AdSonar is a contextual ad program put out by Quigo. At this point, they are making out to be the major competitors to Google AdSense (that is until Yahoo! launches their program). Overall, I think that AdSonar’s features are better than their competitors but, their smaller ad base makes it tough for them to oust AdSense as the contextual kings.
Targeting:
AdSonar serves ads to your website directly from their own pay per click advertising base. AdSonar’s targeting is generally good. Unfortunately, their ad base is considerably smaller than the other networks leading to a larger percentage of untargeted ads. Publishers have the option of specifying alternate ads to be displayed when targeted ads are not available.
Customization and Layout
This is where AdSonar really shines! Not only can you create custom dimensions for your ad blocks, but you can also specify how many ads are displayed in each block. In addition, the color palettes are completely customizable.
Reliability:
In our testing, we’ve only had problems with getting ads once. This was not a complete outage, but just a slowdown in the speed ads were served.
Ad Quality:
The ads are generally of high quality. The smaller base however leads to a large number of low paying affiliate based ads being displayed.
Reporting:
AdSonar has good reporting functionality. One feature that I especially liked is that it automatically breaks down your stats on an individual URL basis. You do not have to setup clumsy Channels like with AdSense.
Pay:
As with AdSense I am prohibited from disclosing any specifics about how much I am paid. The beautiful thing about AdSonar however is that they disclose in their TOS the exact percentage they pay to publishers. I am not allowed to disclose this here, but you may find it yourself by reading through their TOS. In general however, within the specific niches that I tested, AdSonar paid out less than AdSense. It is important to remember however that I did not test every niche, and that individual payouts can vary widely. Checks are sent monthly once you reach the payment threshold of $100.
IP Filters
On of the best things about AdSonar is that you are allowed to block specific IP addresses from clicking your ads. This is a great feature as it helps you block people that you believe are attempting to commit fraud or get you kicked out of the program.
The Down Side:
-- Control Panel and Firefox --
AdSonar’s control panel doesn’t work in the Mozilla Firefox web browser. This is a major faux pas in my book, especially as Firefox’s popularity grows greater and greater.
-- Payment --
Per click revenues seem to be generally less than what you receive with AdSense.
Join
This Program! |
| Other
Information | | Min.
Payout: |
$100 | | Availability: |
International | | Date
Added: |
03/12/2005
| | Date
Updated: |
09/05/2010
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4/5 
3/5 
