Back when I started GrownUpGeek.Com back in 2006 our only real source of monetization was Google Adsense.  We also dabbled a bit in affiliate sales but that didn’t start generating any real income for at least a year and even now affiliate sales only generates a few hundred dollars per month.  Of course there was income generated from my ebook sales (~$10k or so) back in 2006- 2007 (now the ebook is free here in the blog), and later, another $90k or so generated in premium content sales.  But that first year or so, Adsense was the primary way that we generated income and paid the bills.

Even though we experienced great success with Adsense, and in particular the old Adsense Firefox Referral program (so much success that Google published GrownUpGeek.Com as a Google Success Story) I knew that having all of our eggs in one basket was not a good long term strategy and that we could generate even better earnings by properly diversifying our advertiser networks.  The trick was to not cannibalize our Adsense earnings or drive visitors away by lowering our standards and looking spammy by jamming in too many ads.

Enter Kontera: Back in early 2007 I started testing Kontera’s In-Text PPC ad system.  Kontera allowed us to virtually double our earnings overnight while not consuming any space on our pages and not looking “spammy”.  Also, because Kontera’s In-Text ads look & feel totally different from Adsense text-units or image-ads, I think they appeal to a different type of visitors that may have become ‘ad blind’ to regular banner ads or text units.  This allows us to generate additional income with Kontera without significantly reducing our Adsense income (as proven in testing and statistical analysis).  And to answer the question: Can you use Adsense and Kontera together? YES, you can use Kontera with Adsense without any worry of violating the current Adsense Terms Of Service.

Over the last 2.5 years with Kontera we’ve seen both Adsense and Kontera earnings fluctuate up and fluctuate down, but virtually the whole time Kontera has earned right up with with, and sometimes better than Adsense.  Kontera has also performed better than other In-Text ad networks I have tested over the years.   Those solid earnings combined with my own dedicated Kontera account manager that answers my questions and deals with any problems that arise (something you won’t get from Adsense) has kept Kontera on my “Best ad network” list.  But, don’t take MY word for it – I always recommend that you test all of your options and use what works best for you on your site, and REtest at least once per year.

Now that we have begun a full shift from premium content sales being our main source of income and are focusing on a long term strategy of advertiser income based on free content,  the future looks good.  As long as we can continue to generate quality (user generated) content we expect traffic and earnings to continue to grow.

Affiliate links: You can try Kontera at www.Kontera.com. Other links in the post may also contain affiliate links. If you hate aff-links, you can go direct to www.kontera.com.

But in order to successfully generate long-term (lasting) income with premium content sales you must have content that a customer/member is willing to pay for.  Generally this means content that cannot be found anywhere else and is of real value.  If you can’t provide that high-quality content, you’re basically ripping people off, and/or reduced to tricking them into purchasing your ‘premium’ content which is not good for business and opens a whole other can-of-worms to deal with (refunds, complaints, etc).  For a long time GrownUpGeek.com had that certain type of content that could not be found anywhere else, namely tweaks and loopholes that allowed Myspace users to view the content of other Myspace member’s pages that were marked as ‘private’ or un-readable.  But as far back as 2007 I began to realize that because one day Myspace would no-doubt make this no longer possible, I would need to come up with a better long-term earnings strategy.  I could not continue taking people’s money in good-faith knowing that I did not (or soon would not) have anything of value to give in return.  Also, seeing the amount of ‘copy cat’ sites popping up faster than SwineFlu cases as well as the amount of “stolen” information copied and pasted from our site to other sites made it even more clear that this just was not going to work in the long-term.

At the end of 2008 after seeing premium content sales steadily drop, after constant problems with PayPal and GoogleCheckout, after growing tired of customers that were unable to read the agreement they were agreeing-to when purchasing a premium membership or just outright lying for refunds, after getting sick of other websites copying & pasting our premium content, or worse making sad (and sometimes humorously lame) attempts at copying/ripping-off the entire site (if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then we must be doing good!), and seeing the amount of new good, premium content steadily drop, I came to the conclusion that for long-term success we had to focus on FREE advertiser supported content.  After realizing these truths, we stopped accepting premium memberships, stopped focusing on our ‘premium’ forum content and started focusing on building content in our free/open forum areas.  Sadly, shorty after all these ‘executive decisions’ of mine the economy tanked, along with advertiser ePC/eCPM (and overall earnings), but traffic has continued in an upward trend and finally in the last few months eCPM (earnings) are creeping back up to pre-economy-bust levels.

IMHO, free, advertiser supported content is where the future is.  Actually, it’s where the past is.  Most websites (the vast, vast majority) generate income from advertisers, some generate income by selling products or services, and only a tiny fraction of websites actually generate income by ’selling’ content.   Television learned this decades ago – you CAN make money by giving away your content if it’s tastefully sprinkled with advertising.  Sure, there will always be HBO and Showtime, but unless you can sustain a high volume of high-quality content like HBO and Showtime, ‘free’ is the way to go.   So for the last year we have gotten back to our roots and generate income the old-fashioned way:  placing a limited amount of advertising on pages viewed by anonymous visitors (once someone becomes a free member, virtually no ads are displayed).

Concentrating on building good content or providing a good, free service (aka Facebook, Twitter, etc), not going overboard with the popups or ads (you’ll just piss-off people), giving visitors a reason to come back, and building traffic will generate steady income. Taking money from someone without giving true value in return cannot result in long-term success.

I got a surprise in the mail today. Lumped in with the bills and other junkmail there was an envelope from Chitika.com. Since I’ve only really used Chitika for testing/comparing in-text ads against Kontera, and not for over a year, I assumed it was just some sort of promotional materials.  Boy was I wrong. Upon opening the mystery envelope I was greeted with a check for several hundred dollars. Good thing I didn’t just toss it!

I quickly logged-in to my Chitika account and ran an earnings report, and it turns out all this effort-free cash was generated from referral links on old posts here in the blog. Those posts took probably 30 minutes of my time and effort at most to write, and now they are generating $3 – $5 PER DAY.  It seems it took a while for the publishers that signed up via my referral links to start generating income, but now that they are, it’s paying off for ME.. They make money, I make money – it’s a win-win.

This is a great reminder that that you don’t actually need to use a particular ad-network for it to generate an income for you. If the product is good (many publishers prefer Chitika over Kontera or use their standard ads), post some referral links, and earn money without even trying.

DISCLAIMER: This post contains referral links.. Duh!