Yesterday i wrote about my reasons why i will not pay 50$ to EntreCard, today i want to show you some more reasons.First of all, how has Entrecard responded to users threatening to leave over the latest changes?
By adding a "cancel account" button to the dashboard!
(in the past you had to write directly to the admin to delete your account)
Aldon from Orient Lodge pointed out that the sponsored ad campaign may lead to some kind of bad publicity for the sponsors themselves when WE the members don't like the ad or the content of the advertiser's page!
But in the end we have to approve most of these ads (if we are allowed?) and with the paid option, it will be more likely that we are NOT ALLOWED to reject sponsored ads (we could opt out by paying).
In the past there have been already some blogs who reported some of these "non-blog" paid ads.
I remember one "ad with the teeth whitening" which was for one or two days nearly everywhere visible on the widgets.
By the way, i joined already Aldon's short 2 minute survey about
Which Blog Advertising Networks do you use?
Will there be enough sponsors who buy ads when they are only shown on every 7th pageview?
With the paid ads in April - July 2009, the ads have been shared with EC-paid ads to 50% of the time and the costs have been between 0,60 - 1,20 $ for 1.000 page impressions.
The new ads shall be shown only 15% of the time throughout the 24 hours. In this case the previous price seems to be too high, especially when a lot of members from the TOP 300 (blogs with more than 125 EntreCard-Visitors) would opt-out from the sponsored ad program.
In my opinion, these prices are too high for the new sponsored ads. They have to reduce it to 30 to 50 cents for 1.000 page impressions. I believe EntreCard wants now to cash in most of the money from their members.
Read my previous post "Why i don't pay the 50$ to EntreCard!!!" about this topic!
ENTRECARD PLAYS the card WITH YOUR FEARS that INAPPROPRIATE ADS WILL BE SHOWN!
Show them that WE are the members who have the power to accept their methods of earning money by pushing the EntreCard down if they really show such ads!
Will there be sponsors willing to pay money when they get -first of all- so less views and second when only 10% of the visitors can see their ad at the bottom of each blog?
What will happen to the ad prices in EntreCard?
I guess ad prices will drop like last time for some blogs in the TOP 100 (mine included) but shouldn't fall more than 50% as the sponsored ads are shown less frequently. This will benefit members who don't click so much, as they can afford in the future again more ads.
I believe it won't affect the amount of visitors, only the ad price will be slightly affected :)
What do you think will happen next week?
A couple quick comments:
ReplyDelete1) Thanks for the link to my survey. I hope to get more data and write up details soon.
2) As I discussed on another blog, it appears as if EntreCard is violating its own Terms and Conditions:
"It is your sole responsibility to examine sites wishing to run their card on your widget, and decide for yourself whether you want to link to their site through the widget."
As it stands now, it does not appear as if we will have that ability, which places liability back on EntreCard. I expect they will have to change something very soon.
3) Thanks for highlighting my point about the negative aspects that paid advertisers will face. It will see if it discourages paid advertisers near term or long term.
Who can guess where EC is trying to go? No way I'm spending money on it and so have moved it "downstairs" instead of up top in prime real estate! If their sponsored ads become too obnoxious, I'll use their nifty new "cancel" button! We have other ad options, afterall.
ReplyDeleteI'm already 98% finished with an undetectable way to transparently prevent Paid Ads from showing, which I intend to sell for about $20/life for unlimited blogs once Oct. 5th comes around. Beats $50/year of extortion for damn sure.
ReplyDeleteThey don't care where the widget is; a lot of people have it at the bottom. The above the fold rule died ages ago. If everybody pays them $50, they get what they want at our expense - money! And that will be the death of EntreCard.
ReplyDeleteYou're not the only person to be upset by EC's decisions. I want to state right off the top that I'm not a fan of what they're doing, just playing the devil's advocate. But I'm curious to know how this will *really* affect everyone. What I mean is, how much traffic do you get from clicks on the EC ads on other sites? If these are pre-empted with paid ads, will it affect your own traffic?
ReplyDeleteI watch my own traffic pretty closely in Google Analytics and although I'd lose a bit if my ads didn't rotate as regularly, I don't think it'd be that drastic. I still use the EC inbox and faves as my main source of return-dropping on blogs. I follow links to other blogs after I drop because it's convenient, but that's about it. I'm not convinced it'll be that bad.
I am still with Entrecard for a little while longer, the marketplace still has value and I like connecting with other bloggers through dropping, I think they are desperate to try to pull in funding and make profit, so are using whatever tactics they can think of to achieve this. If they just don't accept poor quality ads in the first place (screen what shows and only allow PG advertisers and images) it should be a non issue. Users who use Adgitize have very limited control over what ads display and those have far more offensive images.
ReplyDelete