Scoble’s Link Blog

Not long ago the announcement that Google had developed  AdSense for RSS feeds was greeted with both enthusiasm and maybe a little caution.  I put in my request to have them for my View from the Isle feed (via FeedBurner), it took an inordinately long time to get a response and then it took me longer to get the right AdSense ID in place.

 

Looking at my ads, I thought, jeez these are lame.  Well I guess most of you agreed.  With roughly 510 impressions not a single click, not one.  But I’m not alone in this.  Robin Good, same thing but on a grand scale 10,000+ impressions and something like 3 clicks—Bad RSS? Issues And Problems In Feeds Future. T.L. Pakii Pierce is having the similar results— How To Blog For Fun & Profit! — Bad RSS, and so are Arieanna and Ianiv on BloggingHelp.com.

 

Seems to me then, that these ads aren’t effective.  Sure, they appear, but if no one is clicking on them it doesn’t do either the advertisers or us any good, does it?

 

The consensus I’ve read is that ads in RSS, or in posts/articles are okay.  People don’t mind.  But I think the skip-able text ads Google is providing are just plain boring.  They don’t catch the eye, nor were the ones I saw remotely relevant—T.L. says his were more relevant, so mileage varies, I guess.

 

I’ve had good results with the ads within my posts here and on my other blogs.  Even thought they contain only text, they are functionally images that can be arranged within the text to catch and draw the eye.  I put a good amount of thought into where I place my ads.  It isn’t random or automatic.  Not all my articles get ads.  Sometimes I put them in for one site and delete for another, then back in for a third.  It’s about control. It’s about reach.  It’s about effectiveness.  And most of all, it’s about money.

 

It’s about time.

 

Technorati Tags : AdSense RSS, RSS advertising, Google

 

[Also posted on the Qumana Investor blog]