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Kontera Secures $10.3 Million Second Round Funding

written by John Chow on August 14, 2007

How to make $593 in less than one hour

TechCrunch is reporting that Kontera Technology, the provider of the ContentLink used on this blog has secured $10.3 million in a second round of financing. A year ago, Kontera raised $7 million from Sequoia Capital and Lehman Brothers. This second round of financing was led by Carmel Ventures, an Israeli venture firm. Sequoia and Lehman also participated.

Kontera has been a consistent moneymaker for this blog. Its main advantage is it allows you to make money from advertising without giving up any current advertising spots. Their technology reads your post and turns certain words into an ad. The highlighted words are double underline and an ad pops up when you hover over it.

I highly recommend all web publishers give Kontera a try. Be aware that the technology takes at least a week to learn your blog. My Kontera rep told me that many affiliates make the mistake of removing the ad after a few days because the rates were low. However, if the system is given time to learn your site, you’ll see your income increase. I recommend trying any new ad network for full month because you can’t judge performance with just a few days of data. Check out my Kontera optimization guide to learn how to make money with Contextlink. With $10.3 million of new money, one thing is for sure. Kontera won’t have problems paying us.

Sign up for Kontera ContentLink

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{ 59 comments }

awflasher August 14, 2007 at 3:21 am

oh my god, money … so much money ~~

Steven August 14, 2007 at 3:46 am

Yeah, only if they’d give me some lol

Glen Allsopp August 14, 2007 at 4:07 am

Have you tried politely asking them? :lol:

CASH for COMMENTS August 14, 2007 at 6:58 am

That would be sneaky! To ask for for money. Why not try to win a free LCD with CASH for COMMENTS?

cooliojones August 14, 2007 at 10:14 am

OMG Cash, is that ANOTHER CONTEST you are running? LOL

CASH for COMMENTS August 14, 2007 at 6:59 am

Can’t you participate in their program?

Glen Allsopp August 14, 2007 at 7:12 am

Didn’t you just say that :roll:

awflasher August 14, 2007 at 3:21 am

He, john, your traffic rise back again :)

Glen Allsopp August 14, 2007 at 4:08 am

Rise from what to what? :???:

CASH for COMMENTS August 14, 2007 at 7:02 am

That’s what I’m saying. From Great to Awesome?

Glen Allsopp August 14, 2007 at 7:13 am

He was talking about traffic not personal status

Quit spamming

awflasher August 14, 2007 at 5:54 pm

Well, i check it out from the alexa toolbar in my Firefox :)

CASH for COMMENTS August 14, 2007 at 7:00 am

It must be the 24″ LCD screen! Like how I’m giving one away as well

Hungry Entrepreneur August 14, 2007 at 3:43 am

Contentlink is a very interesting technology. What else do you think will be receiving second/third tier funding very soon?

Link Bid Directory August 14, 2007 at 4:00 am

What a coincidence :evil: ! I just applied as a publisher with Kontera! I also have heard a lot about them, and surely will be part of their network soon.

Link Bid Directory August 14, 2007 at 4:02 am

Do they place a double underlined ad link for actual links in blog posts as well? Then it’s not good for “review posts”.

Leroy Brown August 14, 2007 at 6:46 am

No. If you’ve already created a link, Kontera won’t “take over” that link. They’ll simply skip it, and create their link ads elsewhere.

Geedos August 14, 2007 at 8:36 pm

The system works very well and I find that the number of links it inserts in posts is just about right – just enough but not too many that your post is swamped by them.

Glen Allsopp August 14, 2007 at 4:07 am

Anything to get some more affiliate commisions eh?

I like it :razz:

Wallace August 14, 2007 at 4:53 am

i already seen this news at techCrunch…

blogcrowds August 14, 2007 at 6:31 am

Yes and it didn’t go so well there.

CASH for COMMENTS August 14, 2007 at 7:02 am

I wonder why?

Thomas De Maesschalck August 14, 2007 at 5:47 am

Does Kontera’s ContentLink perform better than Vibrant Media’s IntelliTXT?

cooliojones August 14, 2007 at 11:13 am

I haven’t heard of this one, is it a new revenue stream? Do you have any details on this one? Do you use it?

Geedos August 14, 2007 at 8:37 pm

I’d also like to hear about IntelliTXT – how does it work and can you run them both?

Tony Sticks August 16, 2007 at 7:44 am

Kontera rate is too low. I’m using it on my blog and I’ve made around 8$ in the past 20 days. My blog receives around 10K unique visitors.

I’m just trying to keep myself calm and try not to remove them until I complete 30 days as John suggested.

Ray August 14, 2007 at 5:49 am

My click through rate of Kontera is low. And also the value per click is lower than adsense I think.

sandossu August 14, 2007 at 5:59 am

Kontera is a good money maker for my blog too, even better than Adsense and Chitika.

Carl of PseudoPower August 14, 2007 at 6:36 am

That’s interesting.

I think I’ll go try it now.

Jorge August 14, 2007 at 9:04 am

Me too!

