Neil Shearing’s Internet Marketing Strategies

OK, so my test of Kontera Ads showed rather quickly that their earnings were poor in comparison to Google Adsense but I stuck with it because I wanted to run a long test to be statistically sure that my results were accurate. We also had Vered from Kontera comment at the blog post and say that they had tweaked my account settings to optimize the earnings. After that, I felt it was only fair to give the ads an extended run to see if the earnings improved.

They didn’t.

The harsh reality is that the Kontera eCPM (earnings per thousand page impressions) was under four bucks. I’ve now qualified for their minimum payout ($100) so I’ll be removing the Kontera ads and testing my own brand-new method of advertising. I expect it to massively improve site earnings…

(note: I ran Kontera ads at the same time as Adsense during my test. The Adsense earnings fell by about the same amount the Kontera ads earned. I don’t know what Kontera ads alone would have earned.)

Well, I didn’t take off Adsense ads from my pages, so I guess the earnings from Kontera have to be seen in that light. Even so, I’m quite surprised at how low the eCPM is.

(eCPM is earnings per thousand page impressions)

After 4,000+ page impressions the clickthrough rate is above 5%, which shows that people are seeing and clicking on the ads, but the eCPM is under $5.

My Adsense eCPM was about $19 and that seems to have gone down to about $15… but if you add the Adsense and Kontera earnings, I’m getting just slightly more… about $20 eCPM.

I guess the Kontera ads will be staying. Despite the low eCPM, they offer some extra content to visitors and have slightly boosted the overall eCPM. I’ll be checking the stats again after a longer period of time and see if the same holds true.