Today, like many others, I went to their site to see what’s going on in the River City. A headline catches my eye. I click the link. And I get the following popup. Keep in mind that this is not a regular popup that would be stopped by a blocker, but appears to be an AJAX popup, which isn’t caught.

Seriously, how many times do I need to fill this out and how skewed are the results if they keep getting the same people to fill it out over and over. At this point, it really doesn’t matter who fills it out honestly, or not. If I fill it out with my correct information numerous times, that doesn’t mean that you have more people in my demographic visiting than others. It just means that I’ve filled out the form more often than others.

They claim that they need this information because they depend on advertising and require the data to provide more accurate demographics to advertisers. I wonder how their advertisers feel about about losing potential customers because people get irritated by this intrusion…

As far as they’re concerned, I’m a 100 year old female from some country other than the U.S., Canada, or Mexico. I wonder if their advertisers are looking for that more mature demographic – I’m probably going to start seeing ads for Depends or Fixodent!

Take that News10.Net!

I have decided to remove their banner from drivelocity.com for two reasons:

First, it slowed down the load time of my site to unacceptable levels. Many times the page would just hang at that banner location and not continue loading the rest of the sidebar for almost a minute, or more! (I didn’t actually time it)

Second, I had nothing to show for it. Sure, I didn’t give it much time and it’s possible that I missed something in the Publishers section that would either help me generate revenue or attract more page views. But, I had neither. Their site claims a “guaranteed ad inventory from the very start.” I never saw any advertisers’ ads on drivelocity.com.

So that, coupled with the load time issues, made this a failed experiment and am unable to recommend PerformancingAds to anyone. It’s unfortunate. I had read some good things about them. That’s why I gave them a try. But there really is no point in slowing down my site and having nothing to show for it.

Please note that they do have an affiliate program, which I used to link to their site in a previous post about advertising options; however, I made a point not to link to them in this one.

If this helps anyone else out there, I’m glad. If anyone has had a different experience, please feel free to share in the comments!

1. Affiliate Marketing – Some of the big networks in affiliate marketing include Commission Junction, Linkshare, ShareASale, among many others. Don’t fall into the trap of believing that you can throw up a page full of banners and generate an income. Having too many ads is a sure way to drive away your visitors. Tailor your ads to your posts and you can not only provide a service, but make more money than having random, un-related ads on your blog. For more information on affiliate marketing, I strongly suggest you join ABestWeb.
2. Paid Posting – There are several options available for bloggers who wish to get paid to post. One of which is the recently redesigned PayingPost.com which will, if approved, present opportunities to you that you can choose to accept and blog about. If your post meets the requirements, you can earn a few bucks per post. Keep in mind that your blog will need to be somewhat established first. What’s great about this option is that you can earn while doing something that you’d be doing anyway, blogging. If you wish to post an opportunity for bloggers, click here.
3. In-house Ad Sales – Many people overlook this option, opting only for affiliate ads or adsense for banner and link advertising. By offering site sponsorship directly (see 125×125 ads to the right and the advertising page), you can control the price, the ads and it can be a much more guaranteed form of income. Some advertisers can also help you by sponsoring, or providing prizes for contests. If you think it’s too hard, look into OpenX, formerly phpAdsNew, to serve the ads and PayPal to handle subscriptions. It can be fairly automated. If that’s still too hands-on, check out Bidvertiser and PerformancingAds.
4. Contextual CPC Ads – Contextual ads are those that display depending on the content of they page of your site on which they reside. There are many pros and cons of using Google Adsense (see sponsors ads to the left) or Yahoo! Publisher Network to serve contextual CPC (cost per click) ads. If done correctly, they can generate substantial revenue. But there are many marketers out there looking to swindle new bloggers out of their money by offering them the road to quick cash. Your success with contextual CPC advertising generally depends on the traffic to your blog, whether or not they have a high level of ad blindness, and the content of your blog.
5. Contextual Links – Rather than having CPC banners and ad blocks on your blog, you can have CPC links directly in your posts. These ads are usually set to appear differently (i.e. two underlines) so as to not confuse the visitor. Once the link is moused over, an ad bubble pops up. One such network is Kontera – you can run this in addition to Adsense and not be in breach of terms.