Rock Paper Sissors - CMF Ads

As a followup to last week's post, I'd like to emphasize the other major features of CMF Ads that make it an important network for all bloggers whether new or old. Below I've described 4 of the primary reasons why this blog, Ask the Blogster (ATB), likes the CMF Ads network.

First is the CMF Ads site itself. Developed by Ben Barden and administered by Turnip, the CMF site has undergone many transformations. In its present state, members can easily traverse the site by use of a well organized series of pull down menus. One can quickly see their account information, advertisements, blogs, or view the overall membership community as well. Without having to go anywhere, you immediately see your account balance as well.

Second, CMF Ads is an advertising network, aimed at allowing you to advertise your site within the community. For this purpose, CMF offers members the opportunity to purchase 4 different type of ads:

• Rock Paper Sissors- Spikes: which begin selling for $0.20 for 50 unique clicking visits
• Rock Paper Sissors- Fireworks: which begin at $1.00 for 50 unique visits.
• Rock Paper Sissors- Campaign: directly targeted ads to individual member blogs for various terms
• Rock Paper Sissors- Network: broad based ads randomly displayed on all member sites.

This wide range of advertisement choices allows users of all budgets and interests to maximize the reach of their blogs.

Third, all members are publishers as well, meaning that they can easily earn both passive and active income. As publishers, blogs earn passive income from all Campaign and Network ads displayed on their blogs. Those who wish to be more active can boost their earning by clicking on all of the daily Spikes and outstanding Firework ads. All earnings can be utilized to purchase any or all of the offered ads types, or can be withdrawn from the system for only a 10% fee.

Fourth and lastly, its content is family orientated and well monitored. CMF Ads does not accept all blogs who apply for membership. All content must be original and the blogs must be free of spam, pop-ups, music, etc.

CMF Ads was launched in 2009 after extensive rounds of beta testing. The same group of members have operated the site, continually enhancing it and making improvements. So, if you are looking for a way to boost your visitor count and earn some income at the same time, then join CMF Ads and its membership community!

Related articles

• CMF Fireworks Illuminate Your Exposure (asktheblogster.blogspot.com)

CMF Fireworks Illuminate Your Exposure

CMF Ads recently introduced a new advertising alternative called Fireworks. These are similar to Spikes in that a member may purchase a fixed number of unique visits through their advertising widget. However, there are two primary differences between Spikes and Fireworks.

• First, Firework ads are hosted on member blogs after installing the associated widget. Whereas, Spikes are displayed on a unique CMF page.
• Second, Fireworks ads can provide unlimited impressions because only clicks by unique visitors are counted.

Firework ads cost approximately 5 times that of Spikes, but return 4 times the amount of income to visitors. For those trying to click on all the available Fireworks is like entering a scavenger hunt. Since ad placement is random, members must visit a variety of blogs to locate a Firework. However, there is no guarantee that you will find a new Firework ad. This feature provides advertisers the opportunity to have their ad displayed with an infinite number of impressions.

We believe this new product is a great complement to everyone's blog because the CMF Fireworks illuminate your exposure.

Get More Followers with the BlogFrog

For the past 3 months, I've become more involved with the BlogFrog. This is a social media site that links bloggers together in a number of ways. First, it provides you with the ability to broadcast your blog posts and Twitter tweets to all other members. Second, it gives you the ability to create your own Community and to join communities of others. These are organized by topic, which means that your discussions are targeted to others with similar interests. Third, it helps to bring you traffic by recommending your site to other members.

To me, however, the most important benefit of the BlogFrog is that it provides a free advertising vehicle by which I've gained more Google Friend Connect Followers. Since January 2011, my followers have increased by over 25%. I started the month with 98 followers, and now have 126.

This increase in followers was easy for me to achieve. I log into the site nearly every day and review all of my followers. When I see someone new, I visit their blog and become a Friend Connect follower. Most of these members reciprocate and follow me back.

To help members attract more BlogFrog internal followers, the site suggests a handful of members. I simply click on the "follow buttons" and that's it. Within days, my newly acquired friends become followers of my blog as well.

The BlogFrog was founded by Rustin Banks and Holly Hamann in 2009. I joined shortly after it was launched and have witnessed its explosive growth. Today, the site has thousands of members from all over the country. It's membership base appears to be predominantly based in the United States, which is also my primary target audience.

Compared to Adgitize or CMFads, the BlogFrog community contains a wide range of "affiliate marketing" members. Many are trying to sell something, so having free access to a geographically diverse audience is an important plus. Because the remainder of the membership is female dominated, the entire network is clean and family orientated.

From a technology aspect, the BlogFrog requires a java plug in. It continually displays an updated feed of the latest member posts which helps to spark internal dialogues. However, this capability consumes a great deal of CPU. Navigation between the various sectors is often frustrating because it is slow and often ignored. Therefore, I would only recommend this site to those who have high speed Internet connections which has a lot of bandwidth.

One of the other benefits that the BlogFrog advertises is that it can help monetize your blog. I have yet to experience this benefit and believe it is only offered to the most select of members. Thus, new members should minimize their expectation of receiving any income from them.

