With the ever-increasing concerns on the global economic crisis, everyone’s feeling their fair-share of pain. On a personal level; I don’t even get pocket money anymore. That’s both from my parents and Mr. Google.

Ever since the global economic slump, there has been a non-stop stream of complaints that are tainted with earnings plummeting and advertisers zipping up their pockets. In such desperate times, where everyone’s strangled in their own struggles – what hope do us bloggers have?

If you have read Alex’s profound recommendation on the WordPress Plugin OIOPublisher – you might just have an idea where I’m heading with this post too.

As clearly as the post title highlights, I want to dedicate this post to help explain to our readers why Google Adsense is just isn’t as effective as it used to be for us small-time bloggers. Hence, it’ll help you understand why the Private Ad Sales alternative is much more viable for most small-time bloggers.

A quick visit over to the DigitalPoint or V7N Forums or even the Google Webmaster’s forum – you will realize just how seriously the complaints have been going around. Almost every other thread, in the Adsense Categories seem to be about earnings falling.

We can’t just play the blame-game because no-one within the blogoshphere is at fault (unless of course the rampant fools around the world that are in/directly responsible for economical crashes are blogging too). Unfortunately, many uninformed Adsense users have blamed Google, accusing them of taking too much of the share as a middleman. While is may/may not be true, there are much more feasible reasons behind the sudden slump.

9 reasons why ‘Private Ad Sales’ are better than ‘Google Adsense’

1. More Revenue – This is one of the most obvious points. Dealing directly with your sponsors, you are effectively cutting out the middle-man and hence eliminating any percentage shared with them and/or  dreadful fees.
2. You can be Clint Eastwood with the target – One of the biggest let downs in Google Adsense, is the randomness of advertisements appearing next to your content. Sure, you can target your keywords and utilize the “Keyword Filter” but there will always be an ad or two that turn up totally unrelated. With Private Ads, you can hand-pick the ones that appear on your blog.
3. You are in control – By selecting the type, size, color and even the behavior of the advertisements – you are in full control of what your readers view. Customizing the limited range of sizes and other visual features on Google ads can be sometimes be unnecessarily time-consuming.
4. You decided how much you earn – Theoretically speaking, if you can find the sponsors – then you can earn as much as you like. If you only want a couple of ads, that’s fine but if you’re willing to display more ads you will simply earn more. However, be careful that you don’t spam your own site – because your number one priority is to satisfy your readers’ needs and not your advertisers’ pleads.
5. Direct Contact with your sponsors – If you have been following Blogussion lately, you must have realized the emphasis we put on ‘making friends.’ When it comes to blogging – almost everything is social. Fundamentally, you are sharing your opinion with people and therefore creating a community of inquiry. By directly dealing with your sponsors, you are effectively making friends – and this can really help pick up the word-of-mouth viral marketing.
6. Contextual Networks literally suck for small-time bloggers – Programs that offer incentives for clicks such as Google Adsense and Yahoo Publisher can be an extremely profitable, but that only works if you have a huge daily reach and lot of daily pageviews.
7. Sponsor’s Ease of Payment – We all know that Google only offers a direct deposit to your bank account or a check mailed to your address. Offering only these two types of payment methods is a bit of a let down, but with Private Ad Sales you can decided how your advertisers meet their payments. Just like a couple of points earlier, this one too – reinforces the fact “you are your own boss“
8. OIOPublisher – Enough said. This is one of the best plugins released for WordPress. If you want a much more detail run through of the plugin and its details – please check out Alex’s recent post on it.
9. It’s just consistent -Once you find a handful of loyal sponsors, for a constant monthly price – you are guaranteed an income from your blog. Nothing more, nothing less – this can really help you plan ahead and make decisions on-site without worrying if you will get paid this month to adequately cover the costs. To protect yourself even more, you can perhaps ask your sponsors to sign a minimum contract or provide a month’s notice before cancellation.

In conclusion, Private Ad Sales are better for small-time bloggers and until you reach a significant amount of surfers everyday – constantly – it should be more profitable than any CPC Programs.

Of course, you should experiment everything for yourself because every blog performs differently. Don’t be afraid to play around with the colors, sizes and ad-placements for your Google Adsense ads because if thing’s don’t work out; you can always return back to Private Ad Sales.

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