NetKlix Ad Network – Initial Impressions
There is a theory that to optimize the value per click on Google AdSense advertising only one ad unit per page should be displayed. You might have an ad unit and a link unit on a page, but the theory states only one ad unit. The rational for the theory is that Google serves the higher cost per click ads first.
If you have but one ad unit the ads displayed will be the cream of the crop. If you put multiple ad units on a page the lower cost per click ads will also be displayed giving more opportunity for your visitors to click on an ad that will give you a lower income. This could be a two edged sword. Is it better to get a low value click, but a click, or to hold out for only the higher value clicks.
In addition there may be two sides to this coin. It appears that low click through rates can also affect the quality of ads displayed on your site. I suspect that it is more a function of click quality than quantity. My guess would be that a low click through rate that leads to the advertiser’s most wanted action would not cause a problem. If your visitors click on ads and then only glance at the advertiser’s landing page then the click may be considered low value. With the better quality ads your visitor is more likely to spend some time on the advertiser’s page and you may get extra points for that.
Basically the theory makes sense to me. I have wanted to have the larger number of opportunities to click available but I also want to maximize the value of a click. I decided to add another ad network to my arsenal. NetKlix was mentioned in a blog post as an alternative to AdSense. I looked up the NetKlix site and signed up for an account. I received my account approval email this morning.
Some of the things that were attractive to me about the NetKlix program were the ability to control the colors of the ads and the ability to select categories of ads to match the content of the site. Google does a great job of targeting AdSense ads to the content of the page, but Google has the infrastructure to do this realtime. Smaller networks might not be able to target the ads so well, but the capability to select ad categories should be a big advantage.
The sign-up process was relatively quick and painless. The most time consuming part was reading the full Terms & Conditions document. That along took far longer than the 5 minutes that they talk about, but if you read that first the rest of the steps would probably fall within the time frame for most people.
After I signed up and got my codes and installed them on a couple of sites, I thought that I should check NetKlix a bit further. I used the usual Google search terms to dig up a little dirt. Most of what I found was not too current (2007-2008), but there were a few complaints.
Some of these complaints appear to have been addressed, but there is still a major problem from my perspective. It appears that the NetKlix ad inventories are non-existent for the categories that I selected. Before my approval there were some generic ads displayed on my sites. These were not very high quality, but they showed that the ad code was working.
Today, when I checked the sites after my approval, there were no ( as in zero ) ads displayed on either site. I looked at the page source code and my ad script does show up, but there is nothing displayed. I suspect that the categories that I selected for these sites have no ad inventory.
These sites are two of my highest traffic sites. I will need to do some further testing, but that will need to be done on some less important sites. I really need to maximize my income from these sites that have the most potential.
The other network that I have heard about and went on to investigate a bit is Chitika. The positives that I saw with Chitika were a low payment threshold and the demo did return good quality ads for keywords that I tried. I was not particularly enthused about the thumbnail images displayed with each ad, and no mention of color options was made in the material at which I looked.
None the less, I think it is time that I revisit the Chitika site. I don’t want to put affiliate banners up on the sites, but I do want to offer the opportunity for my visitors to pay me a bit more. Testimonials on the Chitika site say that these ads have provided an additional income stream without negative effect on their AdSense income.
What other ad networks have you tried, if any? Have you had experience with either NetKlix or Chitika? Please leave a comment! Thanks!