• Not clutter your pages.
• Not trash your text.
• Bring your readers the relevancy that they deserve.
• Showcase brands that mean business.
• Keep the network clean in order to welcome big brands-meaning unique high paying advertisements.
• Maintain tight integration between your content and your users’ intent delivering record high CTR.
• Provide value to users and publishers.
• Serve fewer links per page while delivering strong campaign performance. (Also check out mediapost.com)
• Offer you a sustainable revenue stream that you can bank on.
• Bring you the premier In-Text Advertising experience.

Our unbeatable contextual technology delivers results without compromising on quality and your users.

You may already know that the year you were born is considered the year of the rat, ox, or horse according to the ancient Chinese zodiac.  What you probably didn’t know yet, is that at Kontera, we’ve proclaimed 2010 as the year of relevancy.

What does this mean for our partners?  Well, it’s pretty simple, higher relevancy means that:

• Publishers don’t sell out their users to irrelevant ad exposure and are not hurting their users’ experience. Happy users mean increased traffic, time on site, and loyalty.
• Higher CTR – as you get paid by the click, more clicks means more money for your website
• Advertisers don’t have ads served to users who aren’t interested, thus getting high conversion on their campaign

Essentially everyone profits!

Relevancy is a mark at Kontera that we take very seriously.  Our relevancy efforts start at the “story-level” targeting where we interpret the meaning of the page then matching it with contextual ads that are the most relevant ones.

One measure of relevancy is in the form of a metric called CTR.  CTR or click through rate is a frequency ratio between the number of times an ad is viewed and the number of times it gets clicked on.  Experts agree that as the net becomes increasingly more built up, advertising campaigns that were formerly effective may not hold effectiveness.   In fact, recent statistics indicate that classic banner ads carry a mere .07% CTR rate bringing further understanding to the rise in the phrase “banner blindness”.  In contrast, ads on the Kontera network are characterized by starting click through rates that exceed 10% with some campaigns reaching upwards of 14% (!).

CTR is just one measure of a publisher’s ad performance, but is one of the most honest ways to gauge user satisfaction and interest.  Many publishers  find that after testing with other In-Text ad networks, their user experience suffers and many users desert their site due to the low relevancy threshold so be sure not to compromise when it comes to relevancy.

The next time you read your zodiac sign at your local Chinese restaurant, be sure to remember 2010 as not only the year of the tiger but also as Kontera’s commitment to relevancy.

We see no better time than the holidays to introduce a brand new program for online publishers.

If you own a website or a blog we invite you to benefit from the following promotion that we are glad to announce today:

Kontera Pays Double for Your Clicks!

Join Kontera this holiday season and we’ll match your first month earnings, so as a special holiday bonus you’ll be EARNING DOUBLE. Joining is a snap:

1. Sign-up with Kontera.
2. Implement the Kontera tag on your site or blog and start earning right away.
3. EARN DOUBLE your first month -whatever you’ll earn during your first month we’ll match!*

Sign-Up Now!»

How will it work?
We’re joining in on the holiday cheer – There’s no top limit we’ll match your earnings dollar for dollar!  

This limited-time offer is valid only for publisher sign-ups through the promotional link so don’t miss out on this great opportunity and sign-up now!»

Happy holidays everyone.

* Offer is valid only for sign-ups through the promotional link
* Bonus valid for earnings over $10 per publisher
* Visit the promotion’s Terms & Conditions page.

The last two weeks of summer are bound to spark the travel bug in all of us and people are getting restless to take one more trip before school starts again.  Cruising, flying, and luxury hotels—anything goes, and ‘Travel’ related keywords are more attractive than ever.

In ‘Sports’ it’s been a dramatic summer on one of golf’s majors – the ‘PGA Championship’ – as Y.E. Yang, beat none other than the sport’s No. 1 guy – ‘Tiger Woods’. To those of us who are looking for a different type of sporting thrills the ‘UFC’ provided a good viewing alternative to Golf.

Award winning show ‘Mad Men’ is back and it’s more clickable than ever. That said, it takes a lot more than Madison Avenue advertisers or the ‘District 9′ aliens to move ‘Vanessa Hudgens’ from her place at the top of the ‘Entertainment’ category. The 40th anniversary of the ‘Woodstock Festival’ generated a lot of click-love and what better way to bring summer to a close than by listening to some great music while wearing flowers in your hair?

Kontera’s Top Keywords Post Series brings to you the most clicked terms per category each month. For additional posts visit Top Clicked Keywords.

Using a unique tag for each one of your sites is important as it enables us to separately track individual performance, as well as make sure that the tag settings are fully optimized to specifically match your sites’ attributes. By using the correct tag you ensure that we’ll provide you with the best and most relevant ad targeting for your site’s content niche and structure.

Say that when you first signed-up to join Kontera, you applied with your computing related blog. A few weeks later, you decided to add your forum which deals with mobile phones as well as your extreme sports site to your Kontera account. While our contextual analysis technology analyzes each page in real-time to identify its topics and main Keywords, some of the ad settings are changes by our Optimization Team. These tweaks are based on each site’s performance, traffic trends, length of its pages, content niche etc. Needless to say that by using the same tag across multiple and diverse sites will result in your missing out on the benefits of this optimization.

Having accurate knowledge of each of your sites’ individual performance is important as it provides us with a clear indication if everything is running smoothly, or if further optimization is required. As a publisher this gives you the option to customize yourKontera ads and detailed reporting. With separate tracking you can accurately analyze your sites’ metrics, which as we all know, is a well known hobby within the internet community

“Virtual makeover” has fairly won its top place on the list this month with a high number of clicks and lots of coverage.  I find virtual  makeover sites to be a great invention.  Not only are they fun to play with, but they can also serve as preventive medicine for impulsive real-life makeovers.  They relieve something of that need to just be spontaneous today and dye my hair magenta.  Or encourage it.

