Ghacks has been using the same Internet advertising providers since the creation of the website. This has changed in the last few months were we replaced a few advertisers to test new advertising schemes. One area that has changed was intext advertising. Intext advertising refers to those double-lined links that you see occasionally on the website. We have been using Vibrant Media and their Intellitxt service for more than two years and switched to Kontera just a month ago.
The move was not easy at the beginning as we strive to have long term relationships with Internet advertising providers even if it means to miss opportunities. We did ran into some invoicing issues with Vibrant Media which definitely fueled the decision to move. We were contacted by one of Kontera’s business development managers who convinced us that Kontera would be able to monetize the website better which essentially meant more revenue for us.
We did not run blindly into this though as we have been burned quite a few times in the past by Internet advertising agencies who claimed to up the revenue but failed to deliver. Kontera was easy to setup on the blog as they provided access to a WordPress plugin. Took a couple of minutes to install and configure the plugin and everything was set to go. One of the differences between Kontera and Intellitxt is that the former allows to change the color of the links while the latter does not. Kontera managed to reach the same level of revenue that Intellitxt provided but managed to surpass that after the first week. We are now at about 150% of the Intellitxt revenue.
Every website on the other hand is different and performance can therefor vary quite a bit depending on your site’s niche, language and other factors.
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Hmm, now you talk about this I notice kaspersky is blocking both vibrant media and kontera ads. But I do see to banner ads at the top and bottom of the article.
I had signed up with Kontera but never used them. Actually, I hate those intellitext/Kontera type ads. Anyway, what’s the CTR with intext ads? And which network are you using for banner ads?
Kaushik, the ctr is at about 1.5%. I use Technorati Media, Burst Media, Adify and IDG for banner ads.
1.5% isn’t bad, provided they aren’t canibalizing your Adsense CTR. Burst Media’s fill rates are poor even though their CPM is good. I’m using them with Adphilia as the backup ads. Never had success with Technorati and Adify, and I’m hearing IDG for the first time.
You should try BuySellAds. They are really good for direct sale, and have 75/25 revenue split – the highest in the market. If you look around, you will find many websites are already using it.
are those the annoying links where if you hover over them they display ads ie for key words like sony or anti virus?
-Edit-
Yes they are jesus what have you done to this place, ads are everywhere no wonder people switch to adblocking.
Yes they are.
Martin, somethings wrong with your spam protection. None of my replies are getting through.
HATE all Intellitxt type adverts, they are ugly, intrusive and completely pointless as they highlight words that anyone with any sense knows anyway and wouldn’t need advertising for.
IMHO adverts should be kept in the same place on each page or post and should be un-intrusive. I understand blogs need advertising to survive, but it should be carefully balanced with how it intrudes on the site’s look.
AdBlock Plus has kept those annoying ads out of my way for quite sometime now, thankfully. I absolutely DESPISE scrolling down an article and every other line popping up a new advertisement. WAYYYY too intrusive. Just as annoying as pop-up ads, just a little less annoying than Flash ads that fly all over the screen – but Flashblock takes care of that little problem, too.
I think contextual advertising is fine.It is a bit annoying but it is made very clear which words are ads by the colour and the double underline. As the ads are contextual I find for the most part they are relevant as they are related to the information you are looking at.
These ads are very good for advertisers. I am impressed by the 1.5% CTR much better than banners where most advertisers would be happy with better than 0.4%
To block these annoying ads from your browser…
For Internet Explorer add these sites to your restricted sites list.
http //*.kontera.com
http://*.intellitxt.com
http://*.vibrantmedia
http://*.tribalfusion.com
Tools->Internet Options->Security->select ‘Restricted Sites’ then click the ‘Sites’ button.
This works like a charm by blocking the javascript files these sites use to place the links on the page. Add any other sites you find using these or other kinds of dynamic ads loaded via javascript or ActiveX.
For Firefox you can download the free Adblock Plus plug-in (http://adblockplus.org) or search for similar ones. For other browsers you may be able to find plug-ins that do the same thing or investigate if they have a feature similar to IE’s ‘Restricted Sites’.
For an approach that will cover all installed browsers you can add entries for these sites to your HOSTS file. Just Google ‘HOSTS file’ as there are many websites with information about what this file does and how to edit it.
1.5% isn’t bad, provided they aren’t canibalizing your Adsense CTR. Burst Media’s fill rates are poor even though their CPM is good. I’m using them with Adphilia as the backup ads. Never had success with Technorati and Adify, and I’m hearing IDG for the first time.