Any of you Affiliate Marketers, or host ads on your sites?

**expisp** · 03-08-2004 10:44 PM

Any YE host affiliate ads on your websites? Anybody actually make money with them? Take a look at this article, it may surprise you...

Norton Blocking Affiliate Ads/Google Ads

**Onyx** · 03-09-2004 04:20 AM

It's been coming for some time now. Hardly anyone likes web ads and the popular software vendors have taken advantage of that. Even Google has been taking with one hand (their Google toolbar) while giving with the other (Ad Sense). In fact I'm surprised they haven't been done for unfair practices with that one!

The days of advertising on the web are almost over, and with the death of advertising revenue we'll see a lot more paid subscription services. The good news is that the more stable revenue method of paid subscriptions should provide a better opportunity for people like us than any advertising service could. Let's embrace the change start looking at dual charging methods on our web content.

**insomnia** · 03-19-2004 01:59 AM

I disagree Onyx, internet advertising allows you to target thousands to millions of users across specific categories of interest, including geographic as well as special targetted audiences. Where else can you find the exact target market your trying to advertise to? I believe internet advertising is here to stay.

As for subscription services, I'm all for them, but what use is the Internet then? The net has always stood for a gateway of free information. Exclusive communities and content are getting more popular, but theres still nothing better than free content and I'm sure thats here to stay too.

I do use Google Adsense, andI fail to see what the point in using this software is for. You'd be blocking the ads, so you can still SEE the ads, the ads still take up space, you just can't click them. Whats the point in that?

**ericesquire** · 03-19-2004 12:18 PM

I completely disagree that the days of web advertising are almost over. In fact, I think just the opposite...

I believe that "spray and pray" web advertising is almost over. "Spray and pray" is a term that a lot of paintballers use - it means to shoot as much as you can and just hope that you hit something...which is the way web advertising has been for quite some time, namely E-mail ads.

The internet becoming more refined and the technology exists to have the most marketed and effective advertising. No other advertising medium can place your companies name right in front of the ideal customer. TV and radio are both just educated guesses on who watches what, and it's usually limited to broad industry categories or age demographics - hardly worth your money, unless you have a product everyone can benefit from (like toilet paper).

I think that what we'll see in the coming years is more discreet advertising. No more red and yellow strobing GIFs or huge flash ads - but more informative ads such as blog posting, forum participation, and article contributions. When you read an article from a reputable source you tend to take the information more seriously and give it more consideration. This could be anything from product reviews to a simple article about anything in your industry with a clearly posted signature/sign off with your company information/web address. I think large and small businsses alike are going to become more involved in such contributions to get web surfers to believe in their product.

Also, PPC (pay per click) advertising is going to be all thats left for search engines sooner or later. It takes about 15 minutes to get to the top of the list and the price is right as long as you can turn the visitors into customers. Let's face it - although FREE placement is nice, when starting a new internet venture i'd much rather just pay a small fee to PPC engines and test the waters of 1st place rankings within 15-20 minutes rather than wait 1, 2, even 3 months or more for my pages to be indexed properly (and it only works if you REALLY know what you're doing with keywords/site development). Too much of a gamble, and my time is money - I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that.

This is an interesting discussion - I'd love to hear from some others on their thoughts. Anyone...?

**ericesquire** · 03-19-2004 06:59 PM

Exactly
Eric,
You took the words out of my mouth. The PPC services will HAVE to be able to support more relevant results though. How can you provide good content to a user when they search for used books, and they get "ad sponsor" links for crap they don't want to look at it! We need google to stick around, banner ads to disappear, and someone to come up with a perfect ad system.

*****KILL POPUPS********

Onyx,
How can you say advertising days are over on the internet? ads are responsible for billions of dollars spent every year! If it didn't work they wouldn't use it! Granted cuts will be made, it will become more effecient, costly, targeted, and effective. But that will make even more lucrative. The way I see it, is the internet is in the "public access TV ad mode" but soon it will be in the "cable TV ad mode", then the "Network TV Ad mode"

__________________
Ian Larsen
Experience Internet Solutions
Outsourced Affiliate Solutions
Ian@expisp.net
http://www.expisp.net

**ericesquire** · 03-19-2004 07:00 PM

Well...GoogleAds aren't my favorite - but I think overture is really doing the trick. Overture closely gauges who puts what where and with which keywords - if you've ever used them, you'd know they're a class act...

Anyone else...?

**Onyx** · 03-20-2004 06:18 AM

Interesting points guys.

I guess I didn't think too much when I said that the days of advertising are almost over. What I really meant is that the current methods of advertising - namely pop-ups/unders and interstitials - are dying out. They interrupt your browsing and spoil the content you're looking at. All kinds of 'killers' are being developed and people are rushing to use them.

The point about how targetted web ads can be is a good one. As ads mature they will become much smarter and much more effective. People won't mind them so much if they like what they see and it doesn't interrupt their primary task - browsing!

**Onyx** · 03-20-2004 06:19 AM

Is anybody else seeing Eric's details next to Ian's post, above?

**ericesquire** · 03-20-2004 05:13 PM

Actually yes, i'm seeing that as well - weird...

**focusben** · 03-21-2004 03:44 PM

The biggest problem with Internet advertising is that they're using the same methods as they did with television, radio and newpapers. Unfortunately, users/consumers are a lot more active than that. What advertisers needs to understand is that PUSH advertising does not work. "PULLING" is the way to go, and it's not the advertisers that are doing the puulling.
Michael DELL said that the ones who figure out CONTENT, COMMUNITY and COMMERCE are the ones who will prosper in this Internet era. I see only a few good and successful examples of this, not all taking place in the Internet.