When it comes to Internet marketing, Google Adsense is inevitably the first name that comes to mind, regardless of whether you’re a publisher or an advertiser. In recent months, however, we’ve seen a huge proliferation of alternatives. For the blogger, it means that it is that much easier to not put all your eggs in Google’s basket, but the same can be said about the advertiser side of things too.

I recently had the opportunity to review a website that offers in-depth reviews of countless ad networks. Certainly, you could approach individual websites and offer a private sale, but it is oftentimes a lot easier to deal with these networks, because they can “get the word out” about your product or service through their 1000s of publishers.

Adwords campaigns are popular, to be sure, but it’s only because so many people use Adsense on their sites. If you start to look around the blogosphere, however, you’ll notice that folks are starting to expand their horizons and you can effectively get much better bang for your buck by looking at other ad networks like Bidvertiser, Exoclick, and even paid review services like PayPerPost and ReviewMe.

It’s not necessarily about thinking outside the box, but you should definitely weigh your options before blowing your marketing budget on an Adwords/Adsense campaign.