Quick Online Tips » Make Money

Sell Sponsored Tweets: Make Money with Twitter Ads

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 03:56:46 +0000

A new form of advertising in set to rock Twitter. Izea brings you Sponsored Tweets, an online marketplace that allows advertisers to buy sponsored conversations on Twitter.

Tweeters who wish to join the advertising program can set their own price, category, and keywords; then chose to accept or reject offers from advertisers. If you accept an offer, your account will be credited within 24 hours of your tweet, and you can cash out after gathering $50.

Now they stick to some ethical rules. Which means that there is a 100% mandatory disclosure that it is a sponsored tweet. Twitter users stay in full control of their account, and they will not auto-inject ads. Since they pass via Twitter’s OAuth process, your login is safe. Every tweet must be manually reviewed and approved by each tweeter, and they decide how the tweet ad format should be. This video explains how disclosure is done.

It seems they have managed to get some celebrities to join the program like Holly Madison, Bethenny Frankel, Kendra Wilkinson and some web celebs like Chris Pirillo, Jeremy“ShoeMoney” Schoemaker, and “Aloha” Arleen Anderson.

Will you be selling Sponsored Tweets on your Twitter account?

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Claim Sites on Google Ad Planner Publisher Center

QuickOnlineTips — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:24:47 +0000

Have you claimed your site on Google Ad Planner Publisher Center? The newly launched Publisher center integrates with the Ad Planner and Google Adwords and promises to showcase your website to advertisers even better.

First you can login to your Google Account, then claim your sites. If you already have a Google webmasters account, you can easily claim your sites in one click as they would already be associated with your account. Here is what our website details now look like.

Here are some features you can configure.

Site descriptions - This will help advertisers better understand what your site is all about.
Site categories – you can add up to five categories that match your sites content best.
Advertising Url – link to the url on your site that best describes all advertising information useful to advertisers. This is a page that you can create and edit on your blog and provide targeted information.
Ad Placement type – In-page, Floating, Transitional, Pop Up / Pop Under, In-stream Video or In-stream Audio
Ad Creative format – Text, Image, Flash/Rich Media, Video (in-stream / overlay) or Audio
Ad unit sizes – inform about different ad sizes available on your site which advertisers can target.
Share Google Analytics data - The data you share will improve the accuracy of the traffic statistics that advertisers see for your site in Google Ad Planner and Google Trends for Websites and will provide advertisers with additional details about your site, such as the number of unique visitors and page views.

So claim your sites today and help advertising agencies and advertisers start placement-targeted campaigns on your site and make more money online by attracting more advertisers.

See the video below to get started now

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Technorati Engage Ad Network for Blogs and Social Media

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 18:14:40 +0000

Bloggers can now attract advertisers via the Technorati Engage Ad Network, a self-service advertising network for blogs and social media sites. Though still in beta, it has opened its doors for business.

They allow publishers to sell basically 3 types of ads - Text Ads with a text headline and description, PhoText Ads consist of a headline and a description with a small thumbnail associated with them (sizes 100×100, 75×75, or 50×50 pixels) and Square Button Ads of standard 125×125 pixel image. In case of unsold space, targeted CPC (RON) ads will run. See terms and publisher FAQ for more information.

However, the revenue split is less attractive at 60/40 with the blogger earning only 60% of the deal. We use BuySellAds to advertise on QOT which has a better 75/25 share. I wonder why a new network would keep such a high commission ratio, unless they have a lot of advertisers with deep pockets signed up.

Technorati Engage is progressing well but only time will tell how successful it will be. After all how many ad networks can bloggers support on one blog, and having too many “Advertise here” or “Your Ad here” boxes makes any blog look unprofessional.

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Performancing Ads Changes Affiliate Terms

QuickOnlineTips — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 18:09:25 +0000

Many bloggers promote the Perfomancing Ads network for direct ads sales, but the affiliate program was particularly attractive -� $10 for each new publisher or advertiser you refer and 5% recurring revenue on all advertiser ad buys for life.

We also promoted the Performancing ads on prime ad space since the referral count was encouraging and they had a great concept going. But we noticed the payouts were minimal compared to the hundreds of people who joined their network via our referrals.