On the whole, however, I believe the BlogFrog is an important social networking site that everyone should join. It provides free access to a huge membership base. And, I truly believe that you can get more followers with the BlogFrog.

Related articles

• BlogFrog Launches as Nation's Largest Network of Mom Blogs (prweb.com)
• BlogFrog Takes Leap of Faith with Mom Bloggers (socialtimes.com)

Why AdSense Revenue Fluctuates

Many people start a blog or website with the simple intention of becoming a millionaire. As we are constantly reminded of those individuals who became extremely rich off of the internet, we are led to believe that that we too can create the next smash hit. Profiteers surround us enticing us to purchase their book or CD and learn the secret to making an easy living on the internet. Money, money, everywhere!

All we have to do is create a blog or website, place AdSense ads and a few affiliate links on our site, and the money will begin to pour in!

But for those of us who followed our dreams, we quickly discovered that earning income from our blog or website is not that easy. Rarely do we receive affiliate commissions and the the Google income is disappointing. We wonder: What am I doing wrong? or What should I do differently?

The purpose of this article is to help aspiring bloggers and site owners understand their revenue stream and to properly set their expectations of success by answering this comment inspired article.

---

Like Colin of ** SEXY LEGS AND BODY! ** indicated in a recent comment, he is "trying to get his blog to be cost effective and raise good money with ... AdSense", but he has noticed his revenue fluctuating and it is often disappointing. He questioned "What can be the problem?"

To answer this question, it is necessary to describe:

• How AdSense works,
• Click-through rates, and
• The internet competition.

---

First, deriving income from AdSense is relatively easy. All we have to do is to have an account, and place the snippets of AdSense code on our site or sidebars. Like magic, Google will parse the content of our pages and display appropriately related ads. There are two basic types of ads which Google may display, and we, the publishers, do not get to choose which one.

• CPM ads which are paid by the number of impressions shown, and
• PPC ads which are paid whenever an ad is clicked.

Revenue from CPM ads is derived on a display basis. The typical threshold is 1,000 impressions, and each ad has its own payout structure. Some may pay $0.01 per 1K while others may pay $5.00 per 1K (or even more). This is great if you have a large number of daily visitors.

Revenue from PPC ads is obtained only when someone clicks on the ad. It doesn't matter how many times the ad is displayed. Payout for each clicking action can vary from a minimum of $0.01 to $5 or more. For the most part, the majority of ads that Google displays on your site will be the PPC type because it is most advantageous to advertisers.

The amount of money that Google assigns to each ad placement (whether  CPM or PPC) is determined through an auction process.  In general, you will be paid more when both the quality of your website or blog increases and the number of your daily visitors increase.

However, for any given site, the ad revenue will fluctuate on a daily, weekly, monthly, or seasonal basis. This fluctuation is a function of the advertisers, and not you, the publisher. For example, many advertisers establish a daily or monthly budget for their ads. When this threshold is reached, their ad may be replaced with a lesser paying ad. Further, the advertiser may have set geographic, hourly, age or gender based criteria. This means that some visitors will be exposed to higher paying ads while others see lower paying ads. Additionally, the content of your site may be seasonal. If so, you may receive high income during different seasons of the year.

This all means that, aside from the content you display, you will have no control over the revenue that is produced.

---

Second, click-through rates affect the amount of income you receive. In general, blogs and websites receive different types of click-through traffic.

Websites tend to provide products to consumers who are searching for an individual product or piece of information. Thus, most often, these visitors are directed to websites through site searches. Since the visitor is searching for something, they tend to follow the various link paths displayed, including the advertisements on your site.

Conversely, blogs tend to provide social information: articles, stories, advice and other reading material. Visitors locate your site through other forms of social media like Facebook and advertising networks. Once your site becomes one of their favorites, they will tend to visit repeatedly. The trick here is to create as many network paths to your site as possible.

In general, the average click-through rate for website banner ads is 0.2% - 0.4%. By comparison, the average click-through rate for blogs is only 0.08% (about 3/5 - 4/5 lower).

With such low click-through rates on the internet in general, you cannot expect to receive many clicks on your site. If your blog receives 1,000 visitors a day, you can only expect to earn 1 click per day. Thus, you will either need a lot of time or a lot of visitors to earn a substantial sum of money from AdSense.

---

Lastly, be aware of the your Internet competition. According to the Netcraft December 2010 Web Survey there are 255 million websites and approximately 100 million of these are active.

Similiarly, today's BlogPulse indicates that there are over 151 million blogs.

So, when you consider the size and vastness of the internet population providers, it is easy to understand that the chances of your individual website of blog becoming influential and highly profitable are extremely small.

---

Summary
Once you understand how AdSense advertisement earnings are allocated, the expected click-through rates, and your competition, you may become disillusioned and frustrated. However, this information is provided to help you set your earning expectations.

Owning a blog or website is fun, but it requires a lot of time and hard work to succeed. To overcome the long odds of failure, you must:

• Establish a reliable reputation,
• Provide a unique product,
• Advertise, and
• Participate on the net.

Establishing your reputation and product are up to you. You have to update your content often, respond to inquiries, stay focused and positive, verify your sources, and be truthful.

If you have a budget, advertising is a must. If you are allowed, market your site in Google AdWords or Microsoft Advertising.

