How do I get started?
The usual way is to use a partner such as Google AdSense, although there are many others (see feature on AdSense alternatives). These companies act as a middle man between business that want to advertise and people like you that have an audience and want to make some money by displaying advertisements. You simply register with the service, and if accepted (yes there are conditions - see below) ads associated with your website content will appear where you want them on your pages. I will explain how this works later on; it is really very simple.
Each time an advert is clicked on you will receive a sum between a few pence and a few pounds.
Make Money from your Website!
If you have a website that is established and popular, and maybe even a loyal community of regular fans; you may want to start thinking about generating income from your site.
Generating income from advertising on the web is a very common; as has the tendency for web users to expect information and services to be free! Therefore, advertising on your site, and being paid to do so, can be a “win win” situation. Your visitors get the information and services they need for free; advertisers can get much needed exposure for their goods and services; and you get paid for your ongoing efforts (win, win, win really).
How much traffic do I have to have to make money?
To be realistic, you are probably going to need at least 500 to 1000 unique visitors per day to your site before you can start to make real money. So the sooner you start developing and promoting your site the better.
If you don’t know where to start please see my article about building a Website in your lunch hour
AdSense
Google AdSense is a free program that enables website publishers of all sizes to display relevant Google ads and earn from them. You simply earn revenue by displaying targeted text and image ads in your feed content. Payment is usually on a “pay per click” basis; the amount will vary depending on factors such as ad size etc.
Google AdSense is probably on of the better known ones out there, but there are several alternatives.
AdSense alternatives
AdBrite
AdToll
AzoogleAds
AdDynamo (used and recommended by this site)
Bidvertiser
Chitika
Claxon
Clicksor
ClickThruTraffic
ClixGalore
ContextWeb
Enhance Interactive
Exit Junction
Fastclick
InfoLinks
Kanoodle Bright Ads
Kontera
LinkShare
MIVA AdRevenue Xpress
Nixxie
Quigo AdSonar
Rydium
Searchfeed
TargetPoint
Vibrant Media IntelliTXT
Vibrant Media SmartAd
Yahoo Publisher Network
AdBrite, is a good alternative to Google's adsense, they do not offer quite as many ad formats as Google but they offer the most commonly used ones and also offer inline page links with have some great click through ratios as well as interstitial full page ads which offer an excellent way to monetize all traffic to your site, not just traffic that clicks on your ads. They also have some of the best payouts outside of Adsense. They have more relaxed terms and conditions than Adsense and are much more accepting of smaller publishers including bloggers.
The descriptions below are based on the advertisers descriptions of their sites and do not represent the views of Money Saving Mad.
AdToll pays on a CPC basis. Their user interface is great and navigating through the user panel is both easy and pleasant. Payments are available via Cheque, Paypal, ePassporte and Wire/Bank Transfer. It is also possible to use the revenue you earn as a publisher to advertise your website further. Such integration is something that is entirely missing from Google's adsense-adwords.
The newest technology by AdToll is a Peel Away Ad technology that shows a peel on the top right hand side of a web site. When the mouse moves over the peel it opens smoothly to reveal the advert within. This new ad format allows you to make use of the lesser used, yet highly visible top corners of web sites. It is very non intrusive to the site visitor. Since it uses a small amount of space, it is efficient use of web site real estate. An additional plus is that such a new advertising format always draws curious clicks for visitors.
AzoogleAds is a performance-based online advertising network comprised of a variety of effective large to medium vertical sites, portals and email publishers.
They State;
- Guaranteed Highest CPA Payouts.
- 75%+ CPM payouts (highest in industry).
- Variety of CPM, CPC, and CPA choices Fortune 500, and 1000 Advertisers.
- Proven net 15 ON-TIME payouts.
- Fanatical Customer Support.
- Exclusive Rewards Program.
You get paid for every visitor that clicks on an ad. Bidvertiser's goal is to enable you to make as much as possible from your advertising space, by letting advertisers bid on your ad space. They pay by monthly checks, with a minimum of only US $25 or even better via PayPal with a minimum of only US $10.
Chitika
Chitika (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka) was founded in 2003 and is the industry's leading impulse merchandising company. Chitika was founded in May 2003 and is based in Massachusetts. Chitika (pronounced CHIH-tih-ka) helps web publishers generate revenue using innovative publisher-side advertising and merchandising solutions and services.
