Monetize Your Website Program Reviews 18: Kontera Review

[Clinton]

This Kontera Review page covers the details of the program and its pros and cons.

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KONTERA REVIEW & FEEDBACK

Quick Facts:

1. Program name: Kontera
2. URL: http://www.kontera.com/
3. Country: US
4. Ad types: In-text ads
5. Ad formats/sizes: text and image, rich media, video, expandable, customizable units
6. Commission types / Payment Model: CPC
7. Rate per click/lead/etc: N/A
8. Payment methods: Paypal, Check, Wire, International EFT for select countries
9. Minimum payout: $50
10. Payout percentage share with publishers: 70%
11. Payment frequency: NET 30
12. Auto-accepts ads / option for manual ad approval: N/A
13. Setup method: Manual code insertion, plugins available for WordPress, Blogger, Joomla and Drupal
14. Skills and effort required to setup and manage: Basic skills and effort to install and manage, plugins available for sites running WordPress, Blogger, Joomla or Drupal platforms
15. Time until relevant ads appear on website after signup/installation: Usually within 24 hours
16. Conflict with other programs and/or exclusivity: None
17. Requirements / Restrictions: At least 50 words per page on the majority of each site, no questionable content of any kind
18. Coverage and Geographic focus: Global Coverage
19. Support/troubleshooting: knowledge database here
20. Contact info: Telephones, addresses and online contact form here

Kontera is a large ad network that accommodates more than 15,000 publishers and reaches more than 140 million unique users each month. Full review of Kontera.


Have you used the program? Any tips or suggestions you have? Would you like to add your own review of the program below? Any questions you have about this program?

[Kontera]

Hi, this is Jonathan, the Community Manager at Kontera. I wanted to address some of the topics raised in the full review

Regarding the website having some scattered links, it's a temporary problem. We recently upgraded our site to a new platform and we're working out the bugs.

Concerning the amount of JavaScript we contribute to a page, it's really not an issue. We recently finished a study that we haven't published yet that found that on average, Kontera only contributes 17% to the amount of JavaScript on one of our publisher's pages. Additionally, Kontera is the last element to start loading on a page, and with those video ads, they don't start loading until after the user scrolls over the highlighted keyword with their mouse. For these reasons we're not actually affecting page speed in any significant way, either for readers or SEO.

Please feel free guys, to ask me any other question you might have about Kontera.

[Clinton]

Hi Jonathan, thanks for dropping in.

I haven't tried Kontera on my own sites because, well, it's a silly reason, but I really object to unsolicited emails and Kontera has sent me a few over the years - from yourself, Sarah, Neta, Orit, MariCate and others. I think the first was in 2007. However, there have been several sites I've considered buying which were monetised with Kontera and I got to see Kontera's performance on those sites. The last time, I believe, was in 2009 when I found the ads weren't matched well to the subject of the page. Have you made any improvements to ad relevance recently?

Concerning the amount of JavaScript we contribute to a page, it's really not an issue. We recently finished a study ...found that on average, Kontera only contributes 17% to the amount of JavaScript on one of our publisher's pages.

Surely the percentage you've added to his site is not very relevant. How many kb do you add to the page?

[Kontera]

Hi Clinton,

The primary Kontera script is usually 5 KB or less.

Regarding relevancy, at this point that's a huge part of our value proposition. Our Synapse platform, is a relevance engine that identifies phrases that most accurately represent page context and user interest. This proprietary technology allows Kontera to place ads where users are the most engaged and receptive, and it's a lot more effective than competing technologies, most of which have to rely on keyword lists.

[Clinton]

Jonathan, thanks for your reply. When you talk about the Synapse platform do you mean you've simply plugged in the Peltarion Synapse software? Is there some custom component you've created that integrates with Synapse to create specific functionality? I'm curious about why and how your system is superior to something like, say, Adsense at detecting the ad locations and types that generate best response rates.

[Kontera]

Kontera is a technology company as well as being an advertising company and the Synapse is proprietary technology unrelated to the Peltarion software (I'd actually never heard of them before). What separates our technology from what other in-content providers do, and that's really an easier comparison because AdSense involves monetizing a different area of the web page, is Topic Targeting. Our Synapse algorithm monitors how people are interacting with the content on the network in real time, and based on data trends can unlock new relevant keywords and phrases. For instance, say a movie is based on a video game, the Synapse will understand that connection instantly and recognize the situations where placing a video game ad on the page will be relevant and effective. Most other in-content providers just work off of a huge keyword lists, use generic ad feeds, and are much more constrained in optimizing performance.