You can also join various advertising networks. Both Adgitize and CMF Ads provide low cost advertising vehicles in which you can earn profitable income at the same time. Additionally, these are great networks for increasing your daily traffic. Also consider joining theBlogFrog and Facebook. Submit your content to Zemanta. By expanding your social visibility, you can increase visitor count and establish a reliable reputation

Through these measures, your site may become more profitable and your AdSense revenue more stable.

---

Read More

• Why are my earnings dropping?
• How to Earn Money Through Google Adsense
• About Google Ad auctions
• CTR | Click Through Rate
• Internet 2009 in numbers

Related articles

• View Google AdSense Earnings for Different Geo-locations/Countries (techie-buzz.com)
• Easy AdSense Suggestions To Make More Money (ronmedlin.com)
• AdSense is still Top Dog for Display advertising (web-workathome.com)
• How Much Should a New Blog be Earning with AdSense (roezer.com)

CMF Spikes Rock!

During this past week, I decided to experiment with the CMF ads Spike advertising feature to see if I get a boost in traffic.

For those who don't know, a CMF member can purchase 50 Spikes for $0.20. Each spike is worth a single visit from a participating member. After you receive 50 visits, the spikes are gone.

In my case, a set of spikes lasted one day, so I kept buying Spikes for each of the past 7 days.

To my surprise, I discovered that: CMF Spikes Rock! Nearly 40 of the 50 spike visits were registered as actual visits by Google Analytics. By comparison, very few of the Adgitize visits are registered.

Thus, I will probably continue to purchase Spikes for a while as this advertising tool helps to increase my blog's traffic.

Thanks CMF,

JL...............

Related articles by Zemanta

• Bloggers: Join Adgitize & Place an Ad to Get $3, $7, or $14 Rebate from Us (asktheblogster.blogspot.com)

Bloggers: Join Adgitize & Place an Ad to Get $3, $7, or $14 Rebate from Us

Adgitize, a leading blog advertising network, is conducting a membership drive promotion through the month of October.

To help them succeed, we are offering all new bloggers who join Adgitize through our affiliate link and purchase a 1, 6, or 12 month standard ad a cash rebate at the end of the ad's term.

To qualify, all you have to do is join Adgitize with our link and purchase a 125x125. We suggest that you ask us to verify that you have joined properly and qualify for our rebate before placing your ad.

Our rebate schedule will be as follows for those who qualify and have purchased a:

• 1 Month Ad for $14, we will pay you $3 back when your ad expires.
• 6 Month Ad for $78 ($13 per month), we will pay you $7 back when your ad expires.
• 12 Month Ad for $144 ($12 per month), we will pay you $14 back when your ad expires.

Payment will be either: a direct transfer to your PayPal account; or, as an Adgitize Gift Certificate (your choice).

Besides having your ad displayed and receiving new visitor traffic, you will automatically have the opportunity to earn a daily cash reward from Adgitize directly. In fact, most advertising members receive monthly payments nearly equal to their monthly advertising cost.

This means that after the initial cash outlay, perpetually free monthly advertising is very realistic.

So, Join Adgitize Now

Conditions for Receiving a Rebate from us:

1. You must be a new member of Adgitize
2. Your blog/account must be listed as one of our Sponsored Affiliate with Ads
3. Only regular 1 month, 6 month, and 12 month ad purchases qualify
4. 7-day, 14-day, Monster ads DO NOT QUALIFY
5. Payment will be made after expiration your your ad.
6. You may direct us to either remit payment to you via PayPal or through Adgitize.

Have fun and Thanks!

JL.............

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• Adgitize's Summer Sizzlers (asktheblogster.blogspot.com)

Adding AdSense to your Blog - revisited.

 Last week when I was on vacation, I received a comment on a very old post titled: Lets Begin by Adding Google Ads. This was from a new blogspot blogger asking for help on adding AdSense to her site.  Unfortunately, this request was placed on the day that I left, so I wasn't able to respond immediately.

Gwen said... I hope you can help me. You make it sound so easy. I signed up for an adsense account but when I try to do anything inside my blogger account it says there is an internal error. After looking through tons of forums and trying to do work arounds I still get an error and an ugly box shows up on my screen. A lot of people said I should "grant access" through the Adsense-My Account section. My account section doesn't say anything about granting access. Please help! June 5, 2010 9:28:00 AM PDT

Once I approved the comment, I then followed the commentator's profile to their blog:

Adventures with Grandma

Once there, I discovered that the owner already figured out how to place Google AdSense ads on their sidebar, meaning: Problem Solved!

However, I realized that many other newcomers to the blogging world may also be experiencing problems similar to Gwen's, so I thought that I would provide a link to the most useful Google pages that addresses AdSense questions:

AdSense Help Page

This Google page provides a well organized index of useful topics, describing the AdSense program, applying to be a publisher, how to place ads on your site, getting paid, and more. Remember, once you apply, Google will send you mail informing you of your acceptance. If there is a confirmation link in this mail, you must follow it to activate your account.

The first thing that isn't apparent is that: Once a ad grouping is placed on a page (whether a web page or  blog), it usually takes some time before Ads are actually displayed. I've found that this delay can range anywhere from 1/2 hour to about 4 hours.

