Google AdSense (the other side to AdWords) has something of a hit and miss deployment when it comes to Africa. While it would be an excellent method for African bloggers to get a bit of money to cover their internet expenses, Google doesn't offer payment options for any country in Sub-Saharan Africa. This is rather nasty on their part and hopefully over this next year, we'll start to see some momentum towards a better solution in that department.
By way of a test to see how clicks and more importantly, content, shapes up on a site that only has African content, we've deployed a small AdWords box to the home page of Maneno. This wasn't done to create some kind of massive monetizing scheme as we expect the overall payments from Google to be quite small. It was done purely as an experiment.
We want to see what happens when AdSense is confronted by the multiple language versions of Maneno. We want to see what happens when the Google servers see that you're coming from a different country outside those in North American and Europe. And most importantly we want to see what type of ads will be displayed.
The beauty of the AdWords system is that is displays ads based upon contextual relevance, which is a large part of the reason why it became so popular due to the ads being related to what users read on the page. Maneno authors write in a more balanced manner about Africa talking about a great breadth of topics that go beyond the doom and gloom angle. This is very much different from what is portrayed in traditional media outlets such as CNN and BBC. Because of this, will the AdWords be more like what you see in the US or say, France, or will we just see ads for charities about saving children, animal safaris, or voluntourism?
We're putting forth all these questions because we want to hear from everyone who views these ads and work to get a greater pictures of AdWords in Africa, since it is currently one of the most dominant ad delivery systems on the web. Please feel free to leave comments or contact us directly to share your thoughts.
And naturally, as these ads are a bit of a bandwidth hog at 25kb, if you set your bandwidth throttling to Very Slow, they won't display. We don't want this trial to be a bandwidth burden.
Great points there at the scam behind it. However, I've heard of a couple bloggers who get their cheques (I'm not sure how) and they're relatively small cheques but they do come in.
I'm interested to see it as well. However there are some other African alternatives including but not limited to AdGator by Afrigator and a couple others I'm sure.
In fact, given Maneno's multilingual approach to the continent and to content, maybe YOU should consider an ad network (I know it's out of your way but I'm just saying)
Thoughts?
07 01 2010 miquelI think that getting the checks is relatively easy and in Kenya I've heard rumors that folks can even pick them up at the Google office in Nairobi. The bigger issue comes in cashing them...
I think that if this becomes a permanent thing, we'll end up using a blend of systems and having them rotate out on an even basis at first and then eventually giving more preference to those that perform better. Naturally, we'll document the process as much as possible for anyone in the case that its useful for others to know.
Maybe we'd do an ad network of our own way, way down the line. I would never rule out that possibility, but at the moment we're working on developing out this platform further as well as some other functions for 2010 that are going to be very exciting when they come about.
12 01 2010 Victor Ngeny@Mark there are a couple of alternatives, though the problem is usually cashing in, because the others use paypal, i think..... which usually a problem on these shores.
Something like PamojaMedia
@Miguel,I tried adsense a couple of years ago and found out that it mostly works with specialist (niche) blogs, once you have at least 1-2k uniques a day you should have a healthy cheque at the end of the month.
The ability to contextualize your ads and point them at a specific demographic is what makes adwords king. I manage an adwords account and believe me its is paying for itself, what with the traffic its is sending my way.
15 01 2010 AllyI use adsense, chitika and tribal fusion and adsense is still the best in everything. I get a cheque which is enough to feed me for a whole month and even pay my rent.
The only downside of google is the attitude of the Nairobi team compsed of Joe Mucheru and Isis Nyong'o. There is lots of arrogance and bravado mixed with I dont care atiitude.
Its making me seriously look for paid banner ads which I am starting to get. By March no adsense will be on my website
