why I chose Google AdSense...at least for the short term ad filling

So I have recently launched a social network called http://www.jackthedonkey.com/, the community where your time online supports the charity of your choice...and it's free. For professional social media folk, you can also call it a socially responsible social network....

JackTheDonkey.com donates 1.1 cent every page impression to the charity (more than 20 from Canada, The US and UK) you choose to support with your time doing...well...how do I say this...doing Jack with your time online.

  • Share/view/comment on a picture...1.1 cents to the charity you choose when creating your profile.
  • Share/view/comment on someone's 141 character "deep thought" (plus there is space to add tags - for a future search function...that is ready...just waiting for the right time to launch that...it's all about timing isn't it?...).
  • Post or talk about anything from Michale Jackson and Bubbles to the Middle East...let's come together and chat...while you just so happen to be making money for the charity of your choice.

Entering this, I knew that for a little while, I would only have friends and family advertising on the site...and that I would be covering the 1.1 cent donation per impression as part of the startup costs (hurray for my Visas!)...I was naively hoping/expecting paying advertisers to come on board to help cover the 1.1 cents being donated every impression...but that didn't happen....and it still hasn't despite some great meetings and presentations lately.

From day one, we have seen much stronger than industry norm click throughs on the ads we were showing...I expected this to happen based on the overall site setup (somewhat clean and compartmentalized....with a few little pieces of setup wizardry that makes one more aware of the ads without them being intrusive) and also the users' knowledge that the site was in theory ad dollar funded....so perhaps they would show some love to the corporate sponsors who make this happen.

This was starting to really bring me down...and distract me from what I should be focussing on which is building the traffic...but also focussing on setting up the next component of JackTheDonkey.com (which is ready...and has been for a while...but I knew we have/had work to do on the social networking side of the site)...

So...not really seeing any "paying advertisers" coming on board www.JackTheDonkey.com in the next few months...I was thinking about "click through" ads...and wondered if adding google adsense code or clicksor etc could cover the 1.1 cents I am donating per impression on Jack. I started looking around...and decided let's put google adsense in....isn't that what plentyoffish.com did anyway? He seems to be doing ok for himself. It's not like google is going to skip town without paying.

So I was curious to see if I was able to cover part of the 1.1 cents per impression..if yes...sababa.

...if I ended up making more than 1.1 cents per impression...hurray.

...if I ended up making 2 cents per impression, than 1.1 would go to the charites and .9 would go to JackTheDonkey.com (per the agreement with the charities on JackTheDonkey.com - where 55% of all ad revenue generated by the site is donated to the charities at the rate of 1.1 cents per impression). If more...then more gets distributed to the charites on Jack.

...however...encouragingly, based on the current click through and impression model that google has in their black box...we are actually doing ok...which is great news for everyone....it will be interesting to see if this is realistic long term.

But that's enough of my ramblings, runon sentences and poor spelling...I just felt like getting it off my chest...

Anyway...if you want to join JackTheDonkey.com and start supporting a charity dear to your heart....just by being social...pleaes join us today.

http://www.jackthedonkey.com/register1.html


If you are a corporation big or small...believe in corporate social responsibility and are interested in hearing about the next component being added to the site...thus allowing you to pursue a "cause marketing opportunity" for the web 2.0 generation....please let me know at stayintouch@jackthedonkey.com (or find me on twitter - I'm twitter.com/inyourfacebook )