The second thing to consider is whether you are trying to add the AdSense code directly to a blog, or using the Blogger Monetize tab. For use on a blog, you should always use the Monetize tools to Add, Remove, or Customize the appearance.

Another important item to remember is that you must earn $100 before you will receive your first payment. At that time, Google will send you mail prompting you to provide your taxpayer information. It may also request telephone contact confirmation. If so, follow all their instructions in order to receive payment.

Lastly, and most importantly:

Never Click on your Ads

and

Never Ask Someone to Click on your Ads

If done, you will promptly and abruptly removed from the program.

From my experience, the AdSense program the best publishing program around. Displaying Google ads is a privilege, not a right. If you follow their rules and don't abuse the privilege, you will be rewarded in time.

Adgitize's Summer Sizzlers

Perhaps my favorite advertising network is:

Adgitize

because I can basically advertise my website for free.  To do this, you must first join the network, upload you widget image, install advertising widgets on your site or blog, and then purchase a $14 monthly ad (for 31 days).

Then, to get your money back, all it takes is to write a blog post and click on 51 member widgets a day!

Each day you'll be credited with a small network proportional income. At the end of every month, your earnings will be totaled, and credited to your account. Active members have always received a minimum payout of $14, thus paying for your advertising costs.

Now, Adgitize introduced an exceptional Summer Promotion (running until July 31, 2010) and a:

Discounted Purchasing Plan!

Phase 1 of the Summer Promotion guarantees a minimum daily earning of $0.47, or $14.57 for a full 31 day month for those members who earn at least 300 points a day.

Phase 2 targets lesser active members, and guarantees payout of $0.34 per day for advertisers scoring over 200 points a day.

But, the discounted purchasing plan allows members to buy:

• a 6 month ads for $13 per month; or
• a 1 year ads for $12 per month.

Together with the Summer Promotion, advertising members of Adgitize and guaranteed to earn a profit! In my opinion, these are indeed noteworthy

Summer Sizzlers!

And remember, Adgitize accepts both websites and blogs as members.

Kaye & Pehpot's Contest Sponsors

As a follow up to the contest announcement, we have  listed the primary sponsors for your reference. Please take a few minutes and take a look at each of their blogs.

Below are the four MAJOR sponsors of Kaye and Pehpot's Blogversary contest:

I Am Buraot
A blog about politics, the environment, religion, philanthropy, and everything else that is life. Author is known for his generosity in sponsoring contests. The home of the famous EntreDropper.

Anak Ni Kulapo
Yet another blog of Buraot. If you want to die laughing, then go visit Anak Ni Kulapo. His life in the US and hilarious stuff about his home country are only two of the must-sees in this blog.


Seiko's Diary
The blog title says it all. This is Seiko's journal about being a mom to her five gorgeous kiddos, her take on life in general, and random musings of a woman who loves life.

Mom Conversations
A new blog about everything concerning mothers: pregnancy, health and fitness and babies are the current categories, under which are detailed articles containing tips and valuable information for moms everywhere.

Please drop by these blogs if you have the time and see why they are worthy of a special mention. :)

Goodbye Dropaholics

Yesterday I read on one of the CMF Ads forums that DropAholics is ceasing operations and will be shutting down. Since I have its widget on 2 of my blogs, I wanted to make sure that this was indeed the case.

I clicked on one of the DropAHolic headers and was brought to the DropAholics website.The first line of the site states that: Dropaholics is closing down.

So it is true. The site was developed by Greg Mathews and maintained a ranking of the top Entrecard droppers. Over 1300 blogs were monitored and the Dropaholic widget would display the icons of the top EC visitors to your blog.

Apparently Greg was going to e-mail all registered blogs and let them know that he is turning off the system, but I don't know if this was done. I, for one, had not received any notification.

I know this was a very popular system and will be greatly missed in the Entrecard world.

If you have a Dropaholic widget on your site, you should remove it promptly. 

I wish to thank Greg for providing such a great tool and am sorry to see it go. However, life goes on, and I wish Greg the Best Success in the Future!

JL...............

You can read more by clicking on the Dropaholic link above, or by visiting his post:  
Dropaholics is shutting down.

A Week of Ups and Downs

This past week has been full of surprises for our blogging communities.

First, the Down. Adgitize went offline, almost a year to the day from the previous outage. Unlike last year's episode, there has been little communication from Ken, placing a wee bit of anxiety in the it's member community. While the site is back up, one forum post indicated that full functionality may not be restored until next week. If history repeats itself, an advertising extension of some sort will be credited to advertisers. As of now, we are in a "trust-me" state. As an aside, one of Ken's own site is "You Can Learn Series" which is a mainstay advertiser on Adgitize.  That domain registration has expired and brings visitors to a parked site. This seems to be quite odd since most folks who own a domain name don't want it to expire. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

For the Ups, both CMF Ads and Entrecard released new innovations to their product lines.

Entrecard opened, without much fan fare, it's membership to websites. While many do not believe this is significant, I believe it is important. Sites like my Lottery Power Picks have already joined and are receiving new visitors. Now, both Adgitize and Entrecard are open to websites.

