Kontera ads

[Steve Pavlina]

I'm currently experimenting with Kontera ads on StevePavlina.com. These are context-sensitive ads that highlight keywords in the text and turn them into mini-ads that appear if you hover the mouse cursor over them.

I'm going to give this a 30-day trial to see what effect it has on the overall site revenue and usability. I've seen these types of ads on other sites, but I haven't seen blogs using them too much yet. Google's Adsense agreement used to prevent the use of other context-sensitive ads like Kontera, but earlier this year Google relaxed that requirement, so now it's OK to have both.

Long-term I still plan to move away from the ad model and towards a direct sales model, but since this took only a few minutes to implement (just copy and paste some Javascript into the page headers), I figure it was worth a test. If it brings in only a third as much as Adsense (net of any cannibalization), that would still be an extra $35K/year. So this could be another of those $10,000 hours.

Of course I'm happy to share results to the degree that's permitted.

Erin tried displaying Kontera ads on VegFamily.com a while back, but the revenue it brought in was rock bottom, and she eventually dropped them. The ad clicks were only generating a penny or two.

Has anyone here had experience with Kontera ads on their sites (good or bad)? How did it compare to Adsense?

[investorblogger]

John Chow's blog uses them, too. But I don't like them so much. The underlining is distracting, and the product/services aren't so interesting to me most of the time.

I'm not against ads per se, but John's blog has too many.

Kenneth

[Caveman Joe]

Well, they're annoying, irrelevant, misleading and don't provide any value to the visitor. AdSense I have no problem with, as they can occasionally provide something useful, and in an honest fashion.
Steve, I'm surprised you haven't tried Project Wonderful yet. It's the sort of thing that'd be right up your street. The whole system is very wide open and honest.

[escapee]

I 'm using adengage as a "second source" . The nice thing about adengage is that you can receive payment via paypal with a min amount as little as 20 bucks .

My third source is Adbrite .

Anyway, Thanks for the recommendation on Kontera and project wonderful.

[Shindra]

I find them the most annoying thing. My eyes jump to those double-underlines at their random points in the text, they pop up randomly when my cursor moves over them when I scroll - disturbs my reading. And the ads they display seem very irrelevant and completely uninteresting to me as opposed to the nice orderly google text ads. As soon as I saw them I went "aargh! NOT THOSE!" and rushed to find and install a firefox plug-in to hide ads (Adblock Plus). Now they're gone for me - phew. I consider it a bonus, though, that it made me install adblock - I configured it to also get rid of those flashy photoreading and paraliminals image advertisements (with 'Element Hiding Helper', if anyone's interested). Those are great products, but I dislike blinking ads. Not nearly as much as I dislike inline ads, though.

[Ellesse]

I've used Kontera ads on my site for a week or so. So far results are not as gd as adsense but I've noticed a slight increase in the cost ECPM over time. Keeping my fingers crossed.

[WanderingOak]

Ha!!!! I can't see any of the links, either on my home PC or my work machine. I had to go to their website to figure out what Steve was talking about. Perhaps Kontera doesn't like 7 year old Macs running Firefox or Government firewalls.

[Jill]

Don't do it! That type of advertising is EVIL!

At least only do it for non-members, if you really want to do it.

I know that if I see them within the text, I'll certainly be reading here a lot less often because they are extremely annoying and distracting to me.

[added]

If you already have them installed, I guess I'm not seeing them. Must be my adblock plus.

So...carry on!

[Andreas]

It seems as though Steve has not activated the Kontera ads for his latest article Subjective Reality and Nonviolence. Consequently, it's been much less mentally distracting for me to read, and a more pleasant experience.

Thanks, Steve!

[PresNevins]

Fortunately Steve stopped the cursed Kontera double-underline ads, but just FYI if you run across them on other sites, they're easy enough to filter out.

For example I use PithHelmet as my ad-blocker on Safari on OS X, and just making a rule for "*kontera*" (kontera surrounded by wild-cards) selectively filters out all the yucky stuff and makes the net worth surfing again.

Just FYI!

Pres

[Lucas]

I think Kontera adds cheapen a site, but yours havent been too bad. I am mainly an RSS subscriber though, so...

[Steve Pavlina]

My Kontera trial, which lasted about two weeks, was a good example of Testing to Failure. It didn't work out, but I'm glad to know it didn't work because of actual field testing.

Even though I consider the test a failure, it still brought in about $1200 in additional revenue. In the long run it probably would have added about $2500/month, but I agree the ads were too invasive for it to be practical.

[RT Wolf]

^ Thank you Steve for deciding to take them off.

[John P]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

My Kontera trial, which lasted about two weeks, was a good example of Testing to Failure. It didn't work out, but I'm glad to know it didn't work because of actual field testing.

Even though I consider the test a failure, it still brought in about $1200 in additional revenue. In the long run it probably would have added about $2500/month, but I agree the ads were too invasive for it to be practical.

That raises an interesting question in my mind. The original trial was to be for 30 days, but it only lasted two weeks. How do you know when to cut a 30 day trial short? Is it just a gut feeling that things won't improve?

[Steve Pavlina]

Originally Posted by John P

That raises an interesting question in my mind. The original trial was to be for 30 days, but it only lasted two weeks. How do you know when to cut a 30 day trial short? Is it just a gut feeling that things won't improve?

In this case 30 days was unnecessary because I was field-testing an idea, not trying to condition a new personal habit. So I only needed to run the test long enough to gather sufficient data to make an informed decision.

[John P]

Originally Posted by Steve Pavlina

In this case 30 days was unnecessary because I was field-testing an idea, not trying to condition a new personal habit. So I only needed to run the test long enough to gather sufficient data to make an informed decision.

Ahhh... I see. Thanks

[Restrikted]

Thank you for taking them off the forums Steve. I concur with Jill that I would have decreased my time on this forum if they were left on. It's one of the most intrusive forms of advertising, besides those ads that include sound.

[Alex Zito]

Some people experience browser freeze up with Kontera, and there is an addon to Firefox to block their adds
I did not have any problems with Kontera, but I had no earnings either...