Hubpages Ad Program- A Beginners Perspective

Welcome to Hubpages, a site that offers the average person the ability to write and publish content on the Internet without having to worry about purchasing a web domain or designing their own website. it also offers an established site that helps bring search and community traffic to what you write, right from the beginning. Many of the people that write here, including me, do so with some hope that they will be able to make some money from their writing. I like Hubpages because it lets me write what I want to write about, it's just a bonus that I might get some money out of it.

The typical user here uses Adsense, then maybe some variation of Amazon and Ebay links. Hubpages just recently opened up their new Hubpages Ad Program to all users. Like many other newer writers, I asked and researched on the forum if it would be worth enrolling in the program. I decided to enroll in the program after about a day and thought I would share some of my initial observations for those of you that haven't decided if you should enroll.

To get signed up for the Hubpages Ad Program you will first need a Google Adsense account and a Paypal account. You will also need to provide some tax information as part of the sign up. I know some people are cautious about giving away social security numbers on the Internet, which is wise. Hubpages states that they use encryption to make your information as secure as possible.

Now, when you are signed into hubpages, click on "My Account" in the top right hand corner of the page, then you will see a list with all of your Hubs, at the top of that is a tab that says "Earnings." In the Earnings tab, you will see "Affiliate Settings," from here you can sign up for Adsense, Hubpage Ad Program, Amazon and Ebay affiliate programs. Make sure you sign up for an Adsense Account first if you are going to do the Hubpages Ad Program, if you already have it, you are a step ahead.

Now follow step by step instructions toenroll in the Hubpages Ad Program. It will ask you to associate your Paypal account and enter tax information. Once you have entered all of your information you can enable your account at anytime. I signed up for everything, then waited before enabling it. It only took me a couple days to decide to enable the Hubpages Ad Program, once you do it is a simple click to get it started.

I'm not going to say that the Hubpages Ad Program has made me rich, because it hasn't. I'm writing this more to give you an idea of what to excpect when you first switch, especially as a newer contributor to Hubpages.

My Adsense earning so far have been pretty low, I have only received a couple clicks this month, and maybe a few pennies from impressions. I noticed with the Hubpages Ad Program that I appeared to be getting more income from impressions. I haven't had a click from it yet, but I have been averaging around a penny per impression. That may not seem like much, but getting more income from impressions will definitely increase income in the long run, especially once I start getting clicks along with it.

After only about a week with the Hubpages Ad Program I am excited about what it will do for me. My eCPM for the Hubpages Ad Program is signifcantly higher than Google's Adesnse program. If you are on the fence about enabling the new program, give it a try. You will likely see a drop in your Adsense earnings, but watch your eCPM, I would imagine you will see an improvement.

If you tend to get a lot of views, but not a lot of clicks, it looks like the Hubpages Ad Program will reward those views and impressions more than Adsense does. You can also disable the Hubpages Ad Program at any time, or resume it, so if you want to take a break from it to compare it with Adsense. Let me know your experiences with the Hubpages Ad Program in the comment section below.

I first posted this Hub in April and it is now early in September 2011. I have had a little more time to evaluate the Hubpages ad program. I have not been impressed with it as time has gone on. It isn't necessarily that much worse than Adsense, after all, my eCPM is still higher using the HP program than on Adsense.

The biggest disappointment is that the eCPM has dropped to almost half of what it was for the first month or so that I was using the program. So now, not only have my views been down, like many others are stating for around that time, but I am getting fewer impressions and making less on each impression that I get.

I'm now having a hard time deciding whether or not I want to disable the HP program for awhile and see how that affects my earnings. After all, a single click from Adsense can often beat several days worth of earnings from the HP program.

I would love to hear any additional comments that you have. What have you noticed about your own earnings over the last couple months? Do you have the same opinion about the program, or has it changed?