If you’ve been following along with this case study, you know I’m slowly pulling away from Adsense due to the worthless ads that Google’s been letting slip through. My CTR (click through rate) has dropped because of them, and of course, my income too. Well, no more.

My testing is finished on Idea Queen for the most part, since I’ve found some pretty good preforming ads to compliment the site. I did some testing within the same programs and found just the right ads to use. That I’m leaving alone for now.

The recipe site on the other hand is a picky little thing. The same ads that have been doing well on Idea Queen aren’t doing nearly as well on the recipe site. One would think the target markets on both sites are pretty much the same, but the content is what makes all the difference. (As in what someone is looking for when they land on each site or page).

I’ve decided to think outside the box a bit. I’ve already proved that cookbooks don’t sell so well on a recipe site (and why would they? If someone is on a recipe site, changes are they know how to search for recipes, thus eliminating the need for buying a cookbook). Apparently coupons and the like don’t “sell” too well there either, which one would think they it would compliment it (if you are looking for recipes, you buy food, thus needing coupons…or so I thought). Although I guess it’s time to try something different.

Since the focus on the site is recipes for MOMS, I’m running some mom related ads on the site. One of them has a focus on health, which I think most of us mothers are interested in (especially if we are already searching for recipe to cook, thus boosting our family’s health by skipping junk foods). Another ad I just put up was on that wasn’t recipe or food related at all, but about scrapbooking. A tad crazy I know, but remember the focus on MOM.

With these ads I kept Adsense in the rotation (mostly just on the category page), and I’m still not impressed with the outcome of it. Thanks to the junk ads if it does produce a click, it’s something pathetic like 5 cents or less. NOT worth it, especially when affiliate programs will pay a whole lot more. It’s just a matter of playing the waiting game to see if commission on occasional sales outweigh the tiny clicks.

I’m still waiting on approval from the Adify networks, and have my fingers crossed they’ll up the approve at least something here soon. In a way I’m kinda glad they’ve taken this long, since it’s given me a chance to test a whole lot of ads to see what preforms and what doesn’t should I be without advertisers.

As mentioned the other day, I’m slowly testing various new ads to eventually replace Adsense, which has been dropping to an extremely pathetic amount. Even though I haven’t been approved with any networks on Adify just yet, I’m using their ad rotation system to do my testing (as I mentioned, there is the ability to put in your own ads, and if you put in more than one, it just rotates through them).

First off there’s the recipe site. I’ve actually got two sets of ads running on the category pages and the actual recipe pages. There’s another two ads rotating on the home page, and two separate ads in the navigation (top and middle). I’m mostly using CoolSavings, which pays me $1 per lead, but the navigation ad in the middle is CafeMom. I really don’t expect those navigation ads to pay much, so the real focus is on testing the ads rotating on the category and recipe pages.

So far I’ve done little tweeking, as I’m trying to get some decent numbers built up to compare with. All the ads are with Commission Junction, so I’ve been running reports daily to look at the number of clicks and number of leads. But I have noticed that different ads DO preform better than others. I’ve already kicked one out for not pulling in at least one click within 200 views, and more will probably follow. It’s all about tweeking and getting just the right ad where it needs to be.

Next is Idea Queen’s blog. I pulled a rather bold move with it, even though I didn’t have much to lose. It doesn’t pull in all that much traffic (maybe 100 views a day, more when the blog broadcast goes out). I completely pulled all the Adsense off it and replaced it with ONE banner ad. Yup, one. This one I’m really going to have to sit on my hands for though, since it’s not a pay-per-lead program (well, it is, but it’s not free for the visitor, so it’s different from the others). I thought it was a unique program that fit my visitors, so I’m giving it a shot. Since the blog only produces about $10 a month, this program has exactly that much time to produce one sale at $12. If it does better, GREAT!

Now even though I only have one banner up there now, I may just change it to rotate several because Commission Junction does allow you to set something like that up. Unfortunately it takes a lot longer for the stats to build up on this one since there’s not as many visitors, so it worries me a little to tamper with the testing when it’s got to pull in JUST ONE to be worth it. We’ll see what I decide to do there.

Last, but not least by any means, is Idea Queen. Oh have we been shaking things up there! For one, I’ve got the new ad on the side that I’ve been doing the rotating ad testing on, currently with 4 different 160×600 sized ads rotating. Since there’s several hundred views a day to the site per day, I can change the ads not even producing clicks within a few days. I’ve already replaced one. Now there’s 2 CoolSavings, 1 CafeMom, and one that’s the same $12 lead company as on the blog. Since this is a navigation ad, I’m not expecting fantastic results, but I do expect the ads I run to earn a few bucks a month at the very least.

The other recent change was to some of the recipe pages. I didn’t dare remove the Google Ads, but rather I moved them a tad. All the ads that were stuck right at the top have been replaced with CoolSavings, and they have already produced some leads. I’m not overly thrilled with it, but not disappointed either. I really don’t have enough stats to come up with a solid conclusion, but as of right now I see that I’ve more or less bumped the income up slightly. Could it replace Adsense? No, not at this point. Unless, of course, I find another program that produces some good enough results to run along side of the affiliate I’ve already got that would add up to more than I’m making with Adsense (or was, I guess, since I’ve already replaced some of that income with CJ affiliate programs).
Overall the stats are quite complicated to report in detail and wouldn’t mean anything to anyone but me anyway. The bottom line here is that if you are testing ads, test different ads from the same affiliate, because you never know what specific ad is going to run the best on your site. (And as a side note – don’t be afraid to use CJ’s EPC notes, those can be useful!)

I don’t know about all you, but my websites are online to make money. And when one stream of income starts turning to a trickle, it’s time to move on. That’s exactly what Adsense is doing to me, and I’m now searching for alternatives.

I decided to make this a case study, and allowing everyone to take a peek into what I’m doing. I’m sick and tired of watching my CTR and eCPM drop on a daily basis, and decided it’s time to start running some tests. While it scares me, this is long over due.

The first thing I did, which I mentioned the other day, was signing up to an Adify network. The biggest draw here was the ability to….

1. Approve the ads
2. Set my own CPM and CPC
3. Redirect the ad to something else should there be no ads that meet my minimums

The control, really, was what got me. Now the down side is how long they take to approve. I’ve been waiting most the week now, and I don’t like to wait for anything. (Yes, just call me part of the microwave generation – I want my instant gratification NOW lol).

So in the mean time I’m testing some other thing. I’m starting with the recipe site, since I have the least to lose from tests here. My income hasn’t changed a whole lot in the past year, despite the number of page views multiplying by five. (I’m not joking – this week last year I made an average of 50 cents a day with less than 100 page views, and now at over 500 page views a day, I’m seeing less than a dollar. Hmm, no, those number DO NOT add up!).

While I wait for GourmetAds.com to approve me (please, oh please, let me join! I’m begging you to approve it NOW!), I’ve redirected the ads in just the category section to an affiliate program that pays a buck per lead. Having run an ad for this same affiliate on IQ in a place there never was an ad before and already seeing one lead, I’m quite hopeful it will turn into some quick cash. Heck one lead a day  would be better than the pennies Google is throwing at me right now, and I have a feeling it’s going to do much better than that.

Anyway, just to recap, I’ll be testing out ad networks that allow me to control the prices, and when those prices aren’t met, I’ll be falling back on either Adsense or pay per lead affiliates (just a few to start, to test the waters). I’ll be sure to post my results after a week or so, and hopefully be able to report more on the ad networks.