Is Adsense a Good Deal or a Bad Deal?

We learned at the Majestic Internet Conference on Monday that Google's average CPC (cost per click) is currently about $0.50.

I've been running Google's Adsense for almost 9 months and I have had 1,796 clicks and have been credited $313.48.  That's about $0.175 per click.  A lot less than Google's averages.

But that doesn't really tell me much.

So I went into Adwords and looked at what "venture capital" costs.  It goes for about $0.60 per click.

But based on the ads running on my blog, I am not getting many "venture capital" ads.

I get mostly "blog" and "blogging" ads.  "Blog" goes for $0.13 per click but "blogging" goes for almost $0.80 per click.  So I really don't know what these advertisers are paying on my blog.

All that said, I suspect I am not getting a great deal with Adsense.  I think the audience on my blog is worth more than $0.175 per click and I am going to find a way to get that number up when I get back from vacation in January.

Comments

[Jeff Jarvis]

But isn't the trick here that Google doesn't reveal what split it takes?

[aaron wall]

The ad split changes dynamically based on a smart pricing technology.

I am guessing that the blog ads are a super saturated market with all the blogs that have AdSense ads on them and that probably drives their costs down.

$300 in 9 months...you could probably make way more than that selling text link ads...also for the audience you have you should be able to get hundreds (or more) per month if you have some sort of ad from an exclusive advertiser.

[brian]

How come Fred can talk openly about how much money he's making with AdSense, yet Google has explicit language in its AdSense terms and conditions saying such discussion is strictly verboten? Fred aren't you concerned about losing your AdSense account?

[Steve Shu]

I don't have too much familiarity with Google AdSense as Tripod disallows Google AdSense due to pre-existing relationship between Google and Lyco-Tripod.

I am looking at Quigo as an alternative. NY-based company. Series A of $5M earlier this year. Former CEO of Lycos there (funny). Since they are in your backyard, if you do an investment there you can get a kicker if you use them on your blog ... ;)

-Steve

[Steve Shu]

Ooops. I guess Kanoodle (announced Nov. 2004) plans to have something with Six Apart in Q1 of next year that makes it easy for bloggers to add contextual ads ... also a company with NY operations ... the path is set for you on many fronts ...

-Steve

[Darren Rowse]

I'd be very careful about publishing your details like you have. You could easily be banned from Adsense for this post - its completely against their rules - if I were you I'd consider deleting your figures asap - have seen too many people banned for this. Just thought I'd let you know....

[rmcd]

I've been evaluating google's adsense, and have realized that they are claiming ownership over property that is readily mine (reports of clickthroughs, impressions, financials on my website). People should start realizing what they own, and that google is underperforming on what it provides. i.e. that space on your webpage is your property, not google's, and google needs to pay, and report readily its payments on that property. That they do not, and [force] people to agree to an somewhat unlawful TOS, they do to prevent newcomers from performing the necessary diligence for their program.

Its just because people need the money that they think that google is doing them some service. They're not.