I’m happy to share that the new book is out!  The Hidden Treasure in Your Website: The First Professional Guide to Monetizing Your Website with In-Text Advertising (the link goes to Amazon).

Humbly, author Tomer Treves is me, the same person behind this Online Siesta blog, so I can’t review the book objectively. But I think it’s only reasonable that I would recommend it…

Well, friends, I recommend the book – please buy one copy for yourself and 10 other copies for your family and friends

In Text Ads on Your Website Explained

Most bloggers and Web publishers need to make money from their websites but they struggle with keeping their readers happy and uninterrupted while visiting. There is a delicate balance between noisy jumpy display banners and clean focused content. In-text ads are a very good solution and alongside Google AdSense ads, they are the best monetization solution for many websites.

Yes, those double underline links that upon mouse hover open a bubble with a contextual ad within it are a great source of ad revenues for websites. But more important, they do so without interrupting with the reading flow. In fact, 90% (!) of the visitors read along without hovering, do not get exposed to the ad and enjoy the content.

The remaining 10% of the visitors do something wonderful – they express interest in the advertisement. This is like gold for advertisers because they get willing attention. This form of permission advertising yields high conversion rates and results to advertisers who are therefore willing to devote big online advertising budgets.

So the pay per click is relatively high and in text ads turn out to be an important source of earnings. This is why in-text ads are a hidden treasure. And this is why I recommend the book: it would help you earn more advertising revenues from your blog or website without covering your content with animated banners. Oh, and there’s a coupon…

$1,000 Coupon from Infolinks

The book includes a very nice coupon from Infolinks - double your first month earnings up to $1,000! Not bad as a start… Want the coupon? Click on the cover image below – it would take you directly to Amazon.

I would be happy and looking forward to receiving any feedback. Thanks!

Does Microsoft have an answer to Google AdSense? The two New World giants have open fronts in almost any field they operate in. From mobile phones through browsers and on to office applications. It’s a battle. But the golden egg is still online advertising and Google’s ability to grow fast and fight Microsoft on so many fronts is based on advertising revenues coming from the Google AdWords platform and its distribution through Google AdSense. If Microsoft wants to stand a chance in this battle of giants, it’s the online advertising distribution that needs to be targeted. And there’s no doubt that it’s on Microsoft’s map, but the focus on Search through Bing is not the only possible answer. There is another one.

Google still controls about 80% of the global search market. This is a major distribution channel for advertising and it’s Google’s main source of revenues. Microsoft has invested tremendous efforts in establishing and promoting Bing, with hopes to gain search market share, but this is and will continue to be a tough front. Changing the way people search is not easy. Google’s second distribution channel for online advertising is AdSense and it is there that it stands relatively alone as the leading contextual advertising platform. It is also exactly where Microsoft can fight back.

AdSense Alternatives Fail

There are quite a few AdSense alternatives that also offer contextual advertising units for website publishers to include on the verge of the actual content. None of them comes close to AdSense. In fact, in 2010 Yahoo has shut down the Yahoo Publisher Network which was a direct competitor to AdSense. Why do all AdSense alternatives either fail or suffice with meager leftovers? It is because they are not real alternatives. From the publishers’ point of view, the AdSense unit yields the highest advertising revenues (except for complicated direct sales). Publishers would only consider alternatives when their Google accounts are suspended, which means they have low quality or fraudulent traffic, or as additional units where Google wouldn’t allow them to run AdSense. No wonder then that they fail to gain market share.

This mountain would be too high to climb, even for Microsoft. It doesn’t seem reasonable for Microsoft to run a direct competitor to AdSense where many failed before.

Fight Back with In-Text Adertising

And yet, there is a real way for Microsoft to fight back – In-Text advertising. The rapidly growing method of double underline links that open an ad bubble upon mouse hover is unique in its positioning within websites and alongside AdSense. While Google dominates contextual advertising surrounding the content, In-Text ads run within the content where the readers focus their attention. And since these In-Text ads do not interfere with the reading flow they are much less intrusive than animated jumpy banners within the AdSense units. Publishers love them as an additional source of revenues on top of Google AdSense.

If Microsoft would have leveraged its advertising marketplace with flexible In-Text advertising technology, it could have placed ads within each and every website that has Google AdSense today. And guess what, In-Text ads have a much higher click through rate (CTR) than AdSense, which means they will be in position to present real competition. At Infolinks, the fastest growing In-Text advertising network where I work, we’ve managed to engage many thousands of websites placing billions of ads with many millions of clicks in multiple languages across the globe utilizing the newest In-Text advertising technology. Combined with a major advertising marketplace like Microsoft’s, it could do wonders.