Cooking & Dining category has brought up some surprises.  A nice cooling breeze amidst the summer comes with keyword “gazpacho recipe”- the timing is just right.  Along with it, but thankfully unrelated, keyword “dog treat recipe” has jumped to the top, and if you are making money blogging, you may want to consider this one.  Have a look for some homemade treats; your dog will definitely appreciate it.

This month Entertainment category includes “Transformers”, all in less than two weeks of release, we already hear that “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen” is on the verge of becoming the highest-grossing pic of the year at the worldwide box office.

>> Find out more about making money blogging

We already offer multiple payment methods to suit your preference.  Now, we’re glad to announce that if you’re using Domestic ACH as your payment method, pay-day will come even sooner. You can receive payment at $75 and cash-in on your Kontera earnings quicker and more often!

The change recently went into effect and can be utilized by publishers who qualify for Domestic ACH payment.

If you are a current Kontera publisher who meets these criteria, we invite you to benefit from this new $75 payout:

1. Login to your Kontera Publisher Center account.
2. Select the “My Account” tab and then follow the “Payment Method” Link.
3. Select the “Domestic ACH” option from the payment method dropdown menu and hit the “Update” button.
4. Please submit all updates to your account’s tax and payout info by the 15th of the month for changes to take effect on  the upcoming payout cycle. Any updates submitted after that date will only be applicable during the next payout cycle.

This change is just one of many to come as we continue to bring you the best  In-Text advertising experience.

A Few Words on Kontera’s In Text Ad Technology

Kontera’s semantic analysis technology performs at real time to dynamically hyper-link the words that most accurately represent and predict user-intent and engagement. When a Kontera publisher’s site is loaded by a user, our engines analyze the page to select the most relevant keywords and deliver the ads that provide the greatest value to publishers, advertisers and users.

It should be noted that keywords which are already hyperlinked are excluded from this analysis.  This means that keywords marked by other providers are also excluded by our system, allowing less of an opportunity to select the keywords that would yield the highest CPC and best CTR. Kontera pay per click ads present the best performance on pages that contain text, uncluttered by too many links.

From the user’s side – pages which contain too many links compete for the user’s attention and result in an unpleasant user experience.  For this reason we believe that the highest quality and best user experience is the product of a perfect balance between content and In-Text ads.

Which Other Ad Networks Work Side by Side with Kontera?

All non- In-Text advertising networks.  Kontera ads work alongside Google adsense, YPN, banner ads, affiliate networks, you name it- it works. Our pay per click ads compliment all monetization efforts on a publisher’s site.  The best marketing strategy often results from combining two or more monetization techniques to maximize a site’s earning potential.  Explore to discover the optimal strategy for your site.

“Olivia Wilde” represents yet another hot keyword, the “House” star who tops Maxim magazines annual “Hot 100″ list is also dominating our Entertainment category. Congratulations to Kris Allen on coming in first on season 8 of “American Idol,” even though yesterday was the season finale we’re certain  this show will continue to receive a lot of click attention. “Wolverine” is our most clickable movie and “Blink 182″ upcoming reunion tour is also starring on the list.

There are many more interested trends manifested in our top clicked Keyword list some are seasonal like “Mother’s Day” and “Prom dresses” while others maintain a constant click appeal – “New iphone” is a sure bet as the electronics topic always fares well among publishers who make money with blogs.

Kontera’s Top Keywords Post Series brings to you the most clicked terms per category each month. For additional posts visit Top Clicked Keywords.

>> Find out more about making money with blogs

A few months ago we published a post containing glossary terms and metrics relevant to the online advertising industry in general and more specifically to Kontera.  We’ve received some warm responses for this post and so we’ve decided to expand, introducing additional terms to the list:

Campaign Related

Cost Per Click- The amount paid by an advertiser per each click on their contextual ads.

Campaign Targeting- Gearing an advertising campaign to a particular demographic.

ROI – an acronym for Return on Investment.  In other words, the percentage of profit that an advertiser accrues from a marketing or advertising campaign

Technology Related

Semantic Analysis- Semantic analysis involves text mining, term/phrase extraction, page vector analysis, associations and and other parameters. Semantic analysis is used to determine the context of the page and respond with relevant advertising or related content.

Contextual Ad Relevance- in the field of In-Text contextual advertising, this term refers to the strength of the connection between an underlined keyword and the advertisement paired with it.

Computational Linguistics- a field dealing with the statistical and/or rule-based modeling of natural language from a computational perspective.  Kontera’s contextual ads analysis technology is based on the principles of computational linguistics.

Industry Related

Interactive Advertising- the type of advertising that allows active participation from the user.  See Kontera’s interactive advertising.

Rich Media Ads- a term for advanced technology used in internet ads, such as streaming video, applets that allow user interaction, and special effects.

IAB- The Interactive Advertising Bureau. The IAB is comprised of more than 375 leading media and technology companies. On behalf of its members, the IAB is dedicated to the growth of the interactive advertising marketplace, of interactive’s share of total marketing spend, and of its members’ share of total marketing spend. Working with its member companies, the IAB evaluates and recommends standards and practices and fields critical research on interactive advertising.

References:

We put this list together using the following great resources:

Wikipedia

Yahoo Publisher Network Blog

IAB website

Kontera’s Contextual Ad Technology