The Runner Up, Bidvertiser

I have spent a bit of time the last couple weeks looking for a decent AdSense alternative. There are lots of ad systems out there, so many are just plain stupid, or simple copies of all the others. There are any number of places you can go to get "You're visitor # 1,000,000, you've won!" banners. That's not what I am looking for. After a few days my search focused around Bidvertiser and Adbrite.

They are both essentially the same system, and all I need a system for is my small sites that I am building, like this blog and others, so I don't need to put them in AdSense, and, because their new sites, risk the chance of my bigger sites getting smart priced and hurting my bottom line. So, while sites are growing, or, sites that don't have a high CTR, I can keep in the second choice, and as they grow, move them in to AdSense.

Bidvertiser wins out for me, not because of payout or anything like that, because really, the small sites don't make enough to matter anyway, I just like the way Bidvertiser works. The setting up of new ad spaces, categorization, approving and disapproving of ads, and such other factors I just like better, and it seems I can get my maintenance done quicker with Bidvertiser. The only thing I kind of learned the hard way is that if I use a large rectangle on one site, set the colors and all that, then assign a large rectangle to another site in my account, using different colors...well, all the large rectangles anywhere in my account change colors, which is pretty stupid. You can't seem to have ads of the same sizes using different color schemes.

If you need a second choice, check them out. Given my smart pricing experiment, and the outcome I am finding, I highly suggest one gets a good second choice to use on new sites and save yourself some financial loss from AdSense.