Now, personally, I have nothing against Google. I’m a big fan. Also I don’t have any interest in Microsoft. But as a citizen of the world I’m looking forward to seeing a competitive market shaping a free and fast Web not dominated by one giant. If not Microsoft, there are a few other candidates that could also fight back and challenge the online advertising services to become even better. I know we’re trying.

Lucky for me, I attended BlogWorld Expo Las Vegas last month and had great time with the Infolinks team. During the event I had the pleasure of speaking personally with many bloggers – mostly about monetizing blogs with In Text ads – and I thought the bottom line of these conversations was interesting enough to share here: In Text ads are much more subtle than the current Google AdSense ads. And this is a major shift in perception so I would want to explore this a little further.

Contextual Advertising: Google AdSense becomes Jumpy

When it comes to contextual advertising as a monetization method Google AdSense still rules as the top option. With Google’s vast AdWords marketplace their coverage plays a strong part in the ability to help bloggers and publishers monetize their content. However, with time, the once-subtle and quite text ads have been replaced by a growing number of display ads. And these display ads have turned mostly into animated banners. Therefore, the AdSense units display more and more jumpy ads.

The transformation from text ads to flashy banners was a response to the drop in clicks on the AdSense ads. Advertisers had to fight harder for the attention of web dwellers who disregard the ads entirely. But in this ongoing fight, it’s the actual website’s content that loses every time. The balance between content and noise has been pushed towards noise and this leads to user experience deterioration.

In Text Ads as the Quiet Alternative

Then came In Text ads. The double underline links are highlighted within existing content but they do not present any advertising to the regular reader. People are invited to read the text without interference and there’s no noise to distract their attention. In fact, now that online dwellers are used to these links, they keep reading just as they do when there are standard singe underline hyperlinks within the text. Only if a user is specifically interested in learning more about the highlighted term will he hover over with the mouse. Then, and only then, the small bubble will open up presenting a message from an advertiser. If interested, the user can click on it and proceed to the advertiser’s landing page, and if not – the cursor is moved away and the bubble disappears.

Most Readers Focus on Content

The shocking truth is that 90% of readers are not even exposed to the advertiser’s message and they get to focus on the content. This is also good for the advertiser who doesn’t have to pay for unwilling readers and doesn’t have to annoy people with the risk of negative emotions towards his message. Among the remaining 10% who do choose to hover and read the message, the openness to the advertised message is high due to the permission they granted for the bubble to open.

For the blogger or publisher the monetization works well and In Text ads generate a new source of revenues in addition to any other form of online advertising. But even more important, the blogger or publisher gets to keep the content much cleaner of advertising and push the content to noise balance back towards the content. Instead of flashy banners, readers simply see double underline links.

Bloggers Regard In Text Ads as Quiet

During my conversations with bloggers at BlogWorld Las Vegas, I clearly identified a shift in the way In Text advertising was perceived. If in the past In Text ads were sometimes frowned upon as being a little intrusive, now with Google AdSense ads being so jumpy and noisy, In Text ads suddenly appear as the sane alternative. Now, I don’t necessarily like calling In Text ads an AdSense Alternative, but rather I prefer to view them as an AdSense Supplement. But this new approach to In Text ads seems to predict an even wider adoption by bloggers, en route to becoming a standard monetization method.

Oh, and I also had time to have some fun in Las Vegas, when Infolinks took several VIP bloggers to a fun night out including a stretch Limo and a helicopter ride over the Las Vegas Strip… check out this video:

When defining in-text ads, the little tooltip that opens upon a mouse hover nicknamed “bubble” was a fundamental part of it. But, as it usually happens with definitions, there are exceptions. Some advertising methods that insert ads dynamically within existing online content do so without the so called bubble, or with variations of it.

Generally speaking, I find the bubbles to be a crucial part of the success of in text advertising. The ability of the users to view the ad before clicking it guarantees the double permission process – when hovering with the mouse, users first ask for some more information about the highlighted term (with the double underline), and then when they click they actually approve that they want to see more of the related ad shown within the bubble. Such genuine interest in advertised content generates higher conversion rates for the advertisers and in the long run yields higher revenues to the website publisher. Without this preview, more clicks will be by mistake, bounce rates will be higher and overall results for both advertisers and publishers will diminish. And yet, such bubble-less in text ads do exist, so they’re worth understanding.

Link Only In Text Ads

Some providers offer website publishers to integrate what seems like in text ads that do not react to mouse hovers. Upon a click such ads lead to the advertiser’s landing page without a bubble or other form of preview. In most cases, such providers also allow the configuration of the advertising links to confusingly appear exactly like regular hyperlinks.

