I watched that Mixergy video too, and was inspired to try something similar :)
BSA is great, but if you need more inventory, you can get this strategy working on Google AdWords, too. You just need to create a new ad group, and use "managed placements" to specify the sites you want to target.
Since you probably don't want 100 ad groups, you have to get a bit more generic with your ads, but there are plenty of ways to do that and still get the "this is useful information, not some off-topic ad" effect.
Here's another tip: Once you have an ad that exceeds about 0.2% CTR, you'll often get much lower cost-per-click by switching the campaign to CPM bidding.
For example, if you're bidding $1 CPM, and getting a 2% CTR, your effective CPC is only $0.05! In CPC mode, you'd often have to bid $0.30 CPC just to show up.
Wow, that's a very valuable insight! Do you need a %0.2 CTR in order to switch to CPM (e.g.: is it disabled before that?) or is it that your bids will not be as good if you don't have at least that high a CTR?
Every time I experiment with adwords, something in their policies seems to drive me off (last time it was that I couldn't use the terms "iPhone" or "iPad" in the ad, even though we have a legal license from Apple to use them.
This time, the costs seem really high the ads don't seem to run often, and I'm getting outbid even on terms where no ads show up when I do searches.
Between google having a mysterious cut, and taking on the roll of "optimizing" the experience, they make it very opaque for people who aren't add placement pros to use their service... and very hard to make it cost effective, which means, we don't use it. A real shame.
CPM might make adwords viable again...we still have the incentive to produce a good add to get more clicks for our Mille.
If your ads aren't showing up for certain word choices, you might want to rethink the type of words you're using to ensure that Google knows your content is appropriate.
BSA is great, but if you need more inventory, you can get this strategy working on Google AdWords, too. You just need to create a new ad group, and use "managed placements" to specify the sites you want to target.
Since you probably don't want 100 ad groups, you have to get a bit more generic with your ads, but there are plenty of ways to do that and still get the "this is useful information, not some off-topic ad" effect.
Here's another tip: Once you have an ad that exceeds about 0.2% CTR, you'll often get much lower cost-per-click by switching the campaign to CPM bidding.
For example, if you're bidding $1 CPM, and getting a 2% CTR, your effective CPC is only $0.05! In CPC mode, you'd often have to bid $0.30 CPC just to show up.