Metafluence

Good-bye Kontera

Well after a few months of testing, I’ve decided to say good-bye to the Kontera in-text advertising program. I made this decision after giving them a solid 60 days of testing. I should mention that I did not personally experience any problems with Kontera or their in-text advertising program. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Installation was easy and setting up my account was a snap as well. It didn’t take their system long to kick in on my site either. I decided to pull their ads from my site for the following reasons:

• I wasn’t making much money. Like Google Ads, AdBrite, and other self-publishing advertising programs; the payout isn’t great unless you are specifically targeted your site to exploit the PPC system. My site isn’t about ringtones or asbestos lawsuits, so I don’t pull in a high pay out per click.
• I’ve generated a 2% click-through rate and still haven’t made enough money to get a check. Related to the above problem, but I wanted to point out that my site wasn’t poorly performing. I was just getting partial pennies per click.
• Another friend of mine who had signed up first and inspired me to join hasn’t been paid in three months, which didn’t bode well for my check should I ever earn enough to get it.
• It looks spammy. The double underlined links made my site feel like it was a sketchy link farm directory covered in Google Ads.

My departure from Kontera ads doesn’t mean I’ve given up on advertising. However, I do think I’m not going to do another PPC ad program. I also want advertisers that make more sense for my audience. I clicked on a few of the ads to see who was buying space on my site, and I didn’t see one brand I recognized. That made me feel like they were selling to people who were bulk buying generic keywords in hopes that the visitors would click on a more expensive, specific keyword.

Have you tried placing ads on your site? What was/is your experience like?