[Kay]

Having not been impressed by my experience of earning less than half a cent per click with Infolinks, I decided to try something else. Since I've already sold my soul (but not on my best sites) by using in-text ads, I had a look at Kontera. They seem very promising, although I'm a bit concerned about them slowing the page down.

Anyway, I removed all the Infolinks from 'Site 3' and signed up for Kontera. Here's how I got on.

Signing up with Kontera

This was reasonably painless. It's a three step process: Register - Activate - Get your Kontera tag.

Registration involved entering:

URL
Category (Travel, etc)
Language
US Visitors per month (but I'd thought it was a global programme and most of my sites are UK-based - luckily most of Site 3's visitor are from the US)
Name
Password

OK, that was easy enough so I hit the submit button. I'd expected the site to go through a review process, but within seconds I received an email asking me to Activate the account. That was quick.

Activation

Oh no, another form of questions to complete.

Name (You already know my name, I told you it when I registered.)
Address
Country
Phone (yuk!))

Meanwhile three identical emails came in to welcome me to the Kontera programme. Oh well, it's better than being ignored.

Get your Kontera tag

They offer you a variety of platforms to make the plugin "easy" for you - WordPress, Joomla, etc. But when I tried WP, it didn't work and I got a "content not found" page. Never mind, armed with our Kontera ID number, Dave went off and got the Kontera plugin from WP .org.

What's next?

Dave put their code on Site 3 and the links should be active "within 24 hours". We shouldn't judge the results too quickly because they'll have their customer team look at the site and the links it's showing and "optimize" it for us. I actually like that idea because a big part of the frustration with Infolinks was that their algo targeted stupid 'keywords'. A human review seems like a much better bet.

So, fingers crossed... and watch out for the next instalment.

[Kay]

They said the links would be there within 24 hours and they're not. Time to check out the Kontera support. First I looked at their help centre and FAQs. Sure enough, they had an answer for what to do if your links aren't showing after 24 hours.

- Check that you have added their code correctly to your site. Yep, done that.

- If the code is correct, then send them a message via their contact form. Nightmare! The box they provide for you to insert your message is smaller than most postage stamps.

I received a thank you message saying they will contact me "within three business days". That seems like a heck of a long time to wait.

The FAQs also include this about why links might not be showing:

If you see our ContentLink tag on your pages, please check the content of the page. Advertisers are reluctant to have their messages on pages about war, violence and other non-positive subjects, and these pages may be activating our filters. These filters work on a page-by-page basis, so if you think this may be an issue, look at pages that do not contain sensitive content.

I don't think the content of Site 3 is non-positive or sensitive. Admittedly some of the articles are fairly critical of certain things, but mostly they're very positive in an attempt to help people to do something. I can't imagine a proper website with nothing non-positive on it. Surely it can't be that.

[Clinton]

Funny how signing up is always easy, but support takes three days. Kontera is not alone in this.

With Kontera all kinds of things can stop their ads from showing. Badly formed HTML, unclosed tags and even, if you go by some reports, comments in the HTML! If it's a WP blog then you may need to do some fiddling. If you're using the Kontera plugin turn it off and try inserting the ads in the code.

Even better, can you setup a new page with some content and without all the normal formatting of your template and see what happens?

[Kay]

Thanks, Clinton. I'll get Dave to look into your suggestions when he's finished feeding his pet werewolf and taken it for walkies.

Funny how signing up is always easy, but support takes three days. Kontera is not alone in this.

Bah! They're very quick off the mark to get you signed up and then they leave you in limbo for days. If they don't contact me until Monday next week (that's three business days from now) then there's the opportunity cost of that site not doing anything for five days. In this specific case the opportunity cost is next to zero - we've pulled the Infolinks, that's all - but they don't know that. For all they know they could be losing us a chunk of income from their slow response. Too many companies pull you in the door and then leave you stuck in a long queue. IMO that's very poor customer service.

If it's a WP blog then you may need to do some fiddling.

It is on WP (what a surprise!) but it's not really a blog. In any case, we got sucked in because it's all made out to be so easy and if we have to do all this tweaking then it's not so easy at all.