Sunday, January 11, 2009

Contextual Advertising – AdBrite

Article Series: Blog Monetization

In this second article of the series looking in to contextual advertising networks, we will have a go at AdBrite. (Previous one was about Yahoo! Publisher Network)

AdBrite, in fact, offers more than just contextual advertising. It's text and in-line ad formats (in-line ads are the pop-up ads that appear when you hover over a double underlined keyword in your content) are contextual while there are other formats which enable you to be part of an ad marketplace. As a publisher, you can be a seller of ad space in this market place.

To get started, you need to sign-up and setup an ad zone. (A zone is analogous to an AdSense channel, but unlike in AdSense where the ad unit is the primary, here the zone is the primary unit and you attach ads to the zone). Once a zone is defined, you get an ad code which can be easily installed with the use of Blogger's HTML/Javascript widget.

AdBrite does not impose exclusivity; i.e. not allowing ads from other networks to be displayed on the same page. However, when displaying AdBrite ads with AdSense, remember to comply with the AdSense terms of ensuring that "formatting or colors of the third party ads is different enough from that of the Google ads" as described here.

Earnings are on Cost-per-Click, Cost-per-Impression and Cost-per-View bases depending on the ad format used. Payments are made via checks bi-monthly. The earnings are paid out two months after accrual, meaning, for example, earnings in January are paid in March. The default minimum payment threshold is $100, but it can be set to as low as $5!