And, CMF Ads introduced Network Ads. While this is similar to Adgitize, it is a great addition to their product. The primary reason is that it fills up the empty Ad space that many members experience.  While the payback to publishers will be relatively minimal in the beginning, I am sure that Ben and all will think of a way to make it more financially benefical for members to display the CMF widgets. And, this new product is a great complement to its newly released Spikes because when people visit, they will now be exposed other CMF member ads.

JL.........

Should We Buy Adgitize Ads in December?

As the Adgitize transition month is winding down, the Adgitize advertising network is holding up remarkably well. Last October 30th, there were 202 ads on the network. Nearly 1 month later, there are 176 ads (November 27th). This is only a 12.9% decline in purchased ads since the cost increased from $14 per month to $24/month.

While the cost of an ad increased by 71.4%, has the Adgitize member reimbursement increased as expected?

An advertiser who pays $24 per month (31 day advertising period)  must earn $0.7742 per day to earn his money back. From Adgitize's initial projections, member earnings would increase from:

300 points a day	from 44 cents a day	to 72 cents a day
360 points a day	from 53 cents a day	to 86 cents a day

This implies that breakeven would be slightly over 300 points.

However, in a recent forum posting, Ken noted that a person who scored 305 points at the beginning of November earned $0.43, and at the end of November earned $0.52, a 20% increase!

BUT, if you earned 300 points, you'd expect to earn $0.72 which is $0.20 more than actually being paid back. That represents a 27.78% underestimate.

Translating this to a monthly payback, I expect those who paid $24 for a monthly ad and earned 300 points to take a $6.00 LOSS and receive only $18 back.

I know that cornyman, Ken, and others have all agreed with me in saying last month that advertisers would not receive full earning potential during this transitional month of November.

But I'm not sure that folks who pay the full $24 next month will receive their money back either!

Why? Because if you have the opportunity to click on many of the Adgitize ads now in the system, you will see that many of these are brand new. Some have very little content, and don't even display Adgitize ads.

What this means is that old advertisers pulled out. And, five dollars of the new money from the new advertisers is going out of the system to pay affiliate commissions to the member who recruited them. This means that instead of $24 being contributed into the system, only $19 is actually going back.

So, my conclusion is that most advertisers will not earn their full $24 back again next month. Instead, they will only earn somewhere between $19-$22 in December.

As  a result, I will sit on the sidelines again next month, click on 101 ads, and read the member comments, complaints, worries, and praises.

I am confident that as we shake through this rough process, earnings will stabilize once again, perhaps in January 2010.

Unfortunately, at this time, I do not think that Adgitize or other members thought they'd all be losing money this month. Now is the time to think about next month, and question whether Advertisers will receive their full $24 ad costs back month. I don't think so.

JL..................

Bloggers, Get Your Free Money from Adgitize!

If you're a serious Blogger who writes every day then:

Yep, you too can get Free Money from Adgitize.

The how is very simple if you follow these 6 easy steps:

1. Join Adgitize by clinking here: Adgitize
2. Register you blog.
3. Place their ads on your blog.
4. Write and publish a new article every day.
5. Log in and Click on 100 other member banners every day.
6. Watch your earnings grow.

And how much can you earn as a Publisher Only? Approximately $0.20 per day, $6.00 per month, or $72.00 per year!

Now if you don't think that's a lot of money, consider this: Advertisers on the system pay $24 per month. In return, they will receive somewhere between $26 to $32 (according the the Adgitize estimated payout), making a monthly profit of $2-$8.

You, however, paid nothing, and still get back $6 each month. That's in infinite return.

And what can you do with this money that is paid to you via PayPal?

• Buy your own $24 monthly ad 3 times a year.
• Pay for your Thanksgiving dinner.
• Buy Christmas or Birthday Presents for the Kids.
• Go to the movies a few times.
• Buy a lot of beer.
• Anything else you can think of.
  

So if you're not an Adgitize member, then join now and start earning.

And if you're already an Adgitize member paying the monthly $24 fee, take a look at your profit and compare the difference between the Advertisers and Publishers income. You might be able to spend the $24 somewhere else and still receive your same profit!

Cheers,

JL...................

The AdBrite Gotcha - Full Page Ads

A couple of weeks ago, I decided to place a new AdBrite ad on this blog. Since I am familiar with Adbrite, I am careful not to display their "Full Page Ads" on any of my pages because they:

• Are Annoying,
• Turn visitors away from your site,
• Tarnish your reputation.
  
• Are Against the Entrecard, Adgitize, CMFads Terms of Service, and
  
• Are Poor Revenue Generators.

To me, there's nothing worse than being brought to some undesirable page when you click on a members widget and having to press the "Skip this ad" button to get to the site you wanted.

So, you can imagine my horrified surprise when I was writing last week's post to discover that this site was indeed displaying the AdBrite Full Page Ads!

At first, I thought the blog was hacked, but then I realized:

Ah ha! It's the AdBrite Trickery Gotcha!

So frantically, I went to my AdBrite account and saw that the Display Full Page Ads box was checked to ON, even though I had set it to OFF. I then went through each of my ads and made sure this option was off on all of them.

