Adsense in Feeds?

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[Lani]

Monetization is new to me so I'm looking at all the options for my new blog.  What are people's thought on Adsense ads in feeds (via FeedBurner).  Is that just tacky?  Will it turn off subscribers?  And what are the chances of a click-through anyway?

[Meg]

I have to say that predominantly I just "tune out" to advertising in feeds. I suspect click through would probably be lower than on site, but I don't have any evidence to back that up.

I tried adsense for a month. It returned less than $10 for around 18k page impressions.

This is just my opinion, but I'd suggest waiting until you've built up some loyal subscribers, and even then the benefit might be minimal.

[Snoskred]

Me personally I'm quite anti-adsense. That's lately due to the whole anti-google kick. But I think we're all worth more than what Adsense pays. It's just not enough to justify the space it takes up.

A good friend of mine was almost about to get a payout and they were kicked out for "click fraud" - he asked them to prove there had been fraud and of course they would not. It is quite a gray area - essentially they can kick anyone out for that excuse and not have to justify it. They have some airy fairy claims about not wanting to tell people how they detect click fraud so they can't tell you how they found out it happened. It sounded like male cow droppings to me.

There are a lot of alternatives -

101 ways to monetize your website or blog

100+ tools and resources to make money online

[Lani]

Excellent!  Thanks for the links.  I haven't yet got into full on research mode with it all so that's fantastic.  Adsense doesn't really appeal, I must say, but I was just setting up the feed and wondered.

[neerav]

Monetization is new to me so I'm looking at all the options for my new blog.  What are people's thought on Adsense ads in feeds (via FeedBurner).  Is that just tacky?  Will it turn off subscribers?  And what are the chances of a click-through anyway?

Just FYI it's technically against Google's rules to use for Adsense for Content in your RSS feeds though I've never heard of them enforcing this.

Anyway many RSS readers (eg: Google Reader) strip out javascript in an RSS post so even if you included Adsense for Content in it most people wouldn't see the ad

[Snoskred]

Just FYI it's technically against Google's rules to use for Adsense for Content in your RSS feeds though I've never heard of them enforcing this.

It is entirely possible that breathing is against Google's rules for adsense, they have so many! 

I'm not impressed with Google much lately, even though I got my PR back.

[Lani]

Thanks for that info Neerav.  Been trying to learn a little about the whole monetisation process, but I must admit, it's a little mind-boggling to me.

[goatlady]

I tried adsense for a month. It returned less than $10 for around 18k page impressions.

AdSense is weird - my personal experience is that for traditional blogs, it really sucks. Tech blogs especially - no techy audience clicks on ads. I ripped them out of all of my personal sites for that reason.

However, for generic content sites it can be awesome. A tourism site that I used to manage does really well out of it. Depends a lot on ad placement too.

RSS feeds are a different beast entirely - I also completely tune them out. I think anyone savvy enough to use RSS will be much the same.

[darrenrowse]

I've never found AdSense (or really much else) to work in RSS feeds. I've actually been pondering RSS advertising today and suspect that it's probably more useful to advertisers who want to brand themselves and create awareness than those advertisers who actually want clicks/visitors.

As a result I'm going to attempt to find sponsors for my feeds rather than just slap CPC ads on them.

[neerav]

I've actually been pondering RSS advertising today and suspect that it's probably more useful to advertisers who want to brand themselves and create awareness than those advertisers who actually want clicks/visitors.

As a result I'm going to attempt to find sponsors for my feeds rather than just slap CPC ads on them.

I think that's definitely a good idea considering you have a large and loyal RSS fan base. I don't think it's really feasible to find a RSS sponsor interested solely in branding without thousands of subscribers.

All my existing sponsors are looking for specific ROI from their ads rather than simply exposure and branding

[Lani]

All my existing sponsors are looking for specific ROI from their ads rather than simply exposure and branding

I think that issue is a big factor for me when trying to make decisions about it.  Part of me thinks I should leave it until I build up an audience and I can actually see what I have to sell in terms of the value of my space.  The other part knows that I'm on a steep learning curve here, and I've always learned best by diving in and doing it.

[darrenrowse]

The other option is to get in on Feedburner's RSS ads. I've used them on big and small blogs and they work ok. Better than AdSense at least.

[Lani]

Thanks Darren!  Will look into that tonight.  You know, it being just like any other night of the year.   

Incidently, one of your older posts about the value of Personal Blogging is in my line of sight.  It's sitting in my text editor with some sketchy notes already.

[swollenpickles]

Monetization is new to me so I'm looking at all the options for my new blog.  What are people's thought on Adsense ads in feeds (via FeedBurner).  Is that just tacky?  Will it turn off subscribers?  And what are the chances of a click-through anyway?

I've never used advertising in feeds (that I'm aware of anyway?). I figure I have enough on my site as it is 

[Cybix]

I'd like to explore adverts in my feeds, one of my sites has 15k+ subscribers.. ad free mind you.

Of course, if you click on an article in the feed, it will take you to the site, which has ads....

If people arent keen on advertising in feeds, but are interested in monetizing their blogs, then it might be beneficial to make sure that the article pages have the ads or ad layout that will return the most coin.

A mistake I see often is people slapping ads all over the main page of their blog. Most feed readers will never ever see your index page. If they click an interesting article it will land them to that article page (not your index). Think about that when designing your site

[clutterbells]

I have clicked through about three adsense adverts in my blogging career. That said, I have read many adverts, so there is some benefit of just getting it in front of people. I find feed reading a little frustrating, so I am certain that it would not be a good place to do advertising for me. It is bad enough that you have to click through to the blog for partial posts. Addiing adverts would be worse.