Rubicon Project
A few months ago, I decided to trial the Rubicon Project on this blog. So I thought I’d share a few thoughts with you on my experiences so far.
I GOT PAID!!!!!
This is my first point because as wonderful as it is to see the cents turn to dollars in an account, I estimate it is going to take me 5.3 years before I see a google adsense payment. 
It’s nice to be able to write from the point of view of having actually received a payment from a company rather than simply a hypothetical figure that you *hope* they’ll pay out on when you reach the minimum.
SO WHAT’S THE MINIMUM PAYOUT?
Providing you have a paypal account, there isn’t one!!!!
That’s right - you get paid whatever you have earnt for the month.
My first payment? $2.37 - impressive eh??? 
Look out world here I come!!!! 
BUT, it’s in MY pocket not theirs (actually it’s still in my paypal account but you get what I mean right?).
You do have to wait 45 days before payment is processed. So the payment that I received on May 15th was for March.
If you prefer to be paid via cheque, the minimum payout is $25 (which is still a VAST improvement on google’s $100 minimum payout).
GET A VARIETY OF ADS
One of the things I really enjoy with the Rubicon project is the variety of advertising companies they use. Instead of having an ad block that only shows google adsense ads, you get an ad block that shows a variety, including ads with pictures (I was very excited the day I saw ads with pictures for the first time - I thought they were rather purdy! 
).
You do get quite a lot of choice when setting up your ad blocks as to what you do and don’t want to show on your site as well.
I actually find that the ads, at times, give some life and colour to my website.
I’m hoping too that the constantly changing ads will help to prevent “ad blindness” (and no, that’s not a hint to click on my ads - please only do that if you’re genuinely interested).
BONUS INFORMATION
In addition to earning you a few dollars, the Rubicon Project provides traffic reports for your site. Information available to you includes the languages your blog is accessed in, the browsers your users have and the operating systems your visitors are using. You can also find out your traffic by continent, country and so on.
ANY NEGATIVES?
I do have a couple. Afterall, we can’t all be perfect can we? And it’s still a reasonably new project.
1. I find the site a little difficult to navigate. I’m sure this will get better with time as I get used to finding my way around.
2. I have been trying to add the code to one of my blogger blogs with little success to date. I need to look into this further.
3. At the moment my monthly revenue seems to be on the decline. I’m not certain what is causing this (whether it is a traffic issue or an ad relevance issues). However, it’s not a big enough issue for me at the moment that I’m considering changing companies (it’s not like going downwards from $2.37 is going to break the bank!!!!)
OVER TO YOU
So far, I’ve been really happy with the Rubicon Project as a simple Blog Monetization method. If you’re considering going down this path (or already have), I think it’s worth looking into.
Anyone else tried it? What are your thoughts and experiences?
As a blog reader, do you have any opinions about the look of Rubicon Project ads? Like? Dislike? Don’t Care?
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Comments
Thanks Pam. 
You’re a tad ahead of me in the Google stakes. I think my total is around $12 something. I stopped using them for a while as it seemed like many people were getting dropped when they got near to the limit (for unspecified infringements). Was worried I’d get to almost $100 and then get banned. But I am using them on a couple of smaller sites again now and we’ll see what happens.
I’ve noticed your Rubicon ads and thought they were purdy too I even got so far as their website to check things out. I must have had a kiddie emergency and didn’t get any further than that though. I must have another look. BTW my Google is at the grand total of $1.44 - impressive hey
Hey Journeyer - remember the saying “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step”. Of course, being PAID that $1.44 would be even better!!! Let me know how you get on.
[…] problem with adsense is their high payout rate. I use Rubicon Project (Blogged about it here: Rubicon Project )because they pay out on much smaller figures. I actually don’t mind seeing adsense ads on a blog […]
Heh, I used to use the predecessor to Adbrite (it was called Webmasterads or something? :S) for the very same reason 
Except I was a little naughty, a young teen, used to click an ad once a month for the novelty factor of having checks sent to me of $0.10 or less 
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You Wrote:
“…the Rubicon Project provides traffic reports for your site. Information available to you includes the languages your blog is accessed in, the browsers your users have and the operating systems your visitors are using. You can also find out your traffic by continent, country and so on.”
I didn’t know that! Thanks for the write-up. I just got my first $ too - a whopping $0.38!!!
As for navigation, I’ve been doing ok, as far as I know!
It’s a little hard to read with the light text on black background all over!
I do like the rotating part - avoiding ad blindness is good!
I noticed that it is often blank on my site. I think my focus may be a bit odd for most advertising, even google has trouble finding stuff sometimes.
It’s always worth trying new things so I’ll stick with this for now. It will probably pay a little bit ongoing and that’s ok for the moment. I’ve got $43-44 stuck in google myself.
I don’t think it will take over 3 years to collect my first $100 from them though… : )
Pam Hoffman
http://seminarlist.blogspot.com