Claxon Media offers you multiple ad formats, accurate stats, timely payments (check, wire, & Paypal), low minimum earning requirements, high fill rates, and the ability to preview ads, opt out of ads, and set up defaults. They also guarantee speedy replies to your questions and the best customer service possible.
Clicksor
Clicksor will pay you up to 70% of the advertising clicks revenues generated from your website. Contextual Advertising Technology by Clicksor allows your visitors to enjoy the content of your website and bring generous earnings to you at the same time.
Clicksor also has support for displaying alternatives to Google's public service ads via the google_alternate_ad_url tag. Thus you can sign up to use Clicksor as an addition to your Google Adsesne campaign.
As an affiliate, Clicksor passes its profits along to you by paying up to 70% of the advertising clicks revenues generated from your website. Clicksor provides online real time stats and a fortnightly payment schedule. In any pay period in which your earnings exceed $50.00 ($20.00 with PayPal), payments are made either by check or instantly through PayPal ($20.00 minimum for PayPal). Revenue totaling less that $50 (PP $20) will rolled into the following period.
Start earning large amounts of commission now by joining one of the many Affiliate programs listed in the clixGalore affiliate network.
Using the 'Instant Website Builder' tool, located in your clixGalore Member Home area, you can easily and instantly generate promotional web pages containing our Merchant's products. You may use these pages to promote and earn commission for product sales generated for our Merchants.
clixGalore is one of the larger affiliate networks with over 4500+ Affiliate programs for you to join. Affiliate networks and affiliate programs are increasingly used by merchants for affiliate marketing and product / website promotion. These merchants seek affiliates to promote their products / services and in return will pay you high commissions.
Enhance Interactive serves its customers' paid listings and contextual advertisements on search engines and content-based Web sites throughout the Internet. We partner with industry leaders such as MSN and InfoSpace, as well as smaller search engines and targeted content sites, and we pay them cash for displaying our advertisers' messages.
A revenue building strategy for customers who are currently leaving your Web site. Instead of losing your users to a search engine when they opt to search the Web, simply offer them an opportunity to search right from your Web site, while you make money each time a user clicks on a paid search listing.
Integrate Enhance Interactive listings with your existing search results listings, and earn money each time a user clicks on an Enhance Interactive paid listing.
FastClick (Now known as ValueClick)
Earn up to an industry-high 65-percent monthly payout on all advertising revenue your website generates! Fastclick pays by the 25th of the month for the previous month by check or PayPal.
And now you can improve your ad revenue with Text Ads! Text Ads are a new, text-based ad format customizable by the publisher to integrate with your site and complement your current display advertising. Join us to see the possibilities.
A relative newcomer to the scene Infolinks specializes in In-Text Advertizing. That is it indexes your page looking for keywords and phrases that are not currently links and converts them into advertizing links. When a user places their mouse over the link a box opens up showing the ad. If they click on the link you get paid. It is very simple and works very effectively. The nice part is that you can use Infolinks to compliment an existing advertizing campaign on your website. For example you can show banner ads with AdBrite or Bidvertiser and show text links with Infolinks. Or you can even show text links with both AdBrite and Infolinks together on the same page to maximize your revenue.
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Exit Junction is a relatively new affiliate program and, I believe, is a spin off from the now defunct Revenue Pilot. However, while Revenue Pilot stopped running Exit Junction is going from strength to strength. Exit Junction's approach is to offer a unique way of capturing revenue from exit traffic. Their approach is compatible with all the other Ad Networks included Google Adsense. The key aspect of Exit junction is the way they focus on exit traffic. This is the practice of showing ads to users as they leave your site rather than as they arrive or as they browse. This offers you an additional way to monetize your traffic and also capture ad revenue from those that stumble upon your site from a search engine and then immediately leave.
ContextAd provides a dramatic increase in click throughs, resulting in higher effective CPMs. Matching the most appropriate spots to the most appropriate advertisers translates into the ability to better manage and sell inventory. Additionally, the technology's unique ability to bridge keyword and category targeting means it can access new inventory that publishers can offer advertisers, creating entirely new revenue streams. These factors represent critical competitive and economic differentiators in the rapidly evolving contextual advertising category.
Put Kanoodle's sponsored links on your Web site and earn revenue with every click! No matter what type of content you have on your site, Kanoodle has BrightAds to match - so they're always relevant and sure to appeal to your site's visitors.
Kontera is a contextual advertising solution for web publishers interested to increase their online advertising revenue, while providing value to their users. DynamiContext uses patent-pending technology to analyze web pages in real time, seamlessly determine the topic and keywords of each page, and then deliver advertisers' targeted messages that are relevant to the context.