What surprised me was that no one had notified me that these ads were displaying. When I thought back to all the other sites that have displayed these as well, I realized that many (if not all) of those authors were probably unaware that AdBrite secretly set their Display Full Page options to ON as well.

So if you display AdBrite ads on your Blog or Site, you may want to spend a few moments to review your AdBrite settings for every Ad you display. Perhaps you too will find that you are unintentionally displaying these ads and turning away welcomed visitors. To Check your settings:

• Log into your AdBrite account
• Click the For Publishers Tab
• Select the Manage ad zones link

 Then for each  Site / Name ad,

• Press the More Arrow
• Select Ad Zone Preferences
• Make Sure the "Show full page ads?" box is UNCHECKED
  
• Press Save Changes

Hope this helps you too from continuing to be an unwilling victim of these undesirable pollutants!

JL.............

Reminder: Buy a $14 Adgitize Ad Now and Save!

Just a quick post to remind everyone that the price of a 31 day monthly Adgitize ad will increase from $14 to $24 beginning Sunday, November 1st 2009.

However, its not too late to purchase a new ad at the current low price.

If you're not presently an Adgitize member, but have considered it, we encourage you to act Now and join before the price increases! Joining is easy, simply click on below, enroll, and submit your site.

At the same time, you should purchase an Ad, and receive the benefits of:

• Being a Preferred Publisher,
• Getting Additional Traffic, and
• Earning Money!

After buying your first ad now at $14, you find that you will earn enough in a month to cover your advertising cost!

But Remember

Time's running out,

You gotta Act Now!

And, for those who are already Adgitize advertisers, you should seriously consider purchasing a second (or third) ad this month before your current ad expires. You can take advantage of this "Last Minute" saving by designing a new 125x125 gif, and submitting it.

We suggest that all ads be submitted by Thursday October 29th at the latest in order to give the Adgitize folks time to review and approve your purchase.

In a recent blog post, Cornyman as described the benefits of this in great detail, and it is an excellent read (Adgitize: HURRY and SAVE up to 12$ for your new ad!)

As Ken, Aldon, and others have stated in their comments, Adgitize is an wonderful tool for dedicated bloggers. Why, because you will be in excellent company. Everyone there has the same goals: to Blog, Attract Readership, and Earn Advertising Revenue.

If however, you are like us and want to "Wait and See" what the Pricing Structure does to Earnings, then make sure you work on replacing the Adgitizing visitors by participating in:

• Entrecard (who just recently made a Great move by awarding members 50% of the EC's paid by advertisers on you site),
• CMF Ads
• theBlogFrog
• Blog Engage

While we're not thrilled with the price increases, we continue to believe that everyone should belong to Adgitize because it is a great organization.

Let us know what you think!

JL ................

PS: Thanks to everyone who has read and responded to our previous post! It's great to see a dialog and hear everyone's opinions.

Adgitize: One Step Forward / Two Steps Back

In the Website/Blog management process, it seems that every time you think things are rosy and your environment is stable, an unpredictable obstacle blocks your way. Instead of being able to devote your time to enhancing your site and its content, you must stop, regroup, determine a course of action, and often start over. It always seems that we're taking:

One Step Forward, and

Two Steps Backward.

In a rather stunning blog post yesterday morning, Adgitize announced that it would be increasing monthly advertising rates from $14 to $24 a month beginning November 1st 2009.

This is a 71.43% increase in rates and is rather substantial for a service that is only 1 year old. Adgitize understands the magnitude of this increase and expects a number of publishers to be irate, complain, or leave. However, since they anticipate membership and ad publishing to quadruple next year, they need more money to handle this increased demand.

Like everyone else, we have embraced Adgitize as a low-cost Entrecard and advertizing solution to increasing readership. While we cannot critize Adgitize's action, it is necessary for us to re-evaluate the pros and cons of: staying or leaving this great company; and, paying the increased advertising prices.

On Leaving or Staying

• The Pros: The only satisfaction of leaving is that we have made a statement. Other than that, nothing is gained.
• The Cons: Should we leave, we would lose potential income and readership. During the past year, we have made many friends. Several have commented on our posts implying that folks are indeed reading our content and finding it interesting. In leaving, we would let these people down.

Conclusion: Leaving Adgitize accomplishes nothing. In the end, we would only be hurting ourselves. Thus, we will stay.


On Advertising
Our advertising situation is slightly different than most. For the past 2 months, we have been purchasing two ad spots which cost us $28 per month. Since rates haven't increased this month of October, we have renewed both which will expire in November. But, next month we need to decide whether to buy 2, 1, or no ads.


Our Adgitize Habits
We try to publish a new post every day and visit the maximum number of sites. Since points are awarded for Writing Articles and Clicking, we can pretty much count on receiving 200 points per day. This is appears to be the minimum number of points needed for earning $0.15 per day, and $0.24 after rates are increased.

Because we are advertisers, we receive 160 extra points for advertising (because we have 2 ad spots) and are on the Preferred Publishers List.

Additionally, we have earned additional points for both Ad and Page views which we attribute to advertising. The sum of these points contributes another 100-120 points per day.

In total, our daily points are around 460-470, which means that we earn approximately $0.63 daily. Translating this to the new payment schedule, we would receive $1.03 each day.