Apparently there was a hidden clause that “any referrals had to have the code up on a site with a region in place for 30 days” to qualify as a successful referral. They reveal it was put in place to prevent fraud and prevent people from gaming the system, but it was not disclosed publicly. So obviously that clause did drastically reduce the payout for most affiliates.

Now in order to make the system more transparent, Perfomancing ads announced new affiliate terms where you will earn 5% of whatever your referrals buy or sell, ongoing while they remain a member and you keep getting those commissions for each ad they renew or continue to sell.

While this deal is not as attractive as the previous one, its a good step on the part of the management to help generate trust among members and affiliates, and it will surely lead to a more successful program. If you are interested in direct ad sales with 125×125px ads, you definitely should check out Performancing Ads.

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Google Adsense Ads Below Post Titles Not Allowed

QuickOnlineTips — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 15:03:37 +0000

Most blogs place Google Adsense Ads below the post title and above article content, to get better ad visibility and a higher clickthrough rate to make more money, but it is not always allowed as per Google Adsense policies. We recently got an email from Adsense support pointing out this issue on our site.

Google had earlier clarified some commonly encountered issues and one of them was “Ads shouldn’t be placed under a title or section heading in a way that implies that the ads are not ads.” They showed this example violating the terms, where the ads are places directly below the post title.

Also note that Google Adsense program policies, clearly say that Publishers participating in the AdSense program -

May not encourage users to click the Google ads by using phrases such as “click the ads,” “support us,” “visit these links,” or other similar language
May not place misleading labels above Google ad units – for instance, ads may be labeled “Sponsored Links” but not “Favorite Sites”

Post titles can violate Adsense Guidelines

Post titles act as labels – If you have posts titles like “Hot deals of the day”, or “Best Articles of June”, or “3 best imaging software”, or “download vista now”, then the targeted ads that appear beneath these articles can truly mislead visitors to click these ads and inflate advertiser costs.

Blogs are different - But since bloggers place the adsense code in the blog template, it is difficult to tweak the placement on every post. Of course you can change selected titles so that it has a lesser clicking impact, but it is difficult to optimize hundreds of article titles.

What can you do - Most blogs insert Date and Categories beneath the Post title which separate the ads. But apparently this is not enough, as they informed me that the title can still mislead visitors to click. They advised that “publishers may not label the Google ads with text other than ’sponsored links’ or ‘advertisements’. Inadvertently the blog post titles were acting as a labels above the ads. Thus to comply with the terms, we had to introduce the word “Advertisements” over our Adsense units, when they cleared the issue.

Its too common – As I browse around popular blogs, there are many blogs that place ads directly under titles, or place title, date and� categories above the ads. This has obviously been inspired by the Adsense optimization chart which prompts you to place ads above your primary content.

I thank the Google enforcement team, which was kind enough to send prompt feedback and helped us fix the issue. This is another of the common adsense mistakes to avoid and its a good idea to fix it before Google comes calling…

Will Google ban your adsense account? Once the Adsense team identifies a problem in Adsense placement on your site, they usually send an email explaining the issue and give you a few days time to fix it. It is best to respond quickly and politely and fix the issue promptly. The Adsense team is very helpful, but you have to comply with their terms.

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Adobe PDF Ads Optimized for Higher Earnings

QuickOnlineTips — Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:06:39 +0000

If you publish PDF documents, try the Ads for Adobe PDF program to display advertisements in PDF documents and earn money. Though the program was launched some time back, Adobe has optimized the Adobe PDF ads for higher earnings.

Adobe PDF ads

Choose how ads are matched to your PDF. If your pdf has a main topic, choose Match ads for the entire PDF to dynamically match one set of ads to the PDF and display this same set of ads on every page. If there are multiple related topics, then choose Match ads for each page to dynamically match and display a different set of ads on each page. That will make ads more targeted leading to a better CTR.

