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Bidvertiser Helps You Make Money Online

written by John Chow on April 11, 2007

Make money with YouTube

Bidvertiser, a CPC ad network that competes with Google AdSense, recently went through a top to bottom redesigned and wanted to get the word out. What better way to that than by ordering a ReviewMe review from John Chow dot Com?

I love these types of reviews because this is the kind of stuff I would have written about anyway. The fact that Bidvertiser is going to pay me for it is a bonus. I’ll chalk this one up to another win for being evil. :twisted:

Bidvertiser For Web Publishers

bidvertiser-4.jpg

If you already run Google AdSense on your blog, then you’ll have no problem getting up and running with Bidvertiser. I was able to set up my account within ten minutes. As far as I can see, Bidvertiser has very low entrance requirements so most sites and blogs should be approved. The question you may have is why you should even consider running Bidvertiser on your site if you already run AdSense?

One of the reasons would be the minimum payout. You only need to make $10 in order to be paid. Big publishers wouldn’t care about this but for many small blogs that are still waiting to hit that magic $100 Google payout level, getting pay at a lower level is quite attractive.

Bidvertiser Is Not Contextual

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Bidvertiser is based on the concept that you know your site better than some big Google AI. Because of that, Bidvertiser is not contextual. The publishers decides the best category to place their sites in. Therefore, if your site is about computers & Internet, you won’t have to worry about getting a fishing ad if you decided to make a post about going fishing.

The Bidvertiser Ad Control Panel

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Creating text ads with Bidvertiser is as easy as Google AdSense. They did a really good job on the redesign, making the site extremely easy to use. Like AdSenes, Bidvertiser offers options to control the colors and size the ad size. Unlike AdSense, Bidvertiser offers a custom ad size in case you don’t like any of the preset sizes.

If you’re going to run Bidvertiser alongside Google AdSense, or as a default, then you must make sure to change the color so they are not the same as the AdSense ads. Google’s new TOS states that you cannot run other ads that look and feel the same as the AdSense ads on your site. Just make sure the colors are different for Bidvertiser and AdSense and you should be OK.

Bidvertiser doesn’t seem to state their revenue share. I looked everywhere on the site but couldn’t find anything telling me how much commission they take for displaying ads on your site. What they do provide however, is the current maximum bids from advertisers. Right now, it’s from Irish Business Hosting, who will pay up to $3.03 for a click. However, it’s geo-targeted to Ireland and UK only. In second place is 24hr Forex Trading at up to $2.30 per click.

Bidvertiser For Advertisers

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Bidvertisers has their advertiser and publishers control panel on the same page. If you’re a Bidvertiser publisher, it’s real easy to become a Bidvertiser advertiser, and visa versa.

Creating an ad to use on the Bidvertiser network is as easy to do as setting up a Google Adwords ad. However, all new ads need to be approved before going live. This was when I got a taste of Bidvertiser’s excellent customer service. After looking over my ads, their rep emailed me and recommended I place the ad in four other categories that he felt would do better. I doubt you’ll get anything like that from Google.

Bidvertisers ads are sold are on a CPC model. Advertisers enter a maximum bid they’re willing to pay for a click. However, that doesn’t mean a click will always cost the bid price. Bidvertiser is set up so you only have to beat the next advertiser by 1 cent in order to take his spot. For example, if you bid $1.00 for XYZ site and the current high bid on that is 45 cents, a click from XYZ will cost you 46 cents and not a dollar.

Bidvertiser will allow you to target a group of categories or even a single site. You can even run your eBay listings through the network. Geographical targeting is also available.

Bidvertiser Ad Performance

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So far, Bidvertiser has spent $7.90 of my $50 test budget. I’m quite happy with the results because it’s really hard to get 5 cent clicks from Google Adwords anymore. The quality of the traffic Bidvertiser is sending is comparable to clicks for the Google AdSense network.