The obvious outcome of these link-only in text ads is unaware clicks. Visitors to sites with such ads can’t differentiate regular or editorial links from the paid for links. The unavoidable result is that users get confused. They also get angry and this anger is directed at both the website and the advertiser.

So why would anyone integrate such ads? From the publisher’s point of view, misleading visitors makes sense only for websites that don’t view their visitors as anything else than onetime short term revenue opportunities. Websites that don’t look for returning visitors, like AdSense traps or websites that deal with traffic arbitrage, simply want clicks for immediate revenues, not much more. Some get-rich-quick programs that promote such websites may be candidates for this form of advertising.

But with this understanding, why would advertisers want to work with them? Well, there are many types of advertisers that look for volume with no focus on quality. Again, traffic arbitrage sometimes requires high volumes of clicks, some fraudulent activities may require disguising robot clicks among genuine clicks, and you can think of other examples, but they will all surely fall under dubious fields of online activity. As you can see, I personally don’t like it when people are cheated or misled into clicking and therefore, I don’t like link-only in text ads.

Animated and Interactive Tooltips

The nicer version of bubble-less in text ads is when the regular bubble is replaced by another form of creative preview. Instead of placing the ad within a bubble like tooltip, some in text ads use other formats that on the one hand generate the double permission process, but on the other hand attract much more attention. One example is 3D ads that pop upon a hover. Another example is rather big bubbles that include interactive content.

While such creative bubble replacements could prove to be very efficient, they do have a down side in the form of noise. One of the nicest advantages of in text ads is that they are subtle, and while they do hook themselves on actual content, they don’t overdo this with jumping animation. This is the secret that helped pave the route of in text ads into reputable websites. Adding interactive or large animated bubbles could prove to be efficient, but it changes the balance of content and ads, so it may not be suitable for all kinds of websites.

Added Text Link Ads and Google Text Link Ad Units

The last form of bubble-less in text ads – at least for the time being – comes in the form of added links. This method of advertising steps even further away from in text advertising since it does not highlight existing content, but instead it inserts additional content within the text. This can be done either by configuring text ad units within the content, where ads are later added dynamically, or even by letting a script push the content to add textual ad units. Then, these text links can perform as regular in text ads with hovers and bubbles, or as link-only text ads with no preview.

The most famous example is Google AdSense’s Text Link ad units, where publishers can add a line of text links with contextually related terms that link to pages full of paid for ads. Many website publishers integrate these ad units just above content to appear a little like a navigation bar, which clearly confuses visitors. Others add these text link ad units between paragraphs to appear as part of the text. One should question Google’s approval of these ads which stand in contradiction to Google’s general positive approach to online advertising. My guess is that with time, Google will back away from this format or at least restrict the integration to locations which will not be confusing.

Added text link ads could be legitimate and serve visitors with added value while creating a positive interaction opportunity for advertisers only when they are clearly distinct from the content. To Google’s benefit it should be said that all text link ad units are preceded by a small headline describing them as ads. As with other issues related to contextual advertising, the clearer the distinction between editorial content and ads, the better are the long term results for all sides involved. So, if you do choose to use bubble-less in text ads, do keep distinction in mind.

Surprisingly, online publishers often ask if they can monetize their websites with in-text ads even if their content is not in English. The answer is that, of course, yes they can. The question sounds surprising because most monetization schemes, including Google AdSense and other AdSense alternatives, do work in many languages. But, in fact, it is a very legitimate question. In text ads are closely tight to the actual text and as such, the provider needs to be able to analyze content in each supported language. And, as it turns out, not all providers can support languages other than English. So, the first part of the answer, again, is yes, you can monetize non-English content with in text ads, but you must check with the provider if your language is supported.

Different Languages Worldwide

The second part of the answer is that you must also consider the geographic aspect. Even if an in text ads provider supports a language, the provider must also support the geographic location of the visitors. For example, let’s say that a provider supports monetization of German content. It’s a good start. But if this provider only has ads for the American market, visitors from other German speaking countries will be left untouched. If, for some reason, you target German speaking visitors from the US, then it may work. But if you’re counting on visitors from Germany and Austria, then obviously US ads won’t be enough. Accordingly, before choosing your in text ads provider, you need to make sure that there’s both support for your website’s language and for your visitors’ major locations.

Multiple Language Websites

More and more websites today offer content in multiple languages. This is true in countries like Canada where both English and French are required, and in the US where Spanish works well next to English. But it’s also common in international websites that operate in many different languages. If a big website has content in English, German, Spanish and French, there’s no reason to integrate in text ads on the English section only. It’s money on the table. Working with one provider to cover all languages will leverage the website’s reach to get better monetization results.

