Stop Making AdSense?

When they first appeared we tried AdSense and AdWords but found that although it may work in specific markets or genre, it didn’t work across a wide and deep range of book titles. In fact the experience was a likened by our accountant to putting money on the horses - except you knew when you won on the horses – here you know you been at the races, you know you have spent money placing your bets but you are not sure what the odds were and won. He would look at the money being spent ,the reports generated and ask ‘Where’s the money? Show me the sales?’ We pulled out.

We have just tried the latest internet ad route Facebook ads. The experience is even worse than tha of Google and it was clear that it was easy to take our money and generate stats but site activity was somewhat short of expectation and sales almost non-existent. Another one tried but found wanting.

We always have placed ads with marketing codes, we have swopped mail lists, done inserts, bought lists and as always the safest return is always on customer references and when you can achieve it column inches.

The register reports this week on the latest update to AdSense that will be focused on the better browsing capabilities of smartphones and could lead to ads as you go being pushed to mobiles. Google now has introduced a new JavaScript snippet that is optimized for high-end mobiles. No longer restricted to small text and reduced ad images, smartphone mobiles such as; the iPhone, Pre, Blackberry and Androids could be targeted.

All advertising has to be accountable. Some may build brand, others promote a specific offer but at the end of the day they have to deliver value not just empty stats. We would be interested to hear others thoughts on whether some ads do make sense.