What if the user is offline and no targeted ads can be shown? Now you can restrict viewing of the PDF when ads cannot be displayed and a coversheet is displayed on the PDF which asks the user to download the latest version of the free Adobe Reader and/or connect to the network, after which only the coversheet is removed and you can view the PDF with ads. So users are forced to load ads…

Display ads within the PDF content – The ads are no longer stuck in the sidebar as a tall skyscraper. You can place ads where you want them in the PDF and customise ad sizes, ad color palettes, borders, background and text colors. Blend it in and improve visibility.

Adobe has partnered with Yahoo! to provide contextual ads to match PDF content and the program pays per click!� With all these new features, Adobe PDF Ads is definitely a advertising program to look out for and monetize your PDF documents.

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Prepare to Remove Google Adsense Referral Codes

QuickOnlineTips — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 10:07:23 +0000

Google is officially retiring the Google Adsense referrals program which enabled webmasters to run CPA ads on their site where they earned commissions per action by web users instead of the usual pay-per-click ad units.

Besides the announcement, Google also sent us an email informing that the AdSense Referrals program is closing down during the last week of August. They have advised webmasters to remove all referral codes from their sites and save all reports related to the referrals program for preserving campaign data.

As an alternative they are inviting you to join the new Google Affiliate Network, that enables publishers to apply for advertiser programs and get paid based on advertiser-defined actions instead of clicks or impressions. Its part of DoubleClick Performics Affiliate operations that Google acquired in March 2008. I hope it will be integrated with Adsense soon.

Google Adsense referrals were particularly amazing, and I fondly remember my first $250 referral commission. Though they were expanding the referral program last year, recently they initiated the process of limiting the referral program and reducing the payouts. Though we had limited success with Adsense referrals, there are a lot of success stories about it and optimized the right way, they could contribute significantly to huge Adsense earnings.

So get ready to remove all referral code from your sites before the last week of August, and find a better way to monetize those ad spaces. Did you use referrals? How much are your earnings affected by this… share in comments.

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5 New Advertising Networks for Bloggers

QuickOnlineTips — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 16:46:20 +0000

Advertising is� a lucrative business and as publishers and webmasters are looking beyond Google Adsense to add more advertisements and earn more money; new ad services are emerging over the horizon. Bloggers can join these networks to optimize their advertising revenue.

1. Forbes Blog Network -� Managed by Adify, they place 2 or more large rich media banner ads on your site which pay on a CPM basis. They have joined over 400 top blogs and the Forbes brand definitely enhances the branding of your site too. We joined the network recently.

2. Technorati Media -� The fresh new face of Technorati, that is joining in Bloggers from all niches on a limited basis. Promising high CPM, and a huge blogosphere presence, its a big one to look out for. We got a positive feedback and few queries awaiting our application.

3. Unruly Media – runs viral video campaigns and primarily targets UK visitors on a pay-per-view basis. Not so new, but we recently joined this network and are successfully targeting UK visitors with our free OpenX ad server.

4. Adphilia - Adphilia is the individual advertising network, currently operating on an invitation only basis. They select the best publishers and aim to maximise the potential of advertising inventory on their sites. We were honored to be invited by them.

5. BuzzLogic – the newest network that is initially targeting US visitors and promises to pay $2 CPM, up to $200 per month, during the beta period (June 18 – July 18). The blogosphere is lining up…

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Block Your Google Adwords Ad from Your Adsense Site

QuickOnlineTips — Thu, 26 Jun 2008 14:17:25 +0000

What happens when your own Google Adwords ads display on your own Google Adsense rich site and users click on it. You lose money for driving traffic to your own site, from your own site. But there is a way to stop this…

Google Adwords on Your Adsense Site!

This is very common. Google Adwords will display your ads via Adsense on any site based on keywords, and the higher the budget and ad quality, the higher the ad position is. So potentially your ad has a high chance to appear on your own site because you are targeting those very keywords.

So what is the problem? Since your own Adwords are appearing on your own Adsense site, when someone clicks the ads, they again reach your own site and you get charged for it. Of course you make a fraction of the money from your Adsense earnings also, but the resultant cycle is not worth it. This is not a good Adsense arbitrage.

