Some time ago, while doing my “Ad Hunting”, I stumbled upon an ad space that caught my attention on Justin’s DragonBlogger website. The ad space, among other things, mentioned Komoona Ads. Since I am all about experiments, I went over to their site, signed up and immediately placed an ad space on one of my niche sites. Ran the ad space for two weeks and a half, and zero. Disappointed, I took it down, due to one main reason, it was occupying a space where I can run AdSense and perhaps, do better. Of course, I did not give Komoona time enough to actually do its thing. I simply preferred using Google’s AdSense over the ad space, and perhaps loose the potential of making more money by selling ad spaces. Anyway, all that has changed…
What Is Komoona?
Komoona is a tool that allows you to manage your own ads to sell ad spaces. It enables anyone visiting your site to create or upload ads and pay for them in an instant. The potential advertiser performs all the action required without leaving your site. Unlike premium plugins (OIOPublisher) and other alternatives (Advertise Space, BuySellAds, Puxee), the main attraction of Komoona is that it is a free tool and you get to keep a little over 90% of the revenue. Komoona has a billing charge of nearly 10% (9,62 to be precise). Still, it is much cheaper than its competitors.
How To Install Komoona?
I really don’t think that going into details here will make a difference. Komoona’s cPanel is so easy to use that all you need to do is follow a simple set of instructions. You define your ad format, configure your AdSense companion, set payment options (PayPal and Credit Cards), install the plugin or add the code provided, and you are set. Komoona works with most of the popular platforms, so you can use it with WordPress, Blogger, TypePad, Drupal, Joomla and even Tumblr.
Why The Sudden Change Of Heart?
This is where, “double your chances” comes into play. Komoona recently added a new feature dubbed “AdSense Companion”. Rather than occupying an ad space, and wait for someone to purchase your ad, it instead displays an AdSense unit and discretely shows a small button for users to purchase your ad space (see image below).
As you can see, the Komoona button is neatly placed right below the AdSense unit. If someone decides to advertise on your site, clicking the button will display the instructions, on how to proceed.
Step 1 – Create or Upload Banner
Step 2 – Create a banner and input text (not required if the advertiser chooses to upload)
Step 3 – Advertiser Pays and waits for your approval
Is Komoona A Good Choice For You?
In my opinion, Komoona is a good alternative for those who want to venture on selling ad spaces, but prefers not to “waste” valuable virtual real estate spaces. This is also ideal for those, who for some reason, have been denied by other marketplaces (e.g. BuySellAds), and are not willing to invest on premium plugins.
Selling ad spaces is a good business model, and while you can perhaps make more money with it, you can meanwhile display AdSense units and “double your chances”. Ultimately, you will have to weigh yourself whether or not this is a good option for you. You will never know, until you give it a go. I know, I am giving it another shot ;-).
That’s it! This is not a sponsored post and just wanted to share this information with you, in case you have not heard of Komoona before. If you did use them before, how was your experience? Are you using the AdSense companion?
Satrap
I am so glad I come across this post Fransisco. I have been looking for such a tool for a long time now.
Since my blog started getting some decent traffic due to it ranking high for lots of my keywords, I have been getting a lot of advertising requests. And frankly, it takes a lot of time keeping track of advertisers, ads expiration time, sending new invoices and so on.
I did find OIOPublisher, But they were a bit out of my budget. Komoona seems like a good match fir this job.
I am going to sign up and place one 125×125 on my sidebar to see if it indeed does work. I ‘ll let you know what happens. Thanks.
Ashley
As always..great post and very informative! So glad I found your site b/c it has been a blessing in helping me get my own started!
nikkiezach
I think I should start using this Komoona. Reading your post makes me realize I should need this kind of tool. I think this is easy to use and helpful to my business. Thank you for sharing this very interesting post.
NIKKI@technojourney
This is a nice post. I never knew that it can be even done this way. Utlizing the same space for many ads. I feel this will help a lot of bloggers.