The Affiliate Program

When a user signs as an advertiser and first spends $100, Bidvertiser will credit your account with $20. When a user signs as a publisher and first earns $100, Bidvertiser will credit you another $20. That’s not bad but nowhere near as nice as the Text Link Ads affiliate program.

I have added Bidvertiser as a default to my Google AdSense. I really don’t expect to show many Bidvertiser ads since so many advertisers buy Google Sitematch ads on this blog. What I like most about Bidvertiser comes from the advertiser side. While Bidvertiser can’t deliver the same amount traffic as Google Adwords, that traffic cost less money. Saving money is always a good thing. :)

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{ 96 comments }

Indian Videos April 11, 2007 at 10:08 am

John, that is a very informative review. Good job. :smile:

Alex April 11, 2007 at 11:39 am

Yeah, Bidvertiser made a good $300 investment :mrgreen:

Everyday Weekender April 11, 2007 at 12:06 pm

I think anyone who spends the $300 is making a good investment

:cool:

Derrich April 11, 2007 at 1:20 pm

‘Cept for IPOJourney.com. :razz:

Alex April 11, 2007 at 2:03 pm

$300 was definitely not a good investment for IPO..

Jonix April 11, 2007 at 3:06 pm

Yep indeed.

Bidvertiser is growing, and more and more publishers are using bidvertiser instead of adsense. Specially (of course) the banned adsense publishers.

Marc April 11, 2007 at 6:22 pm

Are you guys nuts? That’s the best $300 that guy ever spent. Already he’s shifted away from what was a terrible idea that would have flopped hard. Criticism sucks, but spending $300 to get the volume of honest feedback he got was totally worth it.

Alex April 11, 2007 at 6:32 pm

That’s all true, he was satisfied with the review. But that still doesn’t change the fact that he paid $300 for trashing..

Dave April 11, 2007 at 10:28 pm

I have to agree with Marc, he got more publicity than most Review Me subjects get :)

TJ April 11, 2007 at 10:34 pm

Great thing about Bidvertiser is that you have a good possibility allow/decline ads that are showing in your blog. You may decline all nonsense bull**** ads and only show relevant ones.

Babak April 11, 2007 at 1:45 pm

actually it is quite lopsided… if you bother to do a quick search of webmasters reviews at digital point and elsewhere. they have one of the worst reps out there.

Jonix April 11, 2007 at 3:26 pm

For the publishers that were banned from adsense, is the best substitute.

Gath April 11, 2007 at 5:10 pm

Yeah – BidVertiser has a shocking reputation. Extremely low payouts & crap traffic for advertisers.

Marc April 11, 2007 at 6:24 pm

Disappointing, but good to know. It’s always tough to gauge new programs from the outside looking in.

Alex April 11, 2007 at 6:36 pm

At least Bidvertiser improved its ad design :cool:

msdanielle April 11, 2007 at 8:52 pm

i can’t stand bidvertiser. as an advertiser the back end sucks. i just did a search for “john chow” and it kicked back a “real estate for sale” site and an “animal care and rescue” site. there’s virtually no way to find these sites unless you wade thru the pages and pages of categories, and you know what you’re looking for. yea they had a face lift, but the system still sucks. until they make real changes, they won’t have the quality advertisers that the search engines have (or even adbrite has!). there’s not a lot of transparency either so i don’t trust them as a company altogether.

Dave April 11, 2007 at 10:31 pm

Well, to be fair John can’t really infer any of that from the limited scope he has to deal with.

Babak April 13, 2007 at 2:20 am

yeah, you’re right… I mean what does John know about internet/online advertising or marketing, right?

:roll:

blogdinero April 23, 2007 at 5:20 pm

Buena noticia para los hispanos, BidVertiser now supports spanish sites
:razz: :razz:
http://blogdinero.blogspot.com/2007/04/bidvertiser-now-supports-spanish.html

Lose Weight & Make Money April 11, 2007 at 10:15 am

Sounds pretty good. I think I’m going to try and sign up later today when I’m done with classes, now that I have read your review.

