A common complaint about PerformancingAds is that the site navigation is very confusing, and the documentation isn’t much good either. The end result is that it’s quite hard to tell what the best way is to set up and manage your ads. So I thought I’d run through what I know in the hope that it’ll help a fellow blogger (and if I’ve got it all wrong, you all can correct me!).

Apart from paid advertisements, there are several other ways in which ads can be displayed on your site, which is kind of nice as it gives you the option of promoting your own or affiliate products in empty slots, or even on other sites in the network. But the trade-off is increased complexity, which is compounded by the confusing manner in which the PerformancingAds site is laid out.

To start, I’ll run through the various ways adverts can be set up, with a brief explanation of each, and how they interact:

1. Paid-for ads.

   These are the ads you joined the network for – ones in which someone pays you for the privilege of displaying their advert on your site for a period of time. Ads can only be booked if you have free slots available, so setting your price correctly is the key to maximising your earnings; too high and you won’t get many bookings, too low and you’ll sell yourself short. A good strategy is to set a lowish price to start, then gradually adjust it to regulate demand.

2. Self-booked ads.

   PerformancingAds allows you to book your own ads into any available slots, and will serve them for you for free. The only thing to bear in mind is that paying customers will not be able to book the slot as long as your self-booked ad occupies it.

3. Alternate ads.

   These are similar to self-booked ads, except they only show up in free slots, and have the advantage of leaving the slots available to be booked by paying customers whenever they come along. This is a very good way of ensuring full utilization of your slots.

4. Exchange ads.

   Similar to alternate ads, these are displayed in free slots, but with the difference that they are shown on other sites in the network – a great way to get a bit of free exposure for your ads. It works on a points system, where you earn credits by displaying others’ exchange ads, and also for selling ads on your site. In the past I’ve had some fairly dodgy and untargeted stuff showing up, so use with care. But it’s still worthwhile setting up your own exchange ads to be displayed on other sites (assuming you are earning credits from selling ads).

The order in which I’ve placed the ad types is significant, as, to the best of my knowledge, this is the way the different ad types are prioritised for display. So paid-for and self-booked ads take precedence over alternates, which in turn take precedence over exchange ads.

Optimal configuration

This is the configuration I consider to be optimal from a Publisher point-of-view:

1. Set up the ads you wish to use as alternates, using the Advertisers tab.
2. Under the Publishers tab, select which of your alternates you wish to display in each of your regions.
3. I don’t tend to use the self-booking feature because, as I explained above, this prevents paying customers from being able to book slots.
4. As far as I can tell, the only way to utilize exchange ads is to set them up seperately in the Exchange Ads section, which is a bit of a pain since it means you have to configure the same ad twice if you want it to show up both as an alternate on your site and an exchange ad on someone else’s. It would be far better, in my opinion, to set up the ad once, then designate it as both an exchange and an alternate ad. If anyone knows a better way of doing this, please let me know.

And that’s it: my recipe for a setup that requires minimal manual intervention. Please feel free to share your own tips or suggestions.

Related posts:

1. No thank you, I don’t need penis enlargement
2. Don’t forget to Nofollow your PerformancingAds

One of my hosting clients was recently shocked to discover an advertisement for penis enlargement on her blog (I won’t show it to you, because I don’t want to give them any more exposure)! Considering most of her readers are women, she didn’t think it an appropriate use of her screen real-estate (’nuff said). The offensive ad was being displayed in one of the 125×125 blocks in her sidebar (similar to the blocks in my own sidebar), which is governed by an ad network called PerformancingAds. But before you jump to any conclusions, read on…

What is PerformancingAds?

Lest you get the idea I think PerformancingAds is a Bad Company, I don’t – or I wouldn’t have signed up with them. PerformancingAds is simply a broker of advertisements, whose role is to bring together advertisers and publishers. In a nutshell, any website owner can sign up (for free) and allocate certain areas of their site to display ads from the PerformancingAds network. Similarly, advertisers sign up (also for free) to get access to the publisher network. When an advertiser finds one or more sites that target their market, with the right traffic level, and for the right price, they can pay to place their ad there.

Exchange ads

Naturally, there will be times when not all of a publisher’s ad spots are fully allocated. Rather than displaying blank spaces, by default the network assigns generic ads to those locations. But they also give you the option to upload your own 125×125 buttons, to instead promote your own products, sites, etc. Since you are both the advertiser and the publisher in this case, you can agree to pay yourself nothing! (That’s right, it’s free to do this too ).

You can also create a variation on these private ads by creating Exchange Ads, which will be displayed on other sites in the publisher network as you earn credits, which happens as you display paid-for ads and other sites’ Exchange Ads. And that’s obviously what’s happened in my client’s case. She certainly didn’t receive any money for displaying the ad, and didn’t create it herself, so that’s the only other option.

What’s the solution?

Now whether ads of such a dubious nature should be allowed in the network in the first place is a matter for debate. The question is: what to do about it?

Well, quite simply to filter them out. When creating an ad region, you are given the option of specifying a list of terms and/or domains that you don’t wish to be have displayed in the region:

As you can see, I’ve set it to filter out the usual suspects: penis, viagra, poker, casino, gamble. That should cover it (if I’ve missed any, let me know, will you?), and hopefully we should not be seeing any more disagreeable ads in that region.

One minor complaint is that you have to do this on a region-by-region basis; it would be nice to be able to do it on a per-site basis rather, as a site may have several regions defined.

Conclusion

So have I changed my opinion of PerformancingAds? No, not really. I still think it’s a good opportunity to earn a bit of money from your site, particularly for smaller sites that may find it difficult to otherwise attract the attention of advertisers. How much attention they get in PerformancingAds is still to be seen, but at least it gets you out there. And in the meantime, why not use Exchange Ads to promote your own products, services, or simply your content?

Related posts:

1. PerformancingAds Pecking Order
2. Don’t forget to Nofollow your PerformancingAds