Should We Continue to Buy 2 Ads?
Purchasing 2 ads has only increased our total site visits by a little and our income has underperformed that of a single ad. Last month, we were about 8th on the Leaderboard but our income was slightly less than $20. We have not recruited any advertising members, so we don't receive any other affiliate income. Since ads run for 31 days, we are paying $0.9032 per day and receiving only $0.63/day. This is a daily loss of $0.2732 or $8.47 per month. When the new payment schedule becomes effective, two ads would cost $47/month which equals $1.5161 per day. For this, we would receive $1.03 per day, meaning we lose $0.4861/day or $15.07 monthly.

Our conclusion is that the loss of $15 monthly ($180/year) is not worth the benefit we receive in additional page view traffic or ad views.

Therefore, we will not purchase 2 ads in the future.

Should We Buy One Ad?
If we buy only 1 ad at the higher rates, our daily expense will be $0.7742. We will lose 50 points for the 2nd ad and a few page views. This will bring our total points to 370-400/day but we will still be a Preferred Publisher. In return, we will receive $0.86 per day, meaning that we will earn a profit of $0.0858 or $2.66 for the month.

But Will Everyone Continue to Advertise at the New Rate?
All of our calculations are based on the assumption that the number of advertisers remain the same as today. But since rates are increasing by over 71%, we believe that many Advertisers will drop out. Several factors reinforce this assumption:

• Many Advertisers are located in the Asia/Pacific region,
• Much of the world economies are suffering,
• Money is tight,
• Unemployment is high,
• Taxes are being raised across the board, and
• The Holidays are coming.

Because of these, we believe that probably 50% will not renew their ads at the higher rates in November. Last night, there were 203 advertisers. If half drop out, the estimated payouts that Adgitize states will then be cut to existing levels or lower. This means that those who are earning payouts of $14/month now will continue to be making only $14 in the future. That would translate into a $10/month loss. If this happens, more people will drop out and revenue will decline further.

So What Will We Do?
Based on the uncertainty of breaking even, we have concluded that our best option is to:

Buy NO Ads.

In doing this, we will drop down into the 2nd lowest tier of payouts. If we continue to Click and Write Articles, we will receive 200 points, which currently qualifies for payouts of $0.15/day or $4.65 per month. If advertising levels remain the same, then we could expect to receive $0.24/day or $7.44/month. Either way, Not Advertising is a NO RISK solution to earning a small bit of money.


How Will We Replace the Lost Traffic?
In one word: Entrecard! Although we have critized Entrecard for forcing members to display paid ads, their advertising network remains free of charge. By ramping up our EC Advertising campaigns and clicking on member banners, we will replace the 50-100 visits that we lose from Adgitize. This means that we, as Adgitize members, will continue to be awarded points for both Ad and Page views. With this replacement traffic, our Adgitize points may increase by another hundred, bringing our total points to 300/day and qualifying us for much higher payouts.


So What Should Have Adgitize Done?
To raise income flows, we believe that Adgitize should have CUT the monthly advertising fee from $14 to $10 per month. In doing this, members would be earning less, but Adgitize would be earning more. Why? Because we believe more people would find this attractive. New members would embrace the lower cost basis, and immediately begin to advertise. Existing members would also consider purchasing 2nd ads for their sites. So, all around, we believe this would have been the best alternative. (But, this is only our opinion).

Conclusion
To summarize, our course of action beginning November 2009 will be that of a "Wait and See". We will:

• Stay with Adgitize,
• Remain Calm and NOT become Mad,
• Stop all Advertising on Adgitize,
• Ramp Up Our Entrecard Campaigns,
• Hope that All of You Continue to Follow Us,
• Wait and See what Other Advertisers Do, and
• Reconsider Our Decision in January or February 2010.

If you also worry about what to do regarding Adgitize advertising, or if you have a supporting or disagreeing opinion, feel free to write a comment and let us and Adgtize know. If you write a Post on your own, let us know what it is. And remember, we're all in this together and want Adgitize to succeed. As I said in the beginning, it's:

One Step Forward

Two Steps Backward.

Learn More
If you'd like to know more about Adgitize, please visit:

• Adgitize Pays Out over $2,400 for September (by Adgitize)
• Adgitize to Raise Ad Prices in November (by Adgitize)
• Adgitize A critical look (by Nexus)
• Update Links Love 2 (Nexus discovers Adgitize)

Entrecard: Great Concept, No Business Plan

The underlying concept of Entrecard was genius: To provide a vehicle where bloggers thoughout the world could interact and advertise Free of charge! To accomplish this, a fictitious economy was created, rewarding members for visiting other sites and advertising. In this, Entrecard's success was unparalleled. At its peak, some estimate that over 30 thousand members participated.

To be truly successful, however, it is important to capitalize on one's efforts.

Unfortunately, it appears that Entrecard failed to create a viable Business Plan which would address the methodology of earning income while providing its founding services.

As if in a panic, Entrecard resorted to selling membership ad space and delivering it to the captive membership. This resulted in alienaiting members and losing its base.

Under new Entrecard ownership, the paid ads were eliminated, and membership began to grow again. But, not having a Business Plan, Entrecard is reinstituting their Paid Ad delivery system. It was initially planned to be implemented beginning September 28th 2009, but, this date is now pushed back to the week of October 5th.