Link Bid Directory August 14, 2007 at 7:02 am

Does blog category matter to it? It must be… Hope it gives good payout on core technical blogs

Lewis Empire August 14, 2007 at 2:28 pm

I’ve had more luck with AdSense.

David Lithman August 14, 2007 at 6:21 am

I’ve tried Kontera before, but didn’t like it because the ads caused the pages to load slower.

Lewis Empire August 14, 2007 at 2:29 pm

I agree with you there. One day Kontera wasn’t loading up at all so the ‘loading…’ kept circling on Firefox. I finally had to hit the STOP button to make it quit!

flexy August 14, 2007 at 6:22 am

Thanks again for the insightful post Johnchow in this time when my blog is starting to take off, i am beginning to consider monetizing strategies and Kontera might just be the right way to go. :grin:

Geedos August 14, 2007 at 8:41 pm

Why not sign up now?

It’s very un-intrusive and as your blog builds the readers will be used to seeing Kontera ads in your posts and therefore be comfortable with the advertising channel.

Storm Chaser Videographer August 14, 2007 at 6:38 am

I have been very pleased with Kontera over the last several months. They pay on time, and have been a good money maker for my blog. Give the system time and you’ll see some good results.

uday August 14, 2007 at 6:59 am

Even though i am getting steady hits with Kontera, the revenue sharing is very less. Some of the clicks just generate 5 cents.

John,
Can you share your average revenue per click if possible. Is there a way we can negotiate for better click rates.

I Started my blog this july and currently have around 2500 hits per month and increasing.

CASH for COMMENTS August 14, 2007 at 7:01 am

Nice review and plug. :mrgreen:

Casey August 14, 2007 at 7:13 am

I was finally accepted to Kontera at the end of July but decided to wait to implement it. It’s only been running for a few days so I’m still testing the waters.

Nabloid.com August 14, 2007 at 7:53 am

John, Why have I not seen the double underlined Kontera ads for quite some time? I used to see them… but haven’t for a while!?!?!

KingJacob August 14, 2007 at 9:54 am

In this post, I count 7 kontera ads,maybe you have an awesome ad blocker.

Nabloid.com August 14, 2007 at 2:19 pm

No ad blocker… IE 6… no ad blocker. I’m in Canada… maybe he is filtering us out?

I would like to know why I haven’t seen any for a while though!!!

Stuart Hannig August 14, 2007 at 12:02 pm

I guess it depends on the user.

Marcelo August 14, 2007 at 8:05 am

Thanks from this informations!

Marcel

Jorge August 14, 2007 at 8:59 am

Lots of money!

Jorge August 14, 2007 at 9:07 am

I’m giving away free links to 6 of the first 30 subscribers of my blog! :shock:
Don’t miss this oportunity!

KingJacob August 14, 2007 at 9:56 am

I use kontera on a few of my blogs, I just hope they use the funding to improve the kontera site its pretty bare.

Storm Chaser Videographer August 14, 2007 at 10:04 am

I agree! Better layout of upcoming payouts and archived payments and more detailed stats would be nice. :smile:

Paul. August 14, 2007 at 10:32 am

My major issue with Kontera is the loading time. It slowed my pages down from under a second to over 4+ seconds. I tried talking with them about it but they just kept sending generic letters….. NO CLIENT SERVICE.

I was making decent money; however, my pageviews declined because of the increased loading time for each page.

Stuart Hannig August 14, 2007 at 12:01 pm

Yeah, that would be a large concern.

Lewis Empire August 14, 2007 at 2:30 pm

I guess you just need to figure out what the lost pageviews cost you compared to the loss of income.

Maybe you should just put them on the archived pages rather than on the main page.

chrisblogging.com August 14, 2007 at 11:54 am

They seem to be doing quite alright for themselves. And this second round will only help!

Stuart Hannig August 14, 2007 at 11:59 am

Must be nice to have those kind of funds.

Wes Mahler August 14, 2007 at 2:47 pm

Thank you john chow,

I signed up with u last time u posted about kontera, I totally forgot about it, they accepted me in the program. and I just installed it, and it looks like its going to make bank. thanks, I appreciate it john.

I also installed tla with ur recommendation, and I got a few signups now. Theses are all on non-blog sites too. awesome. thanks, keep up the great work. “we shall have everything in life we want, when we just help enough people get what they want in life.” That is why ur income is so high :)

John Bennett August 15, 2007 at 10:00 am

Has anyone had much success with Kontera ads? I used them for a while with little luck. Maybe I should give them another chance…

DayJobNuker August 15, 2007 at 5:49 pm

None of the links on this blog seem to be Kontera ads for me. I wonder why? I am interested in learning more about them.

I hate my job and I am going to NUKE it at
http://www.DayJobNuker.com

Click Input August 16, 2007 at 9:52 am

I’ve always preferred Vibrant Media iTellitext over Kontera… heard too many stories of people getting $0.03 clicks with these guys!

Sunnye August 19, 2007 at 5:45 am

If only there was something like this for photoblogs.