I'm always testing different advertising methods. I move ads around, I change the sizes and I even change the sources. I'm glad I don't have to rely on advertising revenue to live, or I'd be screwed by all the experimenting I do.

Anyone who's been using advertising services for any length of time should already know about the alternate URLs that can be used for contextual ad services when ads for a specific context aren't available. There are other ways, ways that I use, to choose which ad service to display ads for.

Google AdSense Problems

Google AdSense is extremely easy to sign up for and also extremely easy to get banned from. It's one of the reasons that people who know how to use it are targeting search engine visitors only. Even when properly targeted, it isn't effective when the searchers end up being bloggers, webmasters and other people who never click ads.

If you have a really low CTR rate for AdSense and your clicks are adding up to pennies at a time, the explanation is simple. You're getting too many impressions and not enough clicks. That happened on this blog more than once.

Manipulating the Theme

Since I'm using the "Who Sees Ads?" WordPress plugin to control how and where I display the AdSense ads, I'm using code to tell it not to display AdSense for selective categories and posts, just like I did when I wrote "Bypass WordPress Content Plugins with a Simple Hack" back in March:

<?php if (function_exists('wp_ozh_wsa')) {
$category = get_the_category(); $cat = $category[0]->cat_name;
$cats = array('Advertising', 'Article Reviews', 'Awards', 'Blogging', 'Blog Changes', 'Blog Reviews', 'Blog Tips and Tricks', 'Bragging Rights', 'Contests', 'Marketing', ' Reviews Received', 'Visited Links', 'Website Design', 'Website Reviews', 'WordPress');
if (in_array($cat,$cats)) wp_ozh_wsa("Chitika-UV-Top-Blog");
else if (!stristr($post->post_content, '<!– No AdSense –>')) wp_ozh_wsa("post-top");
} ?>

You'll notice that I'm displaying Chitika Ads for the categories that I know will suck to no end for AdSense. Besides, it beats the heck out of their public service ads. The code can be tweaked and I can further diversify if I so desire. The fall-through is AdSense only because it's my primary source of ad revenue on this blog right now.

Chitika Display Problem

Yes, I'm using Chitika. I've been signed up for it what seems like forever, but I never got around to using it. The problem was that I couldn't see the display. It only displays in specific countries and the Philippines isn't one of those countries. What it does, until they fix the issue, is display a big blank box where the ad should be displayed. Since that's an awful waste of space, I plugged BidVertiser into the alternate URL for Chitika. That's another service I've been testing, but not really using much.

I don't expect to earn as much from Chitika or BidVertiser as I do with Google AdSense, but stranger things have happened. Not only that, but I plan to remove all the ads eventually, so I'm not too concerned about it.

The AdSense Basket

If you read enough blog you'll see the phrase "don't put all your eggs in the Google basket" many, many times. It's good advice to follow and I'm following it, at least for this blog. If you look at the top of the page, you won't see anything if you didn't reach it by using a search engine. If you reached it by using a search engine, you won't see Google AdSense ads up there. This article is in the "advertising" category and no one interested in this article will ever click an AdSense ad.

I'm currently in the process of doing this to all of the posts on this blog that are geared toward bloggers, marketers, advertisers, webmasters and other people I know don't normally click on ads. I believe my CTR for AdSense will go up instead of hovering at the 3 percent mark.