It just makes (Ad)Sense

This summer when I worked for Mcgraw Millhaven at KTRS radio, we tried a few different things to make his Web site more appealing, which he plugged shamelessly on the show. After a balking on putting up regular podcasts and a failed attempt at a daily blog, I had become pretty familiar with site. But one thing always confused me. If his site sucked so much - and it does - why the hell is he still supporting and plugging it? Of course, in the back of my mind, I knew the answer.

Money.

Before the show one day, he showed me an earnings history that Google had sent him for using AdSense. He showed me a grid that literally counted how many clicks each of the ads that had placed on his site and how much he made from each one. Initially, I was stunned by the amount of people that actually clicked on the ads. But then a sobering realization came to me: why McGraw was doing it. It wasn't that my humble boss was a money-hungry man. It was that while his intentions as a journalist and talk show host were usually pure, he does have bills to pay and the glitz and glamour of talk radio don't always pay that well.

Here is a picture of what the printout looks like. Source: Google.com

From what I gathered on the grid, McGraw made something like 20 cents on every unique hit to one of the ads on his page. The ads were designed well, not too flashy, and he actually had the opportunity to semi-custom-choose them to match the look of his pages.

Later on, I did a little of my own research. Turns out that AdSense is the simplest, easiest, cheapest and most efficient way to generate ad revenue on a Web site. Hell, it's backed up by what is arguably the most intelligent and efficient company on the Web. The program is smart enough to understand what your pages contextually mean and match it with the most compatible advertisers in its database. Now that's innovative.

I know this may sound like a commercial for AdSense, but I've been sold on it for months. Craigslist is cool but it doesn't hold a candle to this. And who would expect it to? It's run by 18 people in an old house in San Fransisco. Not to mention, half the posts are from scammers and cheats.

A SWOT analysis of AdSense only yields one real weakness or threat if we were to try AdSense on the TV site. It looks cheap. It gives us the image that we are stooping to the common man's method of generating some cash for our "prestigious" news site. We're better than that, right?

Wrong. We're not making any money yet. That makes us look cheaper than anything.