very first $0.10 soon.. :)

However, for the Foodbuzz, I get a tip from online article, it said that it is better not to sign up with FoodBuzz first if your blog traffics is still low because they will offer you lower pay rate.

Sakorarox said...

Hi all! Wow this is a nifty blog! So cool that you can all communicate together! lol *bookmarks*

I've been considering ads as well. I'm a fairly new bloger (less than 50 posts) but I have started getting a fair bit of traffic, I got about 18,000 hits last month. No where close to 1000 a day, but I dont think its too bad since I only 'really' started posting in January.

Anywho, I've been using adsense and Ive made about $11 so far, but I applied for foodbuzz and they said they would give me $1/1000 hits.

Is this a good offer? Considering the fact that I would have to take down my adsense ads(according to their policy) and that i would have to be in a 2 year contract with them - even if my blog *hopefully* becomes more successful in a year or so.

Also, Does Foodbuzz pay more to Americans? (Im from Canada)

mickey said...

How are the payments made, and how do you pay taxes on this income?

Nicole said...

I am thinking about using food buzz, but they are going to pay me $2/1000 hits, and I would just rather wait until blogher is accepting more applications (which will pay more). So, for now I have adsense ads, and use amazon.com as well.

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Unknown said...

Hi
It is a good question. I look at it this way, I am not going to be able to retire on the money you earn. However, it does help cover the costs of running your website, and so if you are passionate about what you do, you can do it without it costing you anything. As a teacher and a working mother I understood the difficulties with providing your family with a healthy diet and decided to do something about it and so developed the website www.kidshealthyrecipes.com to
help other parents wanting to know more about healthy kids food. We have Google Adsense on there as it was easy to implement and is the no1 provider, I dont know anything about FoodBuzz but may not take a look.

Chef Dennis Littley said...

ads are the reason I haven't applied for a foodbuzz featured publisher....
I don't know how much you really get from it....I might reconsider if it was considerable.

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Tasty Thailand said...

I've avoided FoodBuzz because you can't run GoogleAdsense and I do very well from them with all my blogs.

In fact, I wouldn't dump Google over any other ad group as they just pay better.

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David said...

At first I would try Google adsense.

Then from there start working out to other companies and experiment.

Ads actually look good on a blog/website and may contribute to the sites professional appearance.

Try it. A few clicks can make you a few dollars. its fun and exciting

Kristen said...

I am currently running adsense on my blog and find that has the best CPM rate and also gives me the m,ost flexibility in terms of give-aways , selling adspace, etc. I really love not having any limitations or a long term contract.

K said...

I have been using Adsense for about 7 months, I get about 400 visitors a day and 2-4$, I'm happy with that but my wife is thinking about food buzz so that's why I'm looking around.

Http://www.losetheshoes.net

Kenny

Erin @ LiveLifeActive.com said...

I know this post was from a while ago but thanks for all the responses. I get about 200-600 visits a day and only make about $50 a day on average by using adsense. Should I try to switch to FoodBuzz?
www.livelifeactive.com

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