Dave April 11, 2007 at 10:31 pm

Contextual ads are where it’s at, in my opinion :)

Mosley April 11, 2007 at 10:16 am

I like this review alot. It looked long but was a fast read.

I am going to have to look in to them. Since my blog is really really small i would benafit from the $10 payout, that way i will get paid every month. Pluse the cheaper ads make me think about advertising.

Vik April 11, 2007 at 10:17 am

Yea I’ve been using bidvertiser for a while now and its not bad considering the $10 payout. That’s the main thing that will attract a lot of publishers.

Ali April 11, 2007 at 10:25 am

I see you’ve taken off the Auction Ads from your site. Didn’t convert much did they?

Alex April 11, 2007 at 12:37 pm

John got banned by the evil AA :twisted:

Lose Weight & Make Money April 11, 2007 at 1:10 pm

Why did he get banned?

Jonix April 11, 2007 at 3:57 pm

Because of the blackHat trick he posted about the iframe :mrgreen:

Marc April 11, 2007 at 6:25 pm

Burn! I suppose you can’t be that evil without being burned from time to time. That’s why I try to hang on the lighter side of evil.

Jonix April 11, 2007 at 10:39 pm

Marc, put a foot on evil and the other foot on good. keep the balance balanced :mrgreen:

Dave April 11, 2007 at 10:32 pm

Yeah, I don’t think AA was the evil out of that situation :)

Derrich April 11, 2007 at 1:23 pm

Oh, they convert. :twisted:

TJantunen April 11, 2007 at 10:42 am

I have also tested bidvertiser ad campaign and I find it very useful. Here is my blog post adwors vs. bidvertiser http://tjantunen.com/2007/04/09/bidvertiser-vs-google-adwords/

Alex April 11, 2007 at 12:40 pm

Good article T, but you may at least want to change the color of your Bidvertiser ads before Google bans you :neutral:

Jonix April 11, 2007 at 3:58 pm

:mrgreen: i must agree, both cannot servive in the same place

Marc April 11, 2007 at 6:29 pm

Yeah that’s just asking for it :shock:

Don’t want to anger the big G.

TJ April 11, 2007 at 9:46 pm

Thanks for the tip, I have to change my bidvertiser colors asap

blogdinero April 11, 2007 at 10:44 am

Really the TOS talk about this? there’s a risk to be banned

Alex April 11, 2007 at 12:42 pm

I’m still not sure if you are allowed to have Bidvertiser and Google AdSense ads on the same page :???:

James April 11, 2007 at 2:00 pm

Competitive Ads and Services

In order to prevent user confusion, we do not permit Google ads or search boxes to be published on websites that also contain other ads or services formatted to use the same layout and colors as the Google ads or search boxes on that site. Although you may sell ads directly on your site, it is your responsibility to ensure these ads cannot be confused with Google ads.

https://www.google.com/adsense/support/bin/answer.py?answer=48182&sourceid=aso&subid=ww-ww-et-asui&medium=link&hl=en_US

Basically, don’t make the competing ads look like Adsense ads. HTH

derrich April 11, 2007 at 2:56 pm

I’ve even read some things that say AdSense and Kontera shouldn’t be mixed. I’ve had no issues to date, but it’s only been a couple of months.

Jonix April 11, 2007 at 4:00 pm

Kontera can survive with adsense, but bidvertiser, i doubt it.

Gath April 11, 2007 at 5:12 pm

The BidVertiser ads look just like Adsense – there is no way Google is going to allow you to have them on the same site.

Alex April 11, 2007 at 6:40 pm

Thanks James, my doubts are gone :smile:

James April 11, 2007 at 8:42 pm

my pleasure!

Dave April 11, 2007 at 10:33 pm

If you are displaying other contextual ads with Google ads they have to look different or you can get banned.

MillionDollarJourney.com April 11, 2007 at 10:49 am

John, what do you mean by running bidvertiser as a default to adsense?

