Webmaster Tools: Monetise your blog by affiliate marketing and sponsored ads

Like many people out there, I too have that little hope that one day, affiliate marketing and sponsored advertisements can help me make some money to support the running of this blog as well as my expensive hobby of collecting figures and BL-related items. So recently, I’ve dived into this unfamiliar territory. As I’m a newbie to this aspect of the web, I thought I would pen down some thoughts on what I’ve learnt over the past two months or so.

Ponytale in LalaParadise is a niche content blog with topics such as boys love and general anime, comic, manga, game, figure or goods, etc. I personally prefer that relevant network marketing ads are displayed, but I found that most of the time, those ads just aren’t available.

With that said, now on to a quick round-up of networks that I’ve signed up and tried so far.

Disclaimer: Some of the terms and information listed below may not be accurate, or most updated, so please read and verify with the actual network marketer as much as possible.

1) Adbrite (dead site)
Account Type: Publisher, Referral
Ad Type: Pay-per-click (CPC), Cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM), Cost-per-view (CPV)
Ad Format: Banner and text ads (CPM/CPC), full page ads (CPM) , in-text links (CPC)
Sign-up: Easy and fast approval upon clicking the email activation link.
Setup: Setting up the banners and ads is simple and straight forward . Create the banners then insert the generated code into your website.
Payment method: Check only.
Minimum Payout Limit: US$5
Comments: I haven’t seen their banner ads yet. Their full page ads are ok but not very relevant to my content. I hope they will one day! However, as they pay mainly by impressions, this is probably a good choice for sites with good visitor traffic.

2) BidVertiser
Account Type: Publisher, Referral
Ad Type: Pay-per-click (CPC)
Ad Format: Banner and text ads
Sign-up: Easy and fast approval upon clicking the email activation link.
Setup: Setting up the banners and ads are simple and straight forward too. Create the banners then insert the generated code into your website.
Payment method: Has Paypal option.
Minimum Payout Limit: US$10
Comments: I find that their banner ads are relatively attractive but due to the niche content of my blog, I don’t see any ads relevant to my content displayed, let alone clicked lol~ so as of now I’m having little success with them.

2) Etology (dead site)
Account Type: Publisher, Broker
Ad Type: Pay-per-click (CPC)
Ad Format: Banner and text ads
Sign-up: Easy. Approval within one week after clicking the email activation link.
Setup: Took a while to figure out the interface. Setting up the banners and ads took some trial and error. You can set the pricing or let the system determine for you after you insert the code into your website.
Payment method: Has Paypal option.
Minimum Payout Limit: US$50
Comments: While waiting for actual ads to come in, they would show their own ads, mostly dating ones. Similarly, Zero relevant ads to my content displayed. As of now, little success with them.

3) Google Adsense
Account Type: Publisher
Ad Type: Pay-per-click (CPC)
Ad Format: Banner and text ads
Sign-up: Relatively easy. If your site fulfills their basic requirements, approval within one day after clicking the email activation link.
Setup: Easy to setup and figure out.
Payment method: Check only.
Minimum Payout Limit: Varies as per country
Comments: You can’t choose the exact ads you want to show but their ads are generally more relevant to blog content than other networks. Revenue potential is promising :3 Let’s see how it goes.

4) Kontera
Account Type: Publisher, Affiliate
Ad Type: Pay-per-click (PPC)
Ad Format: In-text link ads
Sign-up: Relatively easy. Approval within one day after clicking the email activation link.
Setup: Easy to setup and figure out.
Payment method: Has Paypal option.
Minimum Payout Limit: US$50
Comments: Ads aren’t exactly relevant but links to useful sites. Revenue potential is promising :3 Let’s see how it goes.

5) Inuvo (dead site)
Account Type: Affiliate, Referral
Ad Type: Pay-per-conversion
Ad Format: Banner and Text links
Sign-up: Relatively easy. Approval within a week after clicking the email activation link.
Setup: Easy to setup and figure out.
Payment method: Check only.
Minimum Payout Limit: US$100
Comments: You get to choose the ads you display. You only get paid if the visitor performs the required action, such as submit email, make a purchase and so on. Interesting and varied ads but most advertisers limit their traffic sources to US visitors so it limits the potential reach and payout of the ad. So far there has been some clicks but no conversions yet.

6) Linkworth
Account Type: Publisher
Ad Type: Sponsored ads, Pay-per-click (PPC)
Ad Format: Banner and Text links, Sponsored posts, in-text ads, etc
Sign-up: Relatively easy. Approval within 1 week after site submission.
Setup: Takes a bit of trial and error but still quite easy to setup.
Payment method: Has Paypal, Moneybookers option.
Minimum Payout Limit: US$25
Comments: Advertisers bid for ad space or offer to pay for blog posts. I didn’t want to write about irrelevant topics or about products I don’t believe in, so I let an offer go. You also get to approve or reject ad bids. Revenue potential? Not sure. So far not much has happened since then :P

7) Project Wonderful (dead site)
Account Type: Publisher
Ad Type: Sponsored ads
Ad Format: Banner and Text links
Sign-up: Relatively easy. Approval within 2-3 weeks after site submission.
Setup: Takes a bit of trial and error but still quite easy to setup.
Payment method: Has Paypal option.
Minimum Payout Limit: US$10 ($1 service charge)
Comments: Advertisers bid for ad space. You also get to approve or reject ad bids. They allow bidding for separate traffic sources from US, Canada, Europe and rest of the world. That means, ads will only be shown to the visitor traffic source that the advertiser has bid on. My recommendation is to set a reasonable minimum bid amount for your ad space and not leaving it as $0. Revenue potential is promising.

I’ll continue to source for promising affiliate networks and update this page but in the meantime, I think the best way is to keep writing about things I like and believe in. Then hopefully relevant ad sponsors will come to LalaParadise and have a Happily Ever After here lol~

Please share your views and tips too! ^^

NOT RECOMMENDED:
1) Blueadvertise or DEX Platform
Account Type: Publisher
Ad Type: Pay-per-click (CPC), Cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM), Cost-per-view (CPV)
Ad Format: Banner and Text links
Sign-up: Immediate approval
Setup: Very easy to setup.
Payment method: Has Paypal option.
Minimum Payout Limit: No limit
Comments: They pay by 1000 ad impressions and show pop-up ads and so on.

After I activated their code on my blog, my traffic dropped by nearly 40% per day for consecutive 2 days I had them activated. Thankfully one of my visitors informed me that she kept getting annoying ads popping up and trying to redirect her away from my blog. I immediately removed their code and my page views went back to normal. Avoid them if you want to keep your visitors!

Their eCPM is very low so it’s not worth it at all, especially when it makes you lose your visitors.