We've had people complain that we link out to the site.. so here's the article in full.
Advertising revenue is critical to the survival of many online ventures, and in many cases is the only consistent source of money. To avoid having to spend time finding advertisers themselves, many people sign up with third-party advertising networks to act as middle-men between their website and advertisers. One such advertising network is Ad Pepper Media, a European company founded in 1999 which has since grown to a moderate size in spite of its alleged dubious business practices. A quick search on popular webmaster forums like Wickedfire.com and WebHostingTalk.com will yield no shortage of posts by users complaining that Ad Pepper ripped them off for large sums of money, but I decided to give the European network a chance anyways to see it in action for myself.
Webmasters maximize their profits by running advertising that their readers find relevant and will wish to click on. Unfortunately, the banners provided by Ad Pepper were just about all smileys, reducing their target audience to ten-year-old girls, which is problematic because that demographic doesn’t comprise most webmasters’ audiences, including mine. Further, the network provided mostly run-off ads which further reduced the earnings of both parties involved, and did not support the ability to run one’s own default tags, so even if they’re giving you ads with little to no earning potential, you’re stuck with them. As a whole, Ad Pepper has a very low eCPM and very few non-default ads, and seems to report bizarre or redirected traffic once implemented anyways.
Should you wind up like the webmasters who have publicly complained about being under-paid by Ad Pepper Media, you may find yourself navigating the company’s confusing reporting system. Once your message finds its way through Ad Pepper’s apparently labyrinthine internal support system and earns you a reply from a real-life company representative, you may yet be greeted by a lack of financial data. In one instance, after Ad Pepper admitted to making a clerical error and providing incorrect financial figures, they sent a replacement invoice with an even lower number. You may also want to recall that the company is based in Europe, so if you’re based in North America, in the hypothetical situation that you wish to pursue any legal action against them, you will need to hire overseas lawyers which can be both expensive and difficult.
As a whole, Ad Pepper provided mediocre-quality advertisements backed up by a relatively poor technical support system which left little room for webmasters to move around, including no support for default tags. These issues were made worse by the company’s apparent clerical ineptitude which casts a serious shadow on its ability to conduct business.
FINAL SCORE: 2 Out Of 5
RECOMMENDED?: No; Try Media Mayhem, Casale, or TribalFusion