Examples for In Text Ads in Spanish, German and French

Usually, a question like this comes with a follow up question – can I see some examples? Clearly, English examples for in text are everywhere, and I always like to point out Britannica and Squidoo. If you’re interested in other languages, I can direct you to a couple of examples from my own experience. For an example of in text ads in a Spanish website, see Punto Fape, and for an example of in text ads in a French website, see Top Serie. If you need more, drop me a word – in any language!

As most new online advertising methods pave their way in their early days, so did in text advertising started as a monetization solution for smaller websites and blogs. But with time, more and more big and reputable websites added in text ads to their monetizing plans and we get this question quite often – do in text ads work well for the big guys? And the answer is yes, big time. In text ads serve as an AdSense supplement and adding 30% to 60% on top of your AdSense earnings is a big incentive to giving in text ads a chance.

I’ve recently had the opportunity and privilege to work closely with several large websites, including Squidoo.com and Britannica.com, and following are a few insights into how to best integrate in text ads into such big websites.

Big Websites Need Robust Solutions

The major or perhaps even the only characteristic that all big websites share is the volume of traffic they get. In fact, this is probably the definition of a big website: a website that gets lots of visitors. Accordingly, the first concern a publisher of a big website should consider is the robustness of the solution selected for monetization.

There are over twenty in text ads providers, and with the expansion of in text penetration, this number keeps growing. However, many of these providers are making their first steps in this field, and such new systems may not always be able to support large volumes of visitors. The limitations can be in the automatic realm – is the IT infrastructure capable of withholding millions of queries and clicks every hour? The established in text providers have proven that yes, it’s more than possible. So just make sure you’re working with one of those.

Another type of limitations is in the manual aspects of the integration. Some of the in text providers require manual involvement in the choice of highlighted terms and the matching of ads to text. For a website with a high volume of content or with dynamic content, manual involvement in the process can prove to be inefficient, so you need to check this with the potential provider as well.

Lots of Content and Ajax

Some of the larger websites also tend to have a lot of content in each page. The in text algorithm needs to analyze the text in real time without delaying the loading time. Some in text providers solve this by caching the content and doing the analysis offline, but since the online advertising market is rapidly changing, you may lose monetization potential with offline analysis. Therefore, a big publisher should make sure that the content analysis is done online with each page’s loading, but with no delays to the website’s behavior.

If each web page has a large volume of content, like with an encyclopedia or with long articles, the publisher may consider using Ajax for loading the content only when users scroll down. In such cases, the in text algorithm needs to run again and again with each scroll, or otherwise – the monetization will be limited to the first few paragraphs only. Britannica uses Ajax with in text ads perfectly. If you have a large volume of content, you should make sure the in text ads provider can manage it professionally and maximize your potential earnings.

Multiple Level Reporting

Big websites also tend to cover different content or different types of content. For example, Squidoo has both regular articles and a specialized section for books; or a website can have an articles area and a forum; or a portal may have both local news and sports news. If you take your website monetization seriously, you would probably want to monitor the results of each section separately, like with Google AdSense channels. In text ads are no different and you should ask your in text ads provider to provide you with multiple level reporting.

The larger in text advertising networks work with website networks as well and should be able to provide both aggregated reports and separate reports for each site. Such reporting systems can easily be used for monitoring different sections of a big website.

Niche Content and Advertisers

When matching advertisers with online content, the more focused the content, the higher the revenues can be. You can imagine that it’s easier to sell ads for a website focused on new family car models than for general web portal. However, bigger websites often have many categories of content and varied demographics. This means that the in text ads provider should also be able to match wide category advertisers or multiple niche advertisers. Some in text ads providers focus on specific areas and as such will have difficulties matching ads for big websites with a wide variety of content. If you have such a site, make sure you get the service that you need for it.

Big Websites and Monetizing International Traffic

The Internet is open for all, and don’t we just love it this way? Sure. But it brings a challenge to monetization, especially for bigger websites. Most websites today have at least twenty percent of visitors which come from outside of their main market. Some have much larger parts of their audience come from other countries. For big websites, these foreign visitors can accumulate to vast numbers and there’s no reason they won’t be treated as customers as well.

Clearly, since the online advertising arena can be different in each country, serving in text ads in many markets can be difficult, but it is possible. In fact, visitors from surprising countries often prove to have higher click through rate. This calls for further research, but the explanation probably comes from different surfing culture and perhaps less offline advertising attacks. When you integrate in text ads into a big website, you should ask about international traffic – your provider should be able to monetize it as well.

