Fastclick is a revenue stream that will be suitable for some highly trafficked blogs. We trailed it recently on our Olympics blog and found that with the levels of traffic that we generated at the height of the games that it out performed all other revenue streams on the site including Google.

They offer a range of ads – mainly paying on a per impression basis. Pay outs depend on the ad size, style and content but are generally very very small. As a result a blog with only a small amount of visitors would probably find it more hassle than its worth to register and run with.
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I was just reading a thread over at SitePoint Forums on where someone ask which is the Best Ad Network?

Someone answered with this list which I found really helpful. I’ve filled in the links of some of those mentioned.

Tier 1: Tribal Fusion, Fast Click, Burst, 24/7 Real Media
Tier 2: Casale, RealTechNetwork, Max Online, RightMedia, Rydium

Tier 3: BUDS, JoeTec, RealCastMedia, GorillaNation, ValueClick

Tier 4: FocusIN, EzzPublishers, BannerSpace, ClickXchange, Adtegrity, BraveNet, Undertone Network

Tier 5: ValueAd, CompactBanner, Adinfinity (same company), ClixGalore

They write in explaining the list – ‘based on rates, difficulty of becoming accepted, and quality of advertisements. Tiers 1 – 3 are, overall, good ad networks. Anything below three either means their ad quality, ease of entrance into their network, or questionable business in the past is in question.’



What ad providers have you tried? What additions or changes would you add to the above list?

‘The outfit, which sells ads on Web logs, has enjoyed this year’s burst of interest in political sites, but it needs a post-election plan….

‘Copeland’s company sells ads to run on more than 500 blogs, including political specialists like InstaPundit and DailyKos. After Sept. 20, he says, business went through the roof. “Watching big corporate media suffer at the hands of 100 individual bloggers, I have to admit I was happy,” Copeland says. “There was a big traffic spike and a nice gush of ads.” By some estimates, DailyKos was pulling in $20,000 per month advertising at its peak. Copeland gets a 20% cut.

But can the blog business survive without a Presidential election and gaffes by mainstream media firing up the Internet masses? Skeptics wonder, particularly since some blog sites damaged their credibility when they jumped the gun and erroneously predicted Senator John Kerry would win the election.’



Read more at BlogAds: Is There Life after Nov. 2?

‘Advertisers including Paramount Pictures, The Wall Street Journal, and The Gap are successfully reaching niche audiences for a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising and a handful of bloggers are earning six-figure incomes from their blogs. Why aren’t more advertisers and bloggers getting together? Fear, ignorance and the knowledge that a lot of pioneers got shot.

Advertising on blogs is not like buying a minute on the Super Bowl says Henry Copeland, founder of Blogads, which matches advertisers with blogs. Successful blogs are edgy, have a sense of humor, and are recognized experts in a narrow niche. Blog audiences look at traditional ads, like “Click here, get 20% off,” and say “screw this, I’ve seen it everywhere,” Copeland says.’

Read more at Blogs a Good Buy for Advertisers but Fear and Ignorance keep media buyers away

Puneet Mehrotra has a good article introducing the The World of Contextual Advertising. He writes – ‘How much? Good question. I know of webpreneurs whose earnings range between $200 to $2,00,000 per month. Of course, it’s not child’s play. But no one said earning big bucks is a child’s play!…’

‘So what’s the next boom. Well the web pundits are saying it’s going to be behavioral advertising, where anonymous monitoring and tracking the content viewed, and length of visit are databased and analysed to predict an online behavioral pattern for the user. My say, well I doubt, complicated things seldom do well. And with most computers getting condomed by the day with firewalls and blockers and not to mention privacy violation litigation, I doubt if such a model would succeed. Well, that’s just my say, time will tell what will do well. But yes contextual advertising is definitely there to stay. Notepad is still the favorite editor, no application in the world has been able to replace it so far. SMS is still the favorite text-messaging tool. Bells and whistles might pretend to make noise but simplicity sings its own song.’

Read more at The World of Contextual Advertising : HindustanTimes.com:

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Advertisers including Paramount Pictures, The Wall Street Journal, and The Gap are successfully reaching niche audiences for a fraction of the cost of traditional advertising and a handful of bloggers are earning six-figure incomes from their blogs. Why aren’t more advertisers and bloggers getting together? Fear, ignorance and the knowledge that a lot of pioneers got shot.

Advertising on blogs is not like buying a minute on the Super Bowl says Henry Copeland, founder of Blogads, which matches advertisers with blogs. Successful blogs are edgy, have a sense of humor, and are recognized experts in a narrow niche. Blog audiences look at traditional ads, like “Click here, get 20% off,” and say “screw this, I’ve seen it everywhere,” Copeland says.’ Read more at Blogs are a Good Buy for Advertisers but Fear and Ignorance Keep Media Buyers Away

Clickz has an interesting study into the rise of micropayments which might be of interest to some bloggers. My experience of blogging is that its hard to get much in the way of big payments in one’s income stream but that one way forward that many of us are exploring is to generate many small payments which all add up to something more substantial. If you could get each person who visits your site to pay (whether directly or via advertising) a few cents – over time it would add up. Micropayments in my opinion could be the way of the future and are a particularly relevant topic for ProBloggers. The article reads:

‘A study of 1,112 Americans aged 12 and older, conducted by Peppercoin and Ipsos-Reid, found 17 percent of survey respondents saying they’d use a non-cash form of payment (credit, debit or charge card) for purchases under $5. That percentage, according to the pollster, equates to some 37 million Americans.

“In the physical world, we were surprised to see how much value and benefit consumers realize from using credit cards. They want to use them for their everyday purchases,” Perry Solomon, VP of strategy and co-founder of Peppercoin, told ClickZ Stats. “Specifically, they want to use them for the everyday purchases that they make many times a month, such as for coffee, fast food, vending and parking. This shows that consumers feel comfortable with the speed, convenience and security of electronic payments.”‘ Read more.