Can anyone recommend a good advertising service? Google Adsense doesn't count
In January we moved to a third party ad system instead of selling own own text ads, but we're not happy at all with the company we signed up for - The Rubicon Project. They are like a middle man and serve ads from various other advertising companies like Google, Yahoo, Active Response Group, CPX Interactive, etc, and theoretically optimize them over time based on each network's performance to earn us the most money. That optimization is a fairy tale unfortunately, and doesn't so jack diddly. Plus we've had two major problems with the service, including them not paying us for our first month even though we had earned WAY above the minimum threshold, and both times their customer service sucked big time. And the ads are extremely irritating anyways, and that's not at all what we want.
This company has a raised $18 million in funding which is just unbelievable. There's no way they're using any more bandwidth or resources than Clicky is (they're still in private beta), and we started on essentially zero dollars from our own pockets and have taken zero funding and have zero debt.
So we're looking for a new service. We don't want Google Adsense because it doesn't work well at all with our type of site, since there isn't any good content for them to spider. We have Adsense activated with Rubicon right now and all it does is advertise other analytics products, in particular Google Analytics. Gee, thanks :P
Between getclicky.com and our Freewebs partnership site, we have close to 20,000 visitors and 150,000 page views per day, so I think that makes us eligible for pretty much anything. We'd prefer to do text ads, and have them CPM based rather than CPC/CPA. We'd be ok with graphic banners too as long as they aren't super annoying, but we definitely like text better. It would be really sweet to be able to pick our own keywords for the ads to be based on, or very specific categories (not "Technology" which is the only thing even remotely close to us with Rubicon). We have a VERY targeted user base (people who run web sites, mainly blogs or business-related) so I know there's something out there waiting for us that will surely bring in billions, it's just a matter of finding it. Any recommendations would be very appreciated.
39 comments | Feb 01 2008 6:49am
This company has a raised $18 million in funding which is just unbelievable. There's no way they're using any more bandwidth or resources than Clicky is (they're still in private beta), and we started on essentially zero dollars from our own pockets and have taken zero funding and have zero debt.
So we're looking for a new service. We don't want Google Adsense because it doesn't work well at all with our type of site, since there isn't any good content for them to spider. We have Adsense activated with Rubicon right now and all it does is advertise other analytics products, in particular Google Analytics. Gee, thanks :P
Between getclicky.com and our Freewebs partnership site, we have close to 20,000 visitors and 150,000 page views per day, so I think that makes us eligible for pretty much anything. We'd prefer to do text ads, and have them CPM based rather than CPC/CPA. We'd be ok with graphic banners too as long as they aren't super annoying, but we definitely like text better. It would be really sweet to be able to pick our own keywords for the ads to be based on, or very specific categories (not "Technology" which is the only thing even remotely close to us with Rubicon). We have a VERY targeted user base (people who run web sites, mainly blogs or business-related) so I know there's something out there waiting for us that will surely bring in billions, it's just a matter of finding it. Any recommendations would be very appreciated.
39 comments | Feb 01 2008 6:49am

Recent Comments
dude, you work and talk with your heart. wish more people did that exact same th ... Chris, Nov 23 2008 I skipped the article, and so life goes on. If you promise to never, never to do ... Howard Sander, Nov 21 2008 Now time to grow even more! Wes Mahler, Nov 19 2008 Sean you did the right thing with the public apology. We all do things once in a ... Thomas A. Markel, Nov 19 2008 Stupid things can be done only by SMART peoples. For the others, stupidity is a way ... Ionel, Nov 19 2008 I saw this post and was thinking...give it to em! I think posting an e-mail in private ... Wil Reynolds, Nov 18 2008 Clicky is one of my favorite sites to visit. http://www.chillmybills.com melissa, Nov 17 2008 http://www.woodentrunk.cn trunk, Nov 17 2008 I think you will get more users for this whole thing and yes we have all done stupid ... dicenet, Nov 17 2008 Hey Sean, don't be so hard on yourself :) I love Clicky, and I know you're cool. ... Holly, Nov 15 2008