Kontera delivers additional revenue for Web Publishers from day one of implementation.
Kontera delivers the targeted advertisements via two unique Ad Units that Web Publishers can utilize: AdLink and TextMatch.
LinkShare offers an altogether different approach to monetizing your webpages or advertizing your products. Unlike most web advertizing sites that provide you with code you place on your site and then show relevant ads of their choosing LinkShare puts you in control. Once signed up you can browse a huge list of earning opportunities from large and small companies alike. They explain what your earning will be if someone visits them through your link. You then just select the programs you are interested in, they approve you very quickly and you can start showing the various banners on your websites.
The beauty of the LinkShare approach is that it gives you total control over the ads shown on your website so you can tailor it precisely to your content. It also maximizes the amount of money you can earn since some of the links can provide hefty rewards. For example you can create a link to NetFlix that allows people to signup through your page and then you get paid a commission.
MIVA AdRevenue XpressTM (ARX) provides immediate revenue opportunities to web publishers by monetizing website traffic. ARX is a unique distribution program, offering small-to-medium-sized web publishers the opportunity to generate revenue by displaying relevant MIVA ad content on their website. By offering relevant content and services, partners extend brand equity and improve site visitor experience.
Nixxie's partnership solution uses intelligent technology that can read and understand the content of your websites pages. By doing so, Nixxie delivers advertising that is most relevant to the content of your web pages.
Nixxie offers a modular approach to contextual advertising. You have a choice of solutions featuring text ads, price comparison listings and live auction advertising. Click here to see a typical implementation of Nixxie on a web page.
Nixxie's partnership solution uses intelligent technology that can read and understand the content of your websites pages. By doing so, Nixxie delivers advertising that is most relevant to the content of your web pages.
Nixxie offers a modular approach to contextual advertising. You have a choice of solutions featuring text ads, price comparison listings and live auction advertising. Click here to see a typical implementation of Nixxie on a web page.
Make more money from your site traffic, on your terms. AdSonar gives you the tools to quickly and easily place advertisements on your site that will interest your users and produce clicks.
You define choices such as ad format and placement. Once users click on AdSonar ads on your site, you start earning money.
Only advertisers in your category can appear on your site.
You can generate reports at the URL, domain and ad level to see where your ad revenues are originating.
Rydium was founded in 1999 with a mandate to provide branding and direct response advertising opportunities across a group of niche content online publishers. Rydium continues to maintain its position as a premium online advertising company.
The Rydium Network is formed by our top tier, best performing websites. We promote and work with each one individually, giving both the advertiser and the publisher substantial advertising opportunities. By advertising within the Rydium Network, your campaign will reach its targeted and savvy audience, as we have structured our network with various channels to offer diversification and the opportunity to properly optimize our advertiser's campaigns.
Due to the demand and versatility of our advertisers needs the Rydium Network has adapted quickly and expanded its focus into the following vertical markets; Gaming, Wireless, Shopping, Entertainment and Sports.
By partnering with Searchfeed.com, Webmasters enhance site content while earning additional revenue from existing Web traffic. Through the integration of paid keyword content, visitors gain access to more relevant information about an area of interest, increasing usability and overall 'stickiness' of a partner's site.
Searchfeed.com's ad technology is deployed through both search and content channel integration, helping to monetize Internet traffic more effectively while maintaining the existing look and feel of a partner's site.
Targetpoint’s services are particularly publisher-oriented: You’ll have absolute control over the appearance of your ads, supervision over ad content, up-to-date statistics on your site’s performance and, most importantly, better bottom-line revenue.
Targetpoint offers Publisher services, which generate more money using our new, patent pending content recognition and matching technology:
Registration is free and quick. You are guaranteed to get 60% of the total on-click revenue. Payment options include Bank checks, PayPal and Wire transfers (if eligible).
Vibrant Media's patent-pending IntelliTXT technology highlights commercial text links from keywords appearing within pages of online content. Vibrant Media's proprietary technology automates the analysis and categorization of content, identifies the most appropriate marketing message to deliver and, when activated by the user, dynamically serves advertising messages to the right user at the right time.
Vibrant Media's patented SmartAD dynamically matches web publishers' high-quality content with relevant leading advertisers that are searching for contextually targeted real estate. Contextually relevant banner ads are dynamically delivered adjacent to immediate editorial content. Publishers receive fixed CPM for all paid SmartAD units served on the site.
