I recently signed up with a service called Adf.ly who were promising over $4 CPM to show interstitial ads on your site, or by using them as a url shortener which shows an interstitial ad before redirecting a user to the intended link. I started using them on a few of my sites and with excellent results! It ain’t easy making money online, but occasionally a rare gem such as Adf.ly comes along and makes all the effort seem worthwhile.

Adf.ly has a number of options for monetization of either text links you can use on social networks such as Twitter or FaceBook (though in the case of FaceBook, you might want to run them through bit.ly or another link shortener to avoid having them removed), and for the monetization of regular websites. You can shorten links one-by-one, or use their Mass Shrinker Tool to convert up to 20 links at a time. Plus if you have a website, you can use their Full Page Script to convert 100s or even 1000s of onsite links automatically!

For more traditional website monetization, try Adf.ly’s Website Entry Script. It’s the tool I’ve personally been using. You simply copy and paste a small javascript snippet into the head section of your site and choose whether you want to display a single 728×90 banner at the top of your pages, or an interstitial ad which displays automatically after a delay period of your choosing (from 1 second to infinity). I highly recommend the interstitial option as it pays more! The user will see a full page overlay that they must view for 5 seconds, then they can press a big button at the top right of the screen to return to your site. This works particularly well if you have valuable content or offer a free service and is much less intrusive than using a content locker.

The company behind Adf.ly is called x19 Limited, which is based in Central London. They pay regularly and automatically to your PayPal account on the first few days of every month, with a minimum pay out amount of just $5.00. Not bad, huh? I’ve personally received two payments of around $10 each so far.

If you have a product or service you’d like to advertise for surprisingly decent rates, you can also use Adf.ly’s Advertising page to quickly order a burst of traffic to profit from affiliate offers, or product sales. Plus, unlike most advertising companies, you can get started with just $5, which is brilliant when you want to test the waters first. Plus with worldwide traffic starting at just $1 CPM for 24 hour unique visitors, all with JavaScript, Cookies and Flash enabled on their browsers and with their eyeballs guaranteed to be looking at your page for at least 5 seconds, advertising with Adf.ly could be very lucrative indeed! (US targeted and UK targeted traffic is currently priced at $4 CPM).

So…what are YOU waiting for? Give Adf.ly a try today! Sign up is quick and instantaneous, and you’ll be up and running in literally minutes. Copy and paste their javascript snippet into your site, leave it for a day or two and see how it performs vs your current ads. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised!

UPDATE:
Here’s a little tip to maximize your earnings with Adf.ly’s interstitial ads…
When you insert their Website Entry Script, change the int_delay value to “1″…

var adfly_advert = ‘int’;
var frequency_cap = 5;
var frequency_delay = 5;
var init_delay = 1;

I’ve been doing this on my own sites, and it really helps increase ad views as the interstitial loads only 1 second after a visitor moves their mouse on your page. You can experiment with the frequency_cap and frequency_delay numbers also to find a good balance between revenue/not annoying your readers.

Tags: Adf.ly, Banner Advertising, Internet income, Interstitial Ads, Monetize your blog by Angel
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I was surprised to see an email from Text Link Ads yesterday singing the praises of their new CPC ad network, Shopping Ads. I was actually a bit excited to see the unveiling of this new product.

Angel, as a current TLA publisher I wanted to send you a private invite to our first ever CPC ad program called ShoppingAds! ShoppingAds is a cost per click ad product powered by the major shopping comparison sites. SA allows you to display relevant merchant offers in the form of an image and a text description to your audience and every time a visitor clicks on the ad, you get paid.

I followed the link and tried to sign up right away. I was, apparently, already a member. As it turns out, this looks to be a joint venture between Auction Ads and Text Link Ads, but the difference between this and Auction Ads is that you are paid per click, an average of $0.20 they say. Also, the ads aren’t going to auctions; they’re pointed at online stores, so you don’t need people to buy anything to make money.

As with Auction Ads, you select an ad block, customize the colors and then choose the keyworks you want to target. I think this service shows great promise because it doesn’t rely on conversion like the ailing Auction Ads. As you can see, the ads look quite swish and I’d except a high click-thru rate with a bit of tweaking.

I’m going to jump right in and replace Adsense with Shopping Ads on one of my blogs because I like the idea of getting paid per click. It will be interesting to see how Shopping Ads does competing head to head with TTZ Media.

Tags: Monetize your blog by Angel
4 Comments »

One of my favorite ways to make money blogging is through affiliate programs. There is a common misconception that to take advantage of affiliate sales you need to have masses of traffic. Sure, having the readership of some of the bigger blogs is going to mean that you earn more money, but if you use the right services and target the right people, you can still make a tidy sum.

I’ve been promoting five main affiliate services on this blog and others. They are Text Links Ads, Review Me, Pay Per Post, Linkworth and Bidvertiser. Not all of these perform as well as each other.

For me, by far the best affiliate program I use is Text Link Ads. The appeal of signing up for Text Link Ads is the ease with which it is possible to make money. I use Text Link Ads on a few blogs, and every time an ad is sold on my behalf it’s easy money. Even easier money is the $25 you get for referring someone who signs up to use the service too.

Text Link Ads is incredibly popular and there are always new bloggers out there who can benefit from joining. As an advertiser, Text Link Ads offers an easy way to buy links on other blogs. It’s a complete package.

Another good performer for me is Bidvertsier. Bidvertiser is a popular Adsense alterative that offers the same kind of service, but with $10, Paypal payouts. I use Bidvertiser on one of my blogs and I like the service because you can choose which ads you want to show up. You also get to select your niche, and so providing you don’t write about an obscure topic, you can get relevant ads served up to your blog.

The affiliate program with Bidvertsier is great because when you refer a publisher, you get $10 when they make their first $10. Then when they make their first $50, you get $40. With advertisers, you get $5 when ad advertiser spends $10, and $20 when an advertiser spend $50. You only need to hook up a couple of decent publishers and advertisers before you start to see some Paypal coming in.

The other three services I mentioned, Review Me, Pay Per Post and Linkworth, I’ve had far less success with. The problem with Pay Per Post isn’t getting people to sign up; it’s getting them to actually write that first post so that you then get your $15 referral payment. I don’t see why anybody wouldn’t sign up for Pay Per Post because new publishers get a guaranteed $20 for their first post at the moment.

Review Me I can understand because it isn’t as easy to make money with if you are new to blogging. Linkworth, on the other hand, is a great service and one that I highly recommend for both publishers and advertisers. The affiliate program has the potential to be a big money spinner, paying you $50 for each person you sign up who goes on to earn $100. Getting people to sign up can be tricky, though, because Linkworth’s service is a little confusing. To overcome this problem, you could write a guide to Linkworth like I did.

There are heaps of affiliate options out there and anyone can make money from them. I’d start plugging affiliates right away, even before you have a lot of traffic.

Tags: Monetize your blog by Angel
2 Comments »