| I may be biased, as I'm part of the Google Engage for Agencies program, but for all of its defects, AdWords is an incredible marketing resource with an 80% reach. Their two main problems are: 1) Customer care for end users is admittedly lousy. 2) You really, really, really need to know what you are doing or else it's very easy to be taken to the cleaners. Ignoring AdWords as part of your online advertising efforts is usually a bad idea. However relying solely on it is a dangerous proposition, too (case in point, you were banned). Diversify by introducing media buys (as you suggested), other ad channels (like AdCenter, LinkedIN ads, Facebook ads, StumbleUpon ads, etc), and then prioritize based on ROI. The question is, do you need all this to test out an idea? Probably not. I think that at this stage virtually anything targeted will help you gauge interest. > AdCenter is a little better IMO, but niche websites are absolute killer since you're no longer screwing around and trying to filter out irrelevant traffic. Don't forget that with AdWords you can reach niche sites, and even target them individually if you want to, so you don't need to commit to paying $xxx/mo for a media buy directly with the publisher (just to run tests). |
That is true, BUT, since AdSense brings in pennies for the webmaster in general, relative to the other options, a lot of good/non-shit niche sites are not using AdSense, but are either using custom sell space or other targeted networks that payout 2-10X of what Google AdSense does.
IMO, if you are serious about running and monetizing a business, you will get as far away from being 100% dependant on the Google index and their ad network as you can.
So many people have been screwed this way. Imagine what would happen if you dropped a couple of pages down in the index tomorrow, or your AdWords account was banned.
Though I'll still admit there are a couple of sites I can no longer target, because they use AdSense ... but I have considered emailing each one and offering 2 or 3-times whatever they get with AdSense to get rid of it and put up my ads/links instead.