FT

Piggy April 11, 2007 at 11:11 am

Can you run bidvertiser alongisde adsense?

Brian at babybiotechs.com April 11, 2007 at 11:16 am

Did you read the review?
“If you’re going to run Bidvertiser alongside Google AdSense, or as a default, then you must make sure to change the color so they are not the same as the AdSense ads.”……

Derrich April 11, 2007 at 1:30 pm

I always thought it was a violation of the Google AdSense TOS. But I’ve seen some sites running a couple of different ad services for awhile now. :?:

Mosley April 11, 2007 at 11:16 am

I find that the ads the show are crapy! They are for site that no one would ever want to goto. :(

Still I am going to give them a try.

Jonix April 11, 2007 at 4:02 pm

If you have adsense, don’t put bidvertiser

Gath April 11, 2007 at 5:14 pm

Because of all the fraud issues, reputable advertisers stick with Adsense/YPN/MS Adcenter.

Alex April 11, 2007 at 6:43 pm

Azoogle ads seem to be quite reputable too..

Jonix April 11, 2007 at 10:36 pm

azoogle ads has nothing to do with ppc, alex… :shock:

Dave April 11, 2007 at 10:34 pm

With Bidvertiser it’s up to you to pick the best category for your site. So if you pick a category that doesn’t convert….well it’s your own fault!

Ronaldo April 11, 2007 at 11:19 am

Could be a cheaper alternative to my AdWords campaing for Agloco. There’s a $20 bônus for new advertisers.

Dave April 11, 2007 at 11:56 am

You can get $50 bonuses for Google Adwords.

TJantunen April 11, 2007 at 12:10 pm

Jep, but $50 with adwords is a very little amount. In my experience, you should use much more than just $50 to get your ad visible good enough with adwords.

TeamTutorials April 11, 2007 at 2:27 pm

I would have to agree, y9ou need to spend more than $50.

Martin Reed April 11, 2007 at 11:29 am

I may give them a trial run in the future, I doubt they are going to beat my current eCPM with Google though!

James April 11, 2007 at 11:40 am

Very nice I like the small payout amount for those of us that aren’t making tons of money yet.

I am going to try it out.

TeamTutorials April 11, 2007 at 11:45 am

I have an account but haven’t used it for ever. Maybe I will log in to see the changes, but the quality of the ads is still going to be an issue.

TeamTutorials April 11, 2007 at 11:47 am

BidVertiser now out ranks you in google for the term “make money online”

Dave April 11, 2007 at 11:57 am

Maybe in part because of the link they are getting from this review? :)

Dan April 11, 2007 at 12:16 pm

lol now thats evil :evil:

Alex April 11, 2007 at 12:45 pm

It won’t be long before John takes the first place with his Review My Blog batches :twisted:

Alex April 11, 2007 at 6:46 pm

FYI.. Bidvertiser was first for ‘make money online’ long time ago :cool:

Amanda April 11, 2007 at 11:48 am

I use bidvertiser as a publisher and they aren’t crediting my accounts with all my clicks and i thought they weren’t so i asked my friend to click and it was 4 days ago and still no credit.
i’m not pleased at all.

Alex April 11, 2007 at 12:47 pm

Maybe your friend didn’t click it :smile:

msdanielle April 11, 2007 at 8:54 pm

lol that’s funny…

NateBlock April 11, 2007 at 11:49 am

I currently have AuctionAds running on my site…this looks like a perhaps better alternative. Or perhaps I’ll just run both. :twisted:

shokthx April 11, 2007 at 11:55 am

I really appreciate reviews like this. It saved signing up for something just to find out how it works.

Dave April 11, 2007 at 11:58 am

I looked at Bidvertiser a while ago, I was kinda annoyed that they didn’t have a contact phone number on their site.

Article Checker April 11, 2007 at 12:56 pm

The minimum payout looks very appealing to new/small-content publishers alright.

