Life after AmazingMedia...

[someone else]

Hey all,

Well, as noted in the other AmazingMedia thread, some of us are already getting our "pink slips" from AmazingMedia. Those who are using AmazingMedia at this time may want to keep your eyes on your e-mail, as it looks like they're dropping a ton of sites. :(



Now the questions remain...


Many of us used AmazingMedia because they were a last resort... I for one have not been able to be accepted in other ad services despite 120,000+ ad views a month because of the audience my site is geared towards. (No, not porn or anything illegal! Just a limited audience.)

Now AmazingMedia is no longer an option. I've been with Commission Junction for a while as well, but try as I might, I can't get their banners to generate even enough revenue to cover the cost of the domain. :(



So what options are left? I've tried applying for all the major companies with no success. I refuse to use popups or exit ads because I have more respect for my site viewers than that. (And I noted that site viewers returned to the site twice as much after I moved off of a free server with popups!)

I'm not doing this site for the money, but am just looking to cover the costs of domain and hosting, which isn't really much. CJ apparently won't work well enough to do even this.



Are there any other banner services that are just as easy to get into as AmazingMedia used to be?

[Czar]

Many of the CPC banner agencies can net you effective CPM rates comparable to those offered by AmazingMedia.

You could also explore options beyond the standard banner, such as affiliate links, searchboxes, CPA button links, co-registration programs, tell-a-friend programs, etc.

For those of us whose banner reserves are rapidly depleting, the solution is to become creative. It is still possible to make enough money to support a site (+ a little extra ;)) if you experiment to find a balance that best suits your audience.

[someone else]

I use CJ mainly for text links (though I'm now using them for banners temporarily thanks to AM's dropping me) and those tend to do okay, but for integrity reasons(!), I limit the use of them. Basically, I don't try and throw advertising in the face of my users.

Yep, that does severely limit me, but it keeps a good quality of members on the site, and as I said, I'm not looking to line my pockets. :) It's a free online community, and I want to keep people coming back. Banners and exit popups and such may be good for sites that don't rely on repeat visitors, but they're horrid for those that do. I can't name a single site I visit regularly that has popups of any kind.


The CPC companies are rejecting me just as quick as the CPM ones. Besides AM, the only other one I've been accepted for is FocusIN, and I dropped them after they started hosing me over royally (80,000+ ad views got me $1.20 with them the last month because 80% of the ads shown were an ad for their own service).



My best single ad is Moreover. I have Moreover news links on my site on 3-4 pages, and a CJ affiliate button for Moreover under them. This button turned out to be my best CJ affiliation yet. :)


Now I'm just looking to fill my banner space at the top of the site. With AM, I was making about $25 a month with that spot (more than enough to cover the domain and hosting). Now that's gone...


Search boxes produced basically nothing in my experimentation with them. So all they did was take up space... even when placed in good locations. So now I keep one "for the heck of it" on my Links section that's a CJ affiliation and it gets me about a quarter a month. ;) I'd take it down, but that's one of the few sections that has plenty of free above-the-line space available.




CPA buttons? What are these and do you have recommendations in case they sound interesting? :)

[Woofcat]

ContentZone only pays .23cpm but they always pay on time and I think they accept almost anyone... They also have full page ads at $4cpm which are nice if you can fit them into your site...

[}:8) Supermoo]

Originally posted by Woofcat
ContentZone only pays .23cpm but they always pay on time and I think they accept almost anyone... They also have full page ads at $4cpm which are nice if you can fit them into your site...



How big are these full-page ads? physical dimentions and size in kilobytes? thanks! :)