Contract Changes and Higher Revenue Share

When joining online services, in text advertising included, you are required to accept the standard terms and conditions. For big publishers, entering into legal contracts usually involves going through the legal department, who always want to contribute its wisdom to the contract. While this will surely slow down the process, it makes sense, so don’t forget this step in the integration process. You can sign up online and then negotiate an addendum to the agreement with such changes.

One major change you should consider does not require legal involvement. A big website can leverage the large online ads inventory to request a higher revenue share. From my experience, this can go up to very high numbers… but don’t push your provider too much. You want the provider to be happy to, or the incentive to get you higher revenues will be diminished.

Your Very own Customized Bubble

In text ads are placed with a bubble that opens upon a mouse hover. Each in text ads provider utilizes its own design for the bubble, but this appearance can be customized. Since this does take some work, integrating a customized bubble is mostly relevant to big websites. If you’re lucky to be included in this group, you should consider asking for your very own bubble, matching it better to your site’s overall look and feel and perhaps promoting your brand as you go.

Testing and a Trial Period with In Text Ads

So, you are now seriously considering adding thousands of dollars when monetizing your mega website, and you’ve checked all the relevant issues to make sure you found the right solution for you… but wait, just before you execute a 12-months exclusivity contract and commit yourself to the adventure – why won’t you test it first? Yes, a trial period is the right thing to do. Integrating in text ads into a website takes very little technical effort – you simply paste a line of code in the right place – so performing some testing shouldn’t be too difficult. Starting with a one-month trial period sounds like a step in the right direction, especially for a big website. My guess is that after some optimization and successful testing, you will stay for the ride.

I was browsing through a magazine – a real one with paper pages – and noticed a lifestyle article about a new mattress that uses three-dimensions. Well, I wondered, don’t most mattresses have three dimensions? But then, on the next page, a full-page advertisement announced a new 3D mattress. Hmmm… was that a coincidence? Of course not. The magazine sold the mattress ad and probably added an editorial article about the new technology. Most magazines try to separate editorial content from advertising, to keep appearance of professional writing. Separation of paid-for ads and actual content is considered ethical. In this instance, they were not that subtle. But wait, what’s so wrong about relevant ads? There seem to be a big difference in our expectations between the offline world and the online arena. While in traditional paper publications we prefer content which is clear of advertising interests, when it comes to the Internet, we actually expect the ads surrounding the content to be highly relevant to the content.

As website publishers we in fact insist of showing the most relevant ads, hoping they will yield higher click-through rates and revenues. The visitors somehow accept this as being supplemental to the content. Google AdSense ads are responsible for this revolution. Since the ads are placed through automated algorithms, we don’t see them as affecting the editorial considerations of the publisher. Moreover, if the ads are not relevant, we usually complain about it.

In text advertising is a form of contextual advertising. As such, in text ads are attached to hooks – highlighted terms within the content – and they are relevant to the terms and the content of the page. So, if your question is simply – are in text ads relevant? The answer is positive. Yes, in text ads are relevant to your content. But since there are examples where they are less relevant, this question calls for some further discussion.

No Perfect Guarantees

One of the publishers I’ve been working with has integrated in text ads for the first time. During the first month, we served ads to no less than 20 million unique visitors. When summarizing the first month’s results, the publisher was generally very happy with the revenues and feedback, but he highlighted one email from a frequent visitor, who complained about an ad that was not relevant. My first response to the complaint was – Great, this is good news! How come? Simple. It’s true that an irrelevant ad is not a good user experience. But, if we had one complaint out of 20 million visitors, we have a very good success ratio. There are no guarantees that any contextual advertising technology would be perfect. There’s nothing like a bullet-proof method with perfect relevance, not even Google AdSense, and as long as the vast majority of ads are relevant, this should suffice.

Is it really not relevant?

In text ads can be less relevant when the content is not focused. Any contextual algorithm, as smart as it can be, would have problems with pages that are a mix of issues. In such cases, the ad should at least be relevant to the hook – the highlighted term.

Another factor that can reduce relevancy is geography. When the visitor comes from a country with less online advertising, it could be difficult to match the ads with high relevancy. To improve this, make sure with your provider that he has enough advertising coverage in the countries where your most important visitors come from, and be tolerant to less relevant ads in other regions.

