When developing applications on facebook, there is a huge struggle in finding ways to monetize applications, while still keeping your users interested in your application, so that they will return.

I have an application that I created, with 10,000 registered "Installs". The application is averaging around 600 unique user visits per day, out of those 10k users.

I decided to test out existing popular ad solutions that are available to facebook advertisers, and included google in the mix.

After much investigation, the best solution I could find within facebook was provided by http://socialmedia.com .

Their solution allows for various sizes of ads, and many of the advertisers paying for clicks are other applications within facebook.

However, after running their ad solution for 3 weeks, I found it to be lacking, and providing only an average of $.07 per click.

So, with an average of 50-60 clicks per day, I was bringing in a grand total of about $3.00 per day. The most important thing to consider here however, is not the money brought in, but the number of users that were taken away from my application.

I then decided to hack out an Adsense solution that would still provide for targeting within the facebook application. I found that it took longer than usual for the ads to start targeting the content on my application pages, but after 4 days, WHAM ... my first targetted ads were appearing.

Instead of the previous $.07 per click, I was able to get $.90 per click for a not-so popular subject matter. This was great for me, and had some other great advantages, other than just the money:

- I didnt need to put the ads on as many pages to get the same monetization value

- I didnt have as many users being taken away from my application while still receiving the same moneys.

- With a focus on the user experience, I no longer had to push for shear numbers of clicks, but rather was able to position the ads selectively, targetted to points in the application where users often opted to leave the application by their own choice. The ads were now being used essentially to offer them a way out of the site at a time they were wanting to leave anyway (for example, when they were finished submitting information)

Google is once again KING, at least in the targeted ads arena, and facebook is the next place that developers are looking to reap the rewards for well targeted pages, and high user involvement.