Beginner Ad Programs
A big part of your website and/or blog is monetizing it. Most people who create a website do so for fun, but then realize they can make a little bit of return on all the effort they invested. I began to research and look at different ways to monetize a website and the 2 easiest, no hassle advertising programs I have seen are Google Adsense and Ad-Brite.
Now, after using these for a couple months, they both have some pros and cons. Before going through these, I just have to share a few definitions that float around in the online advertising world and will better help you understand the content to follow.
PPC(Pay Per Click): An ad that is Pay Per Click means that you will be paid only if the ad is clicked by a user. Most of the ads that fall into this
category are text links, and banners.
CPC(Cost Per Click): Denotes how much you will make on a PPC ad if a user clicks. If an ads CPC is $0.10, you will be paid 10 cents per click.
PPV(Pay Per View): An ad that is Pay Per View means that you will be paid everytime the ad is viewed. Most full page ads cost
CPV(Cost Per View): Denotes how much you will make on a PPV ad when viewed. If an ads CPV is $0.10, you will be paid 10 cents per view.
CPM(Cost Per Mille): Denotes how much you will make when an ad is viewed 1000 times. If an ads CPM is $1.00. You will be paid $1.00 after
1000 views.
eCPM(estimated Cost Per Mille): This is a statistic that denotes how much you will make for every 1000 webpage views. This is not related to the ad itself, but rather to the money-making ability of your website. If in 500 visits you generate $5.00 your eCPM would be $10.00. Again this is just an estimation, but gives you a good idea of how well you are doing.
Now that you understand those terms lets look at Adsense and Adbrite
Legend: += pro -=con n=neutral
Google Adsense (https://www.google.com/adsense/):
+ Amazing targeting: Ads are extremely relevant thanks to Google's content analysis. However sometimes, some ads do get by that aren't relevant. For this Google provides it's competitive ad filter, which allows you to filter certain ads based on URL. This list will fill up pretty quickly, but all in all, Google's targetting is very well suited to the content of your website.
+ Ad Availability: Ads are available in a variety of different sizes. Ranging from wide banners, to tall skyscrapers, to square button ads. Google Adsense also provides Link Units, which are basically low paying text ads. The advantage of text ads is their ability to be blended flawlessly into a website by setting the link units background color to your website color...and yes this is legal. Google has CPM and CPC ads, but does not have any CPV ads.
- Payout: You need to hit $100 BEFORE you receieve a cheque. You will not receive your first cheque until this balance is met.
- Control: You do not have any control over how which ads are displayed. You CAN limit which ads are shown by filtering URLs however, the amount you can filter is limited, and you will have to manually check your site to find ads you want to filter (they aren't even guaranteed to show up when you do visit).
-Transparency: Not very transparent. You usually don't know how much an ad will pay you or its ad type (CPM, CPC).
n Customer Support: I've contacted customer support once or twice, they were usually slow to respond and sometimes did not respond at all.
AdBrite (http://www.adbrite.com/mb/landing_both.php?spid=119614&afb=120x60-1-blue):
Note: The above URL contains my referral id. If you would not like to be counted as my referral for whatever reason, you can use the link http://www.adbrite.com. However, if you did learn about Adbrite from me, I would appreciate it if you used the referral link instead. 
Thank you.
+ Ad Availability: Ads are available in a variety of different sizes as well as different formats. One thing I really like about adbrite is their CPV ads. Full page ads can be set to run every 1-5 pageviews, and shown to a user once every 6, 12, or 24 hours.
Recommended you start at 5pageviews and 24hours. Then adjust and see how your revenue and traffic changes.
+ Payout: With a low payment threshold, you can receive your first cheque at the end of the month. Adbrites minimum threshold is $5. You can set yours anywhere you would like, and payment will be held until your minimum threshold is met.
+ Control: You have a ton of control over the ads that are displayed. By turning auto-approve off, you have a chance to review every single ad before it is approved to run on your website. Turning auto-approve off and only approving ads you would like to run makes the bad targeting con obsolete, but does require you to do a lot more work. This does make your ads extremely well targetted though.
+ Transparency: Extremely transparent. You can see the geographical targeting, ad-type(CPM, CPV, CPC), as well as how much the ad pays.
+ Customer Service: I've contacted customer service twice with inquiries and they have usually responded within 24hours.
+Integration with other Ad companies: There is a section where you can paste your other ad-code, and if your other ad-code is serving an ad that would generate more revenue, adbrite will serve that ad instead of an adbrite ad. This ultimately results in more revenue for you.
Signing up:
Adsense: Visit https://www.google.com/adsense/ and click signup now. Fill out the form information.
AdBrite: Visit http://www.adbrite.com and click For Publishers.
After your information is reviewed, you will be contacted and informed whether or not your site has been approved.
My Personal Preference:
I like the ease and targetting of AdSense. I like the transparency and control of AdBrite.
At the moment, I run both.
It seems to be a matter of preference, if you're looking for a set-it-and-forget-it solution, I'd go with Adsense.
However, if you're a control freak and like to have oversight on everything that goes into your website, AdBrite will help you feel at ease.
All-in-all, monetizing should be done as a way to help recuperate the losses you pay for hosting and domains, as well as to make a little profit.
Don't just make a site so you can make money off ad programs. Make a site you love, so you update and add new content often. This results in loyal users, which results in more revenue generated from well targetted ads
That concludes my little Adsense/Adbrite primer. I hope this gave you enough of an incentive to research advertising programs. These can be a great way to make a little income off your hard work.
If you have any questions or comments, or if you would like to suggest an article, please comment.