Piggy April 11, 2007 at 1:24 pm

ive read many bad things about bidvertiser in the past… but maybe they have changed with this new facelift?

Alex April 11, 2007 at 6:48 pm

Their commission rates are said to be awful :evil:

Article Checker April 11, 2007 at 11:08 pm

I have, too — all that bad rep must’ve urged them to improve their services somehow.

IntelliGenius April 11, 2007 at 2:00 pm

I tested bidvertiser for a while; it didn’t do any good to my income for various reasons. They gotto bring Image Ads options instead of just text ads.

Russ April 11, 2007 at 2:38 pm

Nice review, wow you got paid from a pretty good company! $300 was worth it for them.. I’m using bidvertiser right now, but I only added one AD cause I don’t want to spam it.

Keith Donegan April 11, 2007 at 2:38 pm

Great Review John,

but I have tried them out before for a week trial and no clicks at all. There ads are not relevant and I don’t think they have enough advertisers to support all their publishers niches.

Alex April 11, 2007 at 6:52 pm

They’ll be getting more publishers as time goes by..

Adam Henningsen April 11, 2007 at 3:31 pm

I am in. Adsense is ok, but I just haven’t generated enough traffic yet. I am having a hell of a time getting decent traffic numbers. Oh well, you win some you loose some.

Ryan J. Parker April 11, 2007 at 7:42 pm

Does this violate the AdSense terms? The odds, while not contextual, look a lot like AdSense ads.

Steve from Malaysia Love Agloco April 12, 2007 at 11:06 pm

Bidvertiser, I am using it and just make a penny from it

IntelliGenius April 13, 2007 at 2:51 am

hahaa yeah. it wasn’t worth it. i used it for quite a while and learned that it was not for me. but maybe for some publishers it is atleast worth trying.

Amanda April 13, 2007 at 6:49 am

My friend did click it. Since I did a failsafe and asked 3, at least one of them was going to be good and click it.

I was accepted into Burst which from what I’ve been hearing is 2nd only to google, and after 1 day I’m already seeing better results than I ever did with bidvertiser and adbrite.

uncle sha April 13, 2007 at 8:03 am

I might try this … it seems Bidvertiser has more ‘accurate’ ads. yeah somtimes, on my blog i get unrelated ads by adsense

Stuart Hannig April 13, 2007 at 1:06 pm

they send me a crapful of spam emails

Russell Rockefeller April 13, 2007 at 6:55 pm

Since when has attracting publishers been a bad thing? CPA networks pay through the nose to reach them.

Mr. Red April 14, 2007 at 1:55 am

I did not have any real luck with bidvertiser, maybe i did not use them properly, in well good enough positions. I will most likely try it again.

Sean April 17, 2007 at 8:36 pm

Hey Guys, BidVertizer is a FRAUD… I have people clicking my ads all the time BUT it NEVER shows up in the earning EVER!!!

If I am lucky I make $7/day when I make $60/day from Adsense…

http://www.LenderNotes.com/

Jenn (TV Junkie) April 22, 2007 at 8:42 pm

Thank you for the review! I’ll have to try Bidvertiser against my AdSense ads.

Amanda April 24, 2007 at 7:35 am

I prefer burst I wonder if JOhn can write about how to better expose burst account

Ruhaizad Daud April 29, 2007 at 4:19 am

I put Bidvertiser on my website today, replacing my Adsense, just to test how good it is. Lets give it a run for a week. If it is true that it’s a crap, I will ditch it..

Market Matador May 1, 2007 at 3:57 pm

Another great ad program. Keep up the good research! I personally can’t wait till I qualify for TLA. Too bad my Alexa rankings aren’t updated enough!

-Sam from MarketMatador.com

puy May 19, 2009 at 9:47 pm

Yes i had this ads but i still not good as you to promote it. Still i used my blog to refer the other programs. Before that i wanna make more traffic to my blog. Thanks for sharing the references.