Last but not least, relevancy is in the eye of the advertiser. While you may think that an ad is not relevant, take into consideration that the advertiser has specifically chosen to match the ad to the term and context. A professional in text ads provider only places ads with direct response to advertising campaigns which target context and terms. For example, if the chosen term was “London Hotel”, you would probably expect a travel ad. But then, if you see an ad for a t-shirt website, don’t be alarmed. It could be that this t-shirt website is now selling new Madonna merchandise, and Madonna is on her way to a big concert in London; hence, the advertiser is trying to target tourists who head to London for the show.

Are your Hooks Relevant?

In addition to measuring the relevancy of the ads to the content, another important factor would be the relevancy of the highlighted terms to the content. Before any visitor hovers over an ad, visitors show interest in links which are relevant to the content. When the highlighted terms are relevant, you should see higher rates of hovers. Matching the ads themselves comes next. So first, ask yourself – are the terms relevant? This should be a good start.

You can improve In Text Ads Relevancy

In these cases when you still feel that the in text ads on your website are not relevant enough, consider the following options. First, calculate how serious this issue is. If you’re thinking about just a few ads out of thousands, then it’s probably not a serious problem. Second, consider the context and the geography – the more focused the content, and the bigger the market for online advertising in this country, the higher the relevance should be. If the market is not that big and the content is not very focused, achieving high relevancy would be difficult. Third, look from the advertiser’s point of view – he thought the ad is relevant, so try to understand it.

If, after considering these options, you still feel that the ads are not relevant, then it’s time to contact your in text ads provider. There’s much you can do together. Your provider can work with you to improve the algorithm and customize it to your website, direct specific advertisers to your website, and assist you with monitoring and analyzing results. After all, it is contextual advertising.

Yes, you can monetize your website with in text ads together with Google AdSense ads. I could have finished this post here, with a simple Yes, but I get this question so often that I thought a few more words can make it clearer. Plus, there’s an bonus extra insight.

Why even ask about AdSense?

Websites integrate Google AdSense ads with almost any other kind of advertising. In fact, AdSense has became such a standard monetization tool that you can see it alongside any other method of online advertising. So why do website publishers still ask about the ability to run in-text together with AdSense? One explanation could be simply because it’s rather new. Another explanation could be that publishers simply ask about all types of ads, in-text included. Both explanations are valid.

To add on these explanations, a few years back, around the year 2006, there was an actual concern about clashes between AdSense and in-text. In Internet time, that was a long time ago and both methods have evolved since then, but the Web keeps a record of everything and if you dig deep enough, you might find warnings about this. If you do, you can relax. Anything about clashes between AdSense and in-text is old news. With a trusted in text ads provider you can be sure that there will be no technical clashes with AdSense ads, and also, as far as I know, Google does not have anything against in-text ads. In fact, it won’t be unreasonable to assume that Google will get into in-text ads as well in the near future.

Will In Text Ads affect AdSense Revenues?

No, in text ads do not affect AdSense revenues. Again, this could be a very short paragraph. A simple No would suffice. To be on the safe side of clearance, I would add that I worked with many thousands of websites, almost all of them integrated both Google AdSense and in text ads, and none of them reported any decrease in earnings from AdSense. This should be reassuring, I hope. The explanation is probably in the nature of the click through rate (CTR). It seems that the type of visitor that clicks on a banner-like ad from AdSense (these ads surround the text) is different than the type of visitor that clicks on the in text ads within the content. They don’t replace one click by the other and therefore there is no influence on the earnings. One exception to this general statement is that when in text ads are just added to an existing website, they sometime get more attention than usual for a short while, but as the double underline links become more familiar, it all goes back to normal.

How much Revenue can In Text Ads add on top of AdSense?

This is a tricky question since earnings from online ads differ widely depending on many different factors. I’ve seen websites where the in text ads revenues where double the AdSense revenues. I’ve seen websites where the revenue level was approximately the same. In most cases, with a good in text ads provider, your website revenues should not be less than half of the AdSense revenues. So, bottom line – how much? You can expect your website’s in text ads to generate up to 50% of your AdSense revenues (on top of the AdSense earnings) and plan accordingly. Then, you can hope to be surprised by higher levels of revenue. If you get less than that, you should optimize your in text ads integration (and I do give tips for that).

In Text Ads make Sense together with Google AdSense

Here’s the promised extra insight. The best combination for website monetization through placing ads on a website is by adding both Google AdSense and in text ads. Accordingly, in text ads are not an AdSense alternative, but an AdSense supplement.

If you’ve already decided to put AdSense ads on your website, it means that you’ve acknowledged the fact that ads are going to interrupt your visitors’ attention while they browse through your content. In fact, with the growing portion of flash banners within AdSense ads, they become more and more intrusive, grabbing your visitors’ attention away from the original content. If that is the case with your website – and let’s face it, most websites do use AdSense – then adding in text ads on top of AdSense is both logical and beneficial. In text ads are not as jumpy as flash banners, they are opened only upon your visitors’ active choice (when they hover over with the mouse), and they add substantially to your revenues. In text ads make sense together with Google AdSense.

