if you want an alternative to adsense check Prosperent if there are products related to your site then its going to perform much better than adsense. Best thing about it is you add your adsense code as a fallback option, if prosperent cannot match a good product to your visitor it will show adsense instead of showing something unrelated.
Just like everything else, adsense need some strategy for it to turn out fine. Fortunately, ad sense is one of the most easiest form of making money as well as monetizing your site. Locate your adsense at the top of the page and work on building traffic to your site. Not just any kind of traffic but real time visitors. I bet you, you will be surprise at how much you can make. John
People make a living off AdSense. You just need to know how to use it correctly. I really don't understand why you would want to say "no" to AdSense. It's a great way of making money online.