The new system will occupy 15% of the network inventory. If, however, a member wishes to opt out, he can pay $50 per year to be ad free.

Reading the comments in their blog, members have mixed opinions about this whole thing. And we did too.

So, we decided to analyze what this means:

1. Entrecard allows members to receive credits for dropping on 300 sites maximum.
2. Assuming that a member meets this maximum 300 days of the year, there will be 90,000 ad impressions that one visits.
3. Multiplying 90K times 15%, the user will be exposed to 13,500 ad impressions.
4. Since one can opt out for of the 13,500 impressions for $50, we calculate that Entrecard expects ad impressions to cost $3.7037 per 1000 impressions.
5. We think this is a lot of money!

Another way of looking at this is by membership:

1. If 1,000 members agree to pay $50, Entrecard receives $50,000
2. If 10,000 members agree to pay $50, Entrecard receives $500,000

Wow, Entrecard can get a lot of money from a captive audience!

So what do we think? Entrecard will continue to be the sought after delivery vehicle for New Bloggers who are trying to build an audience and learn the ropes.

However, seasoned members will go elsewhere for their primary audience. Why?

1. As time goes by, followers are developed.
2. Bloggers begin to willingly purchase Paid Ads on other networks.
3. As they grow, they will devote more time to their content, and less to dropping.
4. Most blogs derive income from displaying ads.

 Since a blog's ad space is valuable, why  would one display Entrecard for free?

And, if one already purchases their own ads, why would they want to display Entrecard's for free?

Based on this simple economic evaluation, we believe that Entrecard does not have a Business Plan of their own. At present, they are simply attempting to piggy-back on others. This type of strategy will not succeed since it is simply parasitic.

While we will not be dropping Entrecard from our arsonal, we will be demoting their widgets to less important portions of our blogs. Many others may just drop them flat out. This means that the expected revenue that Entrecard is hoping to get will not be there, because advertisers will not want to  pay top dollar for poor quality ad space!


JL...............

Entrecard to Limit Member Earnings Even Further

Entrecard sent out a mail message to its members last evening and posted a new Blog Entry titled:

Solving Entrecard Inflation.

In short, the new EC management believes that the number of Entrecard Credits has been growing too rapidly. This growth, which they call Inflation, will lead to EC's being worth less and less.

To combat this Inflation, Entrecard is instituting a new policy beginning September 1st 2009:

Only EC Droppers will receive 1 credit.

Previously, both the dropper and the Blog receiving the visit received a credit.

Many of those who replied to their blog post were supportive of this move, but we believe this action underscores the EC position: All for Me, and None for You!

Why do we think this way? Consider these facts:

• Previously, EC members received credit for daily blog posts. This has been eliminated.
• While advertising costs has remained the same, EC takes 3/4 of the price of the ads and puts them in their own coffers. For example: if you pay 256 to advertise your blog, only 64 credits are given to the displaying site, the other 192 are kept by EC.

So now, EC is awarding less and less credits to the Customer Members, and building up their own war chest for future sale.

When this new policy is implemented, we believe there will be less incentive for Blog owners to purchase ads since they won't get anything back for advertising!

While EC is still a good place for beginner Bloggers, we believe that these new reductions will pursuade seasoned members into becoming less and less active. Eventually, the decline in EC activity and membership (because of their inherent greed) will have more of a deflating effect on the remaining EC credits than worrying about the inflated growth of a ficticious economy.

What do you think?

Thanks

JL...........

Entrecard Trojans Anyone?

This morning, we wanted to return some of the Entrecard Drops that we received since yesterday. So, we visited our Drops Inbox page, and displayed "Cards you haven't dropped on". We began clicking on member cards.

All of a sudden, we saw an endless number of Tabs being opened, and our computer slowed right down. Luckily, the browser crashed. When we restarted the browser again, our anti-virus notified us that several "Malicious Trojans" were removed.

Has this happened to you?

We haven't determined which EC member card caused this, but have decided to pull back from returning drops until we have time to try and isolate the Bad Guys.

If you have had similar experiences lately, let us know. If so, perhaps we can all work together to restore a safe blogging environment.

Adgitize Increases Point System

Yesterday we read that Adgitize has increased the total number of points a member could earn by 100, bringing the maximum daily credits to 600 points.

This is done by awarding points to those purchasing multiple ads.

In the past, an advertiser could only earn 100 points for the 1st ad placed on the network.

Now, an advertiser will earn 50 more points for the 2nd ad, and 25 points for the 3rd and 4th ads. In addition, the 3rd and 4th ads placements ad discounted to $13 and $12 respectively. (The price of the second ad remains at $14).

We're not sure if this new structure will result in publishers earning more daily income, but we decided to give it a try, and placed our 2nd ad on the system for this blog, AskTheBlogster.

Our Adgitize goal has been to receive enough monthly income to cover our advertising costs. With only one ad on the system, we have continually reached our goal. But now, our costs are $24 per month. So, we will have to wait until next month to determine whether the second ad will pay for itself or not.

We'll let you know.

Anyway, the folks at Adgitize are working hard by trying to help us all achieve our earning potentials.

JL..........