SportsNub
It seems to be similar to BuySellAds only. I mainly prefer contextual ads networks only.
Sire
I actually use OIOpublisher but this looks like a very good option for those who can’t afford to go that way. Displaying Adsense until you get an ad is a cool idea too.
Say DiTesco, I like that social media slider you’re using. Which one is it?
Hi Sire. The social slider I am using is ShareBar. Its great because you can add add any button you want,provided you have the code.
Faissal Alhaithami
great platform!! and i love the way it works, it turn everything to be easy! I will give it a try when my blog is ready for the advertisements.
This adds a whole new dimension to passive revenue streams. Have you tried it? Have you had any successes with it?
Dana
Good feature in here. Instead lose our google adsense earning (while the space is not sold yet), we still get a good earning from adsense in here.
It looks good and awesome but I wonder if adsense allows this kind of thing (placing that replace this add button below their ads). I mean, they are pretty sensitive in terms of their own Terms of Service. What you guys think?
Jane | Tech Buzz Online
Using the adspace until someone buys it is a smart option. This is so much value because that adspot always makes some money. Thanks for introducing this one Fran, I’m gonna give it a try ๐
Akshay
Never heard of Komoona, Thanks a lot for sharing. I would defiantly try it and share the results here.
Marko Zirkovich
I just re-started my blog after taking a break and dealing with some database issues and will have to ramp up content and traffic before monetization becomes an issue, but this does look like a cool method.
Put the Komoona link into my Evernote “ideas to try out” notebook. Thanks for the heads up.
brian speer
Thanks for the info, i was unaware of this as well. IT sounds like a good way to get some extra money and keep most of it in your pocket.
I also use Komoona with AdSense on my personal blog but if you have a blog with a decent amount of traffic the marketplace from BuySellAds is very valuable for getting ads sold. One feature Komoona has that BSA doesn’t is the ability to give away ads in 7 day, 30 day units for free by entering a webmaster code. This makes it so easy to give away a 30 day ad slot and do it within and without replacing Komoona, there is no way to do this with BuySellAds and my philosphy is better to look like you have a busy site than have a bunch of blocky ad for sale signs. The AdSense is a nice way to earn extra and so much easier than Google DoubleClick for publishers where you can host ads and banners but is a HUGE complication to setup.
Hi Justin. You got a point about being able to allocate free spots on Komoona. That is indeed something that BSA does not have and all ads must run for 30 days. While it is a great marketplace, Komoona does give some bloggers the chance to sell ad spaces, specially those that have not or been denied by BSA. The AdSense touch is actually cool and that is probably the main reason why I though it was interesting to share. Thanks for stopping by. Good to see you here
Hey DiTesco,
Wow nice I love the idea of having Adsense + Komoona togther, going to give it a try.
Thanks. ๐
Cindy
Do you still get to keep all Adsense income? And in your guys experience – would you recommend this for a brand new site or is it best for only mature sites? Thanks… btw, thanks for a great site and honest reviews ๐
Brand new sites will not benefit much from Komoona IMHO. Reason being is that it is almost impossible to get an advertiser to advertise on brand new sites. On other hand, AdSense works best on sites with good traffic. Obviously you can still run it, it you want, but perhaps, it is wise not to raise that much of expectations, at least in the beginning.
Jay
Good post I am thinking of trying Komoona they have it as an option on the Wibiya toolbar. I’ll post an update on my results ( Good post )
Shalu Sharma
I have implemented komoona on one of my sites. Just wondering how long do they take to send the money over to you. Is it weekly, monthly?
When someone buys an ad from you via Komoona, you should receive the money right away. Komoona will charge a small fee, but they should not be retaining the money. It is user defined. You choose the way you want your advertisers to pay and that’s it!
Great review, thanks!
After one year, could you please share your experiences whether all runs smoothly and what kind of advertisers this attracts?
I was trying on their website & Facebook to find a bit more about that company, just to make sure I can trust my advertisers in their hands. Not too much information though. Last Tweet is from June.
Otherwise looks like a really promising concept.