As I wrote on Part 1 of this post, this is the most frequent question I get from website publishers before they integrate in-text ads for the first time. If you still haven’t, please start reading this post from Part 1, where I discussed the effect of the measurement methods used when counting net impressions and calculating eCPM. Recapping the summary of Part 1, I suggested measuring your website revenues by the bottom line, in dollars, so not to be confused by flexible measurements of eCPM, and looking for an in-text ads solution that counts most of your traffic, including international visitors.

Clicks Matter Most

The highest effect on your website monetization with in text ads hides in the humble term – clicks. All revenues start with a click and this is what you get paid for – clicks on ads. In most cases, in-text ads are paid on pay-per-click basis, or PPC. Although there are other models, like pay-per-acquisition, in most cases they are less effective with in-text and will yield lower revenues. So, if the revenues come from clicks, to increase your revenues from ads on your site, you need to increase two parameters: first, the number of clicks; and second, the payment per click.

More Clicks and CTR

Statistically, a web page gets a certain number of clicks on in-text ads for every 100 page views. This ratio is called Click Through Rate (CTR) and it is highly important for your monetization. For example, if a page had 15 clicks after 500 relevant page views, this page had 3 clicks for every 100 pages, so the CTR was 3%. To get more clicks, you can increase the number of page views, that’s obvious, but you should also try increasing the CTR. This will leverage the increase in page views. I will write more about increasing CTR as part of improvement tips for the in text ads integration. For now, it was important to clarify what is CTR, because it’s part of the formula for estimating potential revenues.

If you know your in-text ads CTR, this figure will be useful for the revenues estimation. If not, take the CTR you have on banners and as a thumb rule, double it. If you have textual AdSense ads on your site, you can use their CTR for now and hope it will be higher with in-text ads, or simply add 50% to it (so if your AdSense CTR is 1%, use 1.5% for this estimation).

Higher PPC

The second parameter that matters when it comes to clicks is the payment per click (PPC). From the advertiser’s point of view, it’s actually the cost per click (hence the term CPC), and advertisers are paying very different sums for different clicks.

As you can imagine, when financing an online advertising campaign, an advertiser would pay more when the potential sale is higher. Therefore, the page’s content niche is crucial to the PPC, and while a page about financial instruments and investments attracts high costs campaigns that yield high PPC, a page about a celebrity issue with less focused target audience would normally fit only general campaigns with low PPC. And the difference can be huge. Payments per click range from fractions of a cent and up to several dollars.

And while the content niche highly influences the PPC on a wide range, the entire range is subject to another crucial factor – geography. The stronger the economy, the higher the potential of sales and the costs of advertising, and therefore the higher the PPC. While in the USA, the payment per click may vary between a few cents to a few dollars, depending on the content and a few other parameters, the same ads in India will yield PPC rates starting from a small fraction of a cent and up to a few cents only.

For estimating potential revenues we can put a few fixed numbers, but please bear in mind that these figures are generic and your actual numbers could be very different. So, for visitors from the USA, if you have content that targets the higher end of PPC, use 25 cents as an average, for the lower end use 7 cents, and if you’re not sure – put something in the middle or lower, like 12 cents (again, these are very simplistic assumptions for this model only; you can always hope and aim for much more). For visitors from strong economies outside the USA, multiply these PPC figures by 0.7 to get 30% less. For visitors from developing or smaller economies, and this includes big markets where the online advertising is not blossoming, multiply the USA PPC numbers by 0.1 to get 90% less (yes, sad but true; on the bright side – the CTR there is usually higher).

In Text Ads Revenue Estimation – The Formula

Finally, we’re getting to the actual formula. How much money can I earn from in text ads on my website? Here’s the formula. Take your net impressions, divide by 10 and then multiply by the CTR to get the expected number of clicks. Then, multiply the clicks by the PPC, and here you have it – the bottom line projected revenues. Want the eCPM? Divide the bottom line revenues by the number of impressions and then divide again by 1,000. Important: if your traffic has different geographic sources, like most websites, you need to do this calculation separately according to the source, and use the relative estimated PPC accordingly. This is also true if your website has different content categories and then you have to calculate using the relevant PPC as well.

