Is Adsense slowly fading into the background? AS IF! But maybe it will do... I've written an article about online advertising if you want a look... It's called A New Era for Online Advertising Nothing amazingly interesting as the name might suggest. Just a debatable little article Thanks Nick
It's not really a new era for online advertising. Webmasters have been selling direct ads for a long time now.
Yes I know; hence "A lot of webmasters now (bloggers particulary) though are slowly turning back to good old direct advertising" and "Maybe the online advertising world will just keep turning full circle" By new era I meant it in an ironic sense. It's not NEW but I mean the most popular of recent is contextual so my point was to debate on whether or not that is dying out and the NEW era is the old traditional methods. Hence 'turn full circle' once again.
Its much better for you to go to your own ad system. As far as I see, the only downside is that you have to find a way to get the advertisers to your website to buy the ads, compared to using Adsense, YPN, etc where they get them in the door. After that your revenue is in your own hands. Set your prices, raise them, or run promos. You cant do that type of marketing with other peoples networks. In the long run it also means more money for you, as you are able to grown and control the shape of your network.
Quite interesting, indeed. It is true that the good old direct advertising doesn't work the same way. Market research is still impoortant and goes before advertising at this point.