Following my last post where I questioned the value of building an ad engine for my own purposes, I began doing a little research on the different ad networks/services to figure out what it would take to support the more well known services. I knew of a few of them because of past experience in the arena (Adsense, Commission Junction, DoubleClick, Kanoodle, etc.), but I wasn't ready for what I discovered. Beyond the top couple of companies the market is huge and relatively unknown, at least to the layperson like myself.
Below is a list of all the players that I have found over the last couple of hours. I cannot vouch for any of them at this point, but it would make an interesting exercise to try all of them and report on the experience and level of success with each one. Some of them seem to be more preferred than others based on their prevalence on blogs in general and professional bloggers' sites specifically. Google Adsense seems to be the king of the hill, while others like Azoogle Ads (AzAds), Kanoodle, and a newcomer - AuctionAds - fight for a distant second, third, fourth ... place. I found most of them from following links from high profile blog sites, but I also learned about some from Darren Rowse's Problogger.net post, "How Bloggers Make Money from Blogs".
This list includes pure Ad Network services along the lines of Adsense as well as well-know affiliates like Amazon and Monster. Additionally, some of the services listed are only in beta at the time of their listing here and may not be open to the public (like Microsoft's AdCenter, Feedburner, and YPN).
Advertising Networks / Services
AdBrite
Adknowledge.com
Adtegrity (added 4/16/07)
Advertising.com (added 3/17/07)
AdVolcano Ads
Affiliate Power Ads
AuctionAds
AVN Ads: Adult Ads
AvantLink (added 3/27/07) - seems to have some nice features that others do not
AzoogleAds
Blue Lithium (added 4/16/07)
BidVertiser
Blogads
Burst Media (added 4/16/07)
Casale Media (added 4/16/07)
ClickBank
Clicksor
ClickXchange (added 3/27/07)
ClixGalore (added 3/27/07)
Commission Junction
CrispAds
DarkBlue (added 3/27/07)
The Deck (added 4/16/07)
DoubleClick
FeedBurner - FeedBurner Ads for Blogs and Feeds
Federated Media (added 4/1/07)
GoldenCAN - (added 4/18/07) affiliate data feed, coupon, and search integration solution
Google AdSense - Read my My Review
Gorilla Nation (added 4/16/07)
Hydra Network (added 5/2/2007)
IndustryBrains
Kanoodle
Kolimbo (added 3/27/07)
Kontera ContentLink (added 4/5/07)
LinkConnector (added 3/27/07)
LinkShare.com - (added 3/9/07)
LinkWorth's LinkWords (added 3/8/07)
Lake Quincy Media (added 3/27/07)
Microsoft AdCenter
Miva MC
NeverBlueAds (added 3/27/07)
OneMonkey.com
PeakClick
Performics ConnectCommerce (Added 3/23/2007)
Pheedo
RevenuePilot.com
RocketProfit
Searchfeed.com
ShareASale (added 3/27/07)
Share Results (added 3/27/2007)
Targetpoint
Team Link Network (added 4/13/07)
Text Link Ads
Textad.biz
Tribal Fusion
Vantageous (added 4/16/07)
ValueClick Media
Vibrant Media - intelliTXT
XY7.com (added 3/27/07)
Yesadvertising.com
Yahoo Publisher Network
Site/Store Affiliates
Amazon
CareerBuilder - email for into
Chitika, Inc.
Bravisa - similar to Chitika Shoplincs and Amazon's aStore
HiddenNetwork - Jobs (added 3/9/07)
HubPages (added 6/9/08)
JobBurner
Monster AFFILIATE PROGRAM
Reactee T-Shirts (added 1/26/08)
RegNow (added 4/10/07)
Shopping.com
Shopzilla (Added 3/31/07)
Paid Reviews
Blogsvertise (added 4/1/07) - a mix between sponsored reviews and traditional banner ad placement
CREAMaid (added 4/3/07) - appears to be similar to sponsored reviews
inBLOGads (added 4/3/07) - appears to be a mix between links and sponsored reviews
Pay Per Post (added 4/1/07) - similar to sponsored reviews.
SponsoredReviews - get paid to write reviews on your blog (added 3/14/07)
ReviewMe (added 4/2/07) - similar to sponsored reviews and the others.
Other
BlogBurst - (added 4/5/07) get your site added to major media sites, top blog sites earn rewards.
Eurekster's Swicki - (added 4/18/07)
AGLOCO - (added 5/2/2007) get paid to use the internet
MPire's Shopping Widgets (added 5/15/2007) - easy to add widgets to add shopping related content to your blog or site. They say the publisher will get 100% of profits
Please let me know if I have missed one of your favorites and I will add it to the list.
UPDATES:
- newly found advertising and affiliate services are being added directly into the list. I have split up the list into Networks, individual Site/Store affiliations, and Paid Reviews.
- I started reviewing these affiliate networks. The introductory post and table of contents with links to each review can be found here.
- [Updated 4/1//07]: Chip Griffin did a Roundup of Blog Advertising Networks on his Pardon the Disruption blog covering BlogAds, Blogsvertise, Crisp Ads, Federated Media, Feedburner and PayPerPost.
- Daniel at Daily Blog Tips published a nice review of some of the Paid Review sites in early February.
- YoungGoGetter.com posted "Not All Ad Networks are Created Equal" on April 9.
don't forget about LinkWorth. their new contextual PPC called 'LinkWords' is making me money.
Thanks, jjackson. I will look into LinkWorth's LinkWords and add that to my list.
This was a great post, Dan. If I were to ever to use advertising, I'd consult this post first.
Thanks, Dave. Like a lot of these things it started out as me wanting to post it here so I'd have it someplace for my own reference. Good to know others find it useful, too.
The only ad network I have ever had success with was ViralyticsMedia.com. They are more of a site repping company, but if you can get in with them they are pretty solid. Customer support sucks, but they pay well.