Practical Example

Let’s illustrate this by an example. Your website www.ExampleSite.com gets 1,000,000 page views per month, but you know that some of these visitors leave very fast and some of the pages have video only and no text, so your fill rate is about 80% and the net impressions are therefore 800,000. Most of your traffic comes from the USA, about 60% of it. Then, 10% comes from Canada and Germany, and the rest 30% of the visitors come from India and Indonesia. Your content niche is very attractive for high cost advertisers – it’s all about financial instruments, so the PPC should be high. As for CTR, your Google AdSense ads yield about 1% click trough rate.

Now, we can start estimating figures for in-text revenues. The CTR should be about 50% higher, so we can assume 1.5% CTR. The PPC for visitors from the USA should be high, around 25 cents in average, for the visitors from Canada (CA) and Germany (DE) 30% less, so we can assume 17.5 cents, and for visitors from India (IN) and Indonesia (ID) we multiply by 0.1 to get 2.5 cents. Calculating should be done according to the geographic source. Calculating…

60% USA Traffic x 800,000/10 x 1.5% CTR x $0.25 PPC = $180 Monthly Revenues, $0.38 eCPM.

10% CA and DE Traffic x 800,000/10 x 1.5% CTR x $0.175 PPC = $21 Monthly Revenues, $0.26 eCPM.

30% IN and ID Traffic x 800,000/10 x 1.5% CTR x $0.025 PPC = $9 Monthly Revenues, $0.04 eCPM.

In total, the estimated revenues would be 180 + 21 + 9 = $210, with general eCPM of $0.26. If your provider would have counted only USA traffic, the eCPM would have been higher ($0.38), but your bottom line revenues were $180 only and you would have lost 14% of your revenues ($30) only to see a nicer eCPM.

Why calculate when you can try?

I hope that now you can do the math for your own site and estimate how much money you can earn with in-text ads. Word of cautious: this formula used generalization and assumptions and disregarded several parameters that can affect your revenues. It can be used for rough estimations, not much more. The best way to get an idea of how much you can earn is by simply trying… Ask an in-text ads provider to integrate their solution with no long term commitments, try it for a while and get an accurate figure. A full month would give you the best projection. I know this post got to be longer than I planned and a little complicated… if you have any questions, I would be happy to try answering.

But, in my opinion, this battle can’t go on forever. Exaggerated reach media annoys visitors, who in turn, look for alternative sources of information. Only very few of them will chose to pay a subscription to avoid ads, while with the growing competition, most will simply move on to another site. With growing concerns about having too many ads, serious online publishers choose very carefully which types of ads to put on their sites. And then, when the ads quite down and show reduced efforts to grab attention, the readers actually give them less attention, and consequently – revenues from advertising drops.

The solution is right there, in the middle of your website. Look carefully… there’s a hidden treasure in your website. The content of the website can serve as a layer for placing subtle ads. Now, I’m not referring to selling your writing skills – and your soul – and writing false reviews in disguise of objective opinions while getting paid for them. That’s a different story. I’m talking about in-text advertising.

When used correctly, in-text ads appear as double-underline links within the content of a website. They do not interfere with the flow of reading and they do not fight over the reader’s attention. The site’s visitors know that these links lead to ads, but they do not distract them. Only when such a link interests the reader, she can hover over the link with the mouse. Then, a bubble will appear with a relevant ad inside. If interested, the visitor can click on the ad and continue to the advertiser’s landing page. If she’s not interested, she simply moves the mouse away and continues reading.

If you haven’t read the About section, I must pause now for a quick remark – I work for Infolinks, a provider of in-text advertising. I am biased. However, I like to wake up each morning smiling when I go to work and as long as I can afford it, I wouldn’t work for something I don’t believe in. I chose to join the Infolinks team because I think this is the right way to go. So, here it is. I’m from the industry. But that’s the best place to gain professional experience, which I hope you can benefit from when reading along.

In-text advertising is a great source for monetizing a website. In text ads complete other types of advertising without affecting them. Relevant in text ads actually enrich the content with relevant ads that visitors find interesting. True, they are still ads and readers would prefer not having them, but the fact is that they generate revenues that help make the information free. This is something that visitors appreciate. Compared to jumping banners, in text ads are the least intrusive method of advertising, yet the high relevancy yield good conversion rates for advertisers – which means that the online publisher is well paid.

When ads started to appear in websites, some people were against it, but with time, we all preferred having the Internet free with ads, then not having it at all. With website revenues dropping, in text advertising could save the day. Noticing that hidden treasure in our websites and monetizing it in the right way will keep the information free and our readers happy. And look around, you see in text advertising more and more and in numerous websites. Finally, after several years, in text advertising now pays very well and has become a legitimate method of both advertising and monetizing.