Blogging Pays U?

For the last five months I have been running 5 blogs and trying to make some money from them. One area that constantly frustrates me is advertising. Here is what I have already tried;

Google Ads
Got to be careful discussing Google ads since they take a dim view of the practice. Google ads are certainly easy to set up on a web site. I guess it is this ease of use that makes them so popular? Reading around the internet it is apparent that many people make good revenue from Google ads on their blogs and websites but I don't. Granted, revenues are building slowly but I have yet to get my first check from Google. I think the trick is to have a niche site that Google can place ads on that match the content of the site - my more niche blogs definitely perform much better than my broader humor type blog even though it gets much more traffic.

For me, Google ads have lost their luster. You have to wait to generate $100 before being paid and then can only get paid in a limited number of ways not including Paypal which would be far more convenient. There is all that Google red tape too to deal with.

I'm sticking with the Google program for now because of its near universality and ease of use but if I have one more problem with Google (see earlier posts), they are gone for good.

Bidvertiser
I think I have given Bidvertiser a fair chance but I am shortly knocking them on the head. They are more unwieldy than Google ads and Bidvertiser seem short on advertisers as their ads run empty most of the time. I have earned next to nothing from Bidvertiser in 6-months (a grand total of $1.42 in all of that time). Not worth the web space nor the time...

They do pay after $10 and by paypal and that was the initial attraction... but I'm through with them.

AdBrite
Not enough experience with AdBrite yet but I am encouraged. They pay out at a lower number than Google and by paypal. I'll report back since I just started using them.

Summary
Frankly, click through ad programs have not been very effective for me and I am considering simply dropping them altogether from most of my blogs. Disappointing really since so much is made of the Google program on line. I'll continue to play with AdBrite but Bidvertiser ads are finished so far as I am concerned.

An Alternative
As an alternative I tried the service from Matched. This is a business that matches and advertiser with your site and then pays you a fee for having the ad there. I have used them for two months and I am impressed. They matched me with advertisers so far for 2 of my 5 blogs. All I did was paste their code into my blogs and sit back and wait for the money to come in via paypal on a monthly basis. The firs month I got paid 8GBP and the second 6GBP. In other words, in two-months, this program generated more advertising cash than all the others combined over a 6-month period!

Yes, they pay in British Pounds which requires you to set up your paypal account to handle that currency but think about this... with the US Dollar in free fall, you are protected against currency weakness. The 14 Pounds I have made in 2-months is around $30 at current exchange rates....

Check them out - Matched