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The woes of advertising: evaluating ClickSor

by Mar Matthias Darin

For those that missed part three, you can catch up here.

As part of this series, I'm also going to review each of the advertisers I have used and give my impression of each. As per the new FCC regulations, I am receiving nothing for this review.

In testing ClickSor, my overall impression is good. However, a search through many search engines reveals that not everyone is happy with ClickSor. I have read reviews by some that even suggest or outright label ClickSor as a scam. I didn't get that impression though. But as with any advertiser or online company, use with caution.

The rules for being a publisher are fairly straight forward (from the ClickSor web site):

1. Participating sites must have 5,000 page views per day.
2. Participating Sites cannot display child pornography or contain links to such content.
3. Participating Sites cannot be libellous or defamatory in nature.
4. Participating Sites must not contain or link to software piracy.
5. Participating Sites cannot be used for software trading (warez).
6. Participating Sites must not contain or link to any forms of illegal activity (i.e., how to build a bomb, hacking, 'phreaking', etc.)
7. Participating sites cannot be proxy sites or contain link(s) to such service.
8. Participating Sites cannot contain gratuitous displays of violence, obscene or vulgar imagery or language, and abusive content or content which endorses or threatens physical harm.
9. Participating Sites must not promote any types of hate-mongering. (i.e., racial, political, ethnic, religious, gender-based, sexuality-based or personal, etc.)
10. Participating Sites cannot participate in or transmit inappropriate newsgroup postings or unsolicited e-mail (spam).
11. Participating Sites must not promote any types of illegal substance, paraphernalia or activity with illegal, false or deceptive investment advice or money-making opportunities.
12. Participating Sites cannot be under construction, incomplete or contain little original content.
13. Participating Sites must not be a free hosting webpage or personal homepage.
14. Participating Sites must not contain any type of content that reasonable public consensus deems to be improper or inappropriate.
15. Participating Sites must contain the code provided by Clicksor intact and unchanged. Websites may contain more than one page containing the code, but only one occurrence of the code is allowed PER INDIVIDUAL PAGE.

Nothing special there, the rules are pretty straight forward. It should be noted though the the first rule (five thousand page views per day) seems to be one that they'll bend. They did for this blog as I get nowhere near 5,000 visitors a day. My guess is that they will bend the first rule if they like the content.

Once I got my blog approved (took about three or four days), I received my account number (also doubles as login) and the publisher login link via email. The first thing you'll see is any notices from the service once you login.

Ad setup and design is fairly easy, just follow the on screen directions. They literally walk you through the entire process and there are quite a few sizes to choose from, including the newer half-banner size. If you get stuck or have any questions, they also have a very robust help system and live support. I ran into a situation that I couldn't find the answer to and used the live support.

The live support is excellent. I can't say enough. They really went overboard to make sure my problems were solved quickly and efficiently. It is actually one of the best live support systems I've ever used. Getting help with ClickSor isn't an issue at all. I have to compliment them of this aspect of their service.

The ad quality reflects the traffic you have to your site. If you have the five thousand visitors a day, you'll get some very nice ads, otherwise, the ad quality isn't that great. I can't blame ClickSor though for my poor traffic, after all, who wants to pay premium prices for low traffic? The ad quality isn't as bad as BidVertiser and I would say its in the range on what you would expect for one to three hundred visitors a day.

My final assessment on ClickSor: its worth looking over and testing and once I get my traffic up to speed, I will be re-evaluating them again.

Top tags: sites, participating, clicksor, contain, content, link, live, page, per, support

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