CrispAds As An Alternative To Google
I signed up with CrispAds a few days ago so I can't really come right out and recommend them yet. Their straight terms are that you get .20 a click and there's the option that advertisers can buy time on your ad unit for a set amount per month. You can turn the latter option off which is a good thing since I just want to test it all out first and not have some random advertiser happen to come around and buy time on the spot while I'm just testing since I may want to remove it.
I've just started using them within the hour on Diggers Realm. I put their code into a small html file (see code below) and use that URL in my Google AdSense as the alternate URL when there's no Google ad to show. As you can see it is less than stellar looking. Their ad unit builder allows you to specify link color, text color and URL color and background color, but there is no option to turn off the ugly black border. For those of us who know how to optimize ad units having a border is a big "no no" and has shown to reduce the Click Thru Rate (CTR) quite a bit. Also they leave a lot of white-space.
The ad units come in the standard sizes 468x60, 728x90, 336x280, 240x400, 120x600 and 160x600. One problem I did have is that I tried to just use the IFRAME code of theirs in the little alternate html file i made, but their IFRAME is set a little wider than the specified ad unit size. For instance the 160x600 seen in the screencap is set at 165 in width. So when Google calls it and puts it in their 160 wide IFRAME it crops the right hand side off a bit, including the right hand border which makes it look pretty nasty. They do have a Javascript option for the code, which is what I used. As you can see it comes out nice and centered.
Here's the exact html I used for the little html file I made for the google_alternate_ad_url in Google AdSense if you want to steal it:
The ads are shown based off of keywords you randomly type into a box which is a little annoying. I had to sit there and guess which keywords to use for an hour last night while I was setting the unit up. For instance "Immigration" only brings up 1 entry. Then I had to mess around typing "immigration attorney" and "green card" and all sorts of variations to try and find more advertisers. Pretty cumbersome. Seems they have a pretty limited advertiser pool or I just suck at guessing what advertisers are using for their keywords. Since they use keywords they aren't contextual, which allows you to use them in conjunction with Google and other contextual advertising networks that limit competing contextual advertising appearing on your page in their TOS.
One thing about CrispAds that sounds nice is that they pay out within 36 days for any amount over $5. They do it direct through PayPal (though they will send you a check if you run more than $500 a month and request one).
Since I already have a good idea of my CTR in that spot and other information over the past few years I'm not walking into this blind. I'll see how it goes, how their tracking is, what the results are, whether they pay or not and report back.
This entry is in the following archive(s):
CrispAds Archive
Posted on Tue Feb 28, 2006 at 08:28 AM | Permalink | Email This | Blogroll IOA! |
Anatomy Of A FARKing
Chitika Audited Revenue Once Again Disappointing To Publishers
Hi,
Is CrispAds really paying publishers? I use CrispAds for 2 weeks and now I have $7.00++ in the "Cost" column in the CrispAds report but the "Income" column is "-" (dash).
What is that means? Did you receive CrispAds payment?
Thanks in advance!!!
Subscribe Without Commenting
Receive comments others make on this topic without having to comment above.