Ready to make some money online and become a real dot com mogul? Well, the world of online advertising is a very confusing one. Most new bloggers know very little about monetizing their sites, inevitably turning to Google Adsense as their primary monetization method. This is not the best strategy to take; it’s best to spread out your income sources so that if one of them fails, you’ve got the rest to keep the money rolling in.
The problem is that with so many new ad networks popping up just about every other day, it can difficult to find the right one. Tyler Cruz (the same guy that tops the Canadian list on PeekYou) has been working on PublisherSpot for quite some time now, having recently relaunched it with an official press release. To help garner some more interest in his new venture — which aims to provide extensive reviews on just about every online ad network out there — he’s decided to order up a few paid reviews, including one right here on Beyond the Rhetoric.
Reviewing the Real Money Makers
When you hit up the PublisherSpot homepage, you get bombarded with a whole lot of text and not very much in terms of pictures. I personally find this to be a bit of a turn-off, because a text-heavy site looks a) daunting, b) boring, or c) both. But Publisher Spot isn’t here to be sexy; it’s here to be informative and man alive, are these reviews substantial.
Currently, there are 18 ad network reviews posted on the site, ranging from better known players like Tribal Fusion and Adsense to less popular networks like AdToll and RealTechNetwork. These reviews are very lengthy, very in-depth, and cover everything you could possibly want to know about making money through that particular ad network.
For example, if you hit up the page on PayPerPost found here, you’ll discover a review that is over 1700 words long. You get information on how to sign up, how to build revenue, and how to get paid, as well as explanations of the tack rating, dashboard, and tones. It’s very extensive and can be quite an exhausting read. Thankfully, there’s a summary near the bottom with the most pertinent information.
The ad network reviews are very useful for new and existing site owners (that includes bloggers) alike. Instead of signing up with a particular ad network and test driving it on your actual website, you can read an unbiased a review to see what they’re all about beforehand. I expect the number of reviews to increase exponentially as Publisher Spot continues to grow.
Best of the Best
Internet users have short attention spans. I know I do. That’s why having a “top ten” list is so helpful; it provides a quick snapshot of where you should really be paying attention. If you check out the sidebar on PublisherSpot, Tyler has posted up the top ten best overall networks, based on the user ratings. This is represented by a percentage.
You’ll also find specific listings for the best ad networks and the best affiliate networks, also based on an average user rating. What I find strange is that the lists don’t match up. For example, Adsense has a rating of 55%, but it’s nowhere in the “top ad networks” listing. Something weird must be going on with that algorithm.
PublisherSpot Makes Money Too
While it would be noble for Tyler to set up a site like PublisherSpot out of the kindness of his heart, he does have ulterior motives (as do the rest of us). Whenever you hit up a review of an ad network or an affiliate network, all outbound links are affiliate links. What this means is that when a PublisherSpot visitor decides to sign up for Text Link Ads, for instance, Tyler gets himself some nice referral income out of the deal. This would explain why the website doesn’t have any outright advertising of its own; it’s all about getting the referrals.
With new blogs being created each and every day, there’s a huge market of newbies and experienced web gurus alike who want to know which ad networks will work best in monetizing their sites. And that’s where PublisherSpot comes into play.
The single biggest piece of advice I can give to Tyler is to include some screenshots (or even walkthrough videos) as part of the reviews. This not only helps to break up the mountain of text, but it adds tremendous value and perspective to the user experience.
Thanks for the in-depth review Michael!
Regarding your suggestion about screenshots – we’re actually already working on that at the moment, as well as a few other features. I expect the new features to be finished and released within 2-3 weeks.
I also have more reviews on their way 🙂
It’s a good resource site. Should do well for any newbies who visit the site. Would be nice if they could provide check copies and actual payments received in their reviews. That’s how I do it. It shows legitimacy.
I have just entered the site and now i can figure out which are the popular ones to try out.
The AdSense review is not shown in the ‘Top ad networks’ sidebar because it’s been assigned to the ‘Contextual’ category (see here), all the ranked entries shown are in the ‘Ad networks’ category (see here).
Hope that clarifies the confusion 🙂
The AdSense review is not shown in the ‘Top ad networks’ sidebar because it’s been assigned to the ‘Contextual’ category, all the ranked entries shown are in the ‘Ad networks’ category.
Hope that clarifies the confusion 🙂