Use Adwords Site Exclusion

You can exclude any own domain from your Google Adwords campaign easily. If you block your site, it will prevent your own Ads from showing on your own Adsense Ads.� From Adwords Admin – Go to Tools> Site and Category Exclusion> Select your campaign – and then easily add excluded sites and refine your Google Network targeting by preventing individual websites or categories of webpages from showing your ads.

Should Adwords Block Your Own Site by Default?

I was browsing the popular Digital Point forums and found their own ad on their own domain.

Spotted these ones on the huge 728×90 banner

And this one on the top right color-rotating 468×60 banner.

Since these ads are appearing in top positions among multiple Adsense units on the site, I guess they have a great Adwords campaign running. Although at first look it seems they might have forgotten to exclude their own site, actually they have cleverly using Adwords to direct traffic from their forums to their main page which offers a host of other services… (or maybe not as the title of the ad still says Digital Point Forums).

I bet you were wondering why Adwords does not block your own domain by default – because people might want target traffic to different parts of their domain.

Are your Google Adwords showing on your domain? Check it.

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QOT Joins Forbes Business and Finance Blog Network

QuickOnlineTips — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 15:36:54 +0000

QOT has joined the Forbes Business and Finance Blog Network, and now you should see some high quality (large!) rich media advertisements on the site adding to an additional source of blog income. Many top bloggers have been invited to join the Forbes blog network over the past few months, but I got an invitation a few weeks back and accepted the contract.

In late March, Forbes.com officially announced the creation of a Business and Finance Blog Network, comprising of a community of pre-screened, influential business and financial blogs.

The network will allow advertisers to target a highly engaged, exclusive niche audience of senior business decision makers and affluent investors easily and effectively. Four hundred-plus blogs have already joined the network, with many more expected to sign on before the official launch in the next few weeks.

“There is no denying the growing importance and influence of blogs within the media landscape,” said Forbes.com President and Chief Executive Officer Jim Spanfeller. “Forbes.com can ensure advertisers are reaching a hard-to-find and very desirable audience within safe, well-lit environments by exclusively inviting ‘best of breed’ business and investing bloggers to our new Business and Finance Blog Network.”

Here I describe some details which people have been asking me -

Why display such large ads? We are required to place at least 2 large ads – Leaderboard (728×90px), Wide Skyscrapper (160×600pc) or Medium Rectangle (300×250px), but I have placed the minimum 2 required, though adding one more will pay better. Those huge ads will surely showcase the advertiser products very well on member sites.

Which blogs joined the Forbes Blog Network? You can track all BFN blogs on the Business & Finance Network Buzz, where the feed content is aggregated. There are a lot of content rich blogs out there.

How do you manage these ads? - I login to Adify from where this network is managed. They have an amazing admin panel where you can create and manage ads spaces, review media buys and juggle multiple networks easily.

How does BFN pay? The advertisements are on a CPM basis (cost per 1000 impressions), which means the larger the number of ad impressions, the more money you earn. I am not allowed to reveal the CPM rate or the percentage of commission they cut.

But shouldn’t that lead to huge earnings? The CPM is limited by the ad fill rate as the budget of the advertiser is distributed over the hundreds of sites where these ads are shown. So all code impressions do not necessarily display paying ads, so the revenue is much lesser than expected of a 100% ad fill rate. Network ads are shown when no paying ad is there.

How to manage unsold inventory? If you do not wish to display network ads, you can monetize the unsold ad space by using alternative advertising programs. I am using Google Adsense, Chitika Premium, Widgetbucks on these spaces. You can try any other affiliate program you like. That ensures optimal utilization of your ad spaces.

How do I sign up? You can find a Forbes network membership logo on the front page of this blog, clicking on it will take you to a sign up form. Thereafter someone will review your application. I am sure they would like to add more quality blogs to their network.

Forbes.com is the top business news source in the world, and being associated with the best is great for blog branding. A lot of blogs are joining and you can also apply to join. This advertising program has ensured rich advertisers can target the most premium ad spaces on a huge network of popular blogs at very reasonable rates. I just hope they sustain a good ad inventory and maintain a high ad fill rate with high CPM prices to keep web publishers happy.

Mainstream media is opening up to blogs – recently BBC featured QOT and it was a great experience.