Monday, September 28, 2009

Why i don't pay the 50$ to EntreCard!!!

EntreCardNow the big news is already more than one day old and a lot of members are not sure if it could be acceptable to pay EntreCard 50 $ for one year to get rid of forced sponsored ads.

Here are my main reasons why i will NOT pay 50 $ to EntreCard:

- i don't get any additional benefits for being a "paid" member except 15% sponsored ads are not shown

I get on the five registered EntreCard-Blogs around 1.000+ page views/day this will result in 150 times a sponsored ad will be displayed.

At the moment the EntreCard members themselves play with the FEAR of inappropriate ads which could be shown (half naked women, religious signs from another belief and so on).

If this is your concern, just place the EC-widget near the bottom where 90% of the visitors don't watch at all and if you get almost only EntreCard (or Adgitize, 80% have both ads) members as visitors who cares if they see these ads as they know it's a sponsored ad?

- the price is too high for this kind of non-sponsor-ad fee 50$/year, 4,17$/month, 14 Cents/day

Let's face it, there are some blogs in the TOP 50 of EntreCard who get more than 300 and up to 450 visitors from EntreCard. There are not many blogs who get the same amount of visitors from search engines when i look at some available statistics from these blogs.

They will show the sponsored ads on average 60 times a day which means for paying 14 cents/day, you pay EntreCard a 2,33 $ CPM (cost for 1.000 non-sponsor-ad page impressions)!
You will never get paid this CPM of 2,33$ from Google Adsense, just have a look in your Adsense-Account at the eCPM (except you got some clicks which don't count for this example)!

If your blog gets just 100 or 50 pageviews a day from EntreCard the numbers are more extreme as you will pay the same amount of $$ to EntreCard instead of less based on your pageviews!
50 page views - 7 sponsored ads shown x 30 days = 210 sponsored ads shown
-> Cost per ad not shown 1,98 CENTS

350 page views - 60 sponsored ads shown x 30 days = 1.800 sponsored ads shown
-> Cost per ad not shown 0,23 CENTS

As the paid ads have been active from April-July 2009 EntreCard charged
  1. 0.60 $ for 1.000x shown ads if you advertised in all categories and
  2. 1.20 $ for 1.000 shown ads in a specific category.
-> Cost per ad shown 0,06 - 0,12 CENTS

From this point of view a more acceptable price would be between 1 and 2 $/month or give us additional benefits for a price of more than 4$/month, especially for members with less visitors!

Look, what do you get for a referral?
300 ECs, if you would buy this, you would pay 1,80 $.

Why not top up the monthly fee with EC-based benefits for the paying members?
- with 500 ECs,
- with a 25% discount on ads you buy from other members
- featuring them in rotation on the front page/campaign page in the sidebar

I guess such a combination would attract much more members and even members with less visitors to buy this package and let them really feel as PREMIUM members for these premiums!

UPDATE:
Another reason for NOT PAYING THIS FEE is that the new owner himself announced in the forum that at the moment NO SPONSORS ARE IN QUEUE.
At first they want to "try this service with internal promotions of the EntreCard market and perhaps the forum", it could take "weeks or months until outside sponsored ads will find their way into EntreCard-Widgets". It's more about the ability to use the 15% "free air time" of our widget - not necessary that they will fully utilize it in the next weeks!

10 comments:

  1. I see some blogger going to remove the widget.

    ReplyDelete
  2. i second the motion, corny! amen, amen to that!

    ReplyDelete
  3. A good analysis. I'm just going to go with the paid ads. It isn't a big issue for me. It does mean that I will cut back further on the ads that I place on EntreCard.

    As an aside, with the strong uproar about paid ads, anyone with serious marketing knowledge will avoid placing paid ads. It is likely to have a negative impact on the brand in addition to having a very high CPM cost.

    The downside of this is that the paid ads are likely to be much lower quality sites and much lower quality ads.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Yep ... I agree. I have absolutely no desire to pay $50 a year to EC. The service is not worth it really.

    For those that pay that fee they should do away with the 75% tax that is collected on the sold advertising. That way you can actually earn a few credits when you sell ads on your site. Only getting 25% of the ad price is silly if your paying $50.

    After all I don't believe their "inflation" claims. Everyone has the same opportunity to earn the same amount of credits everyday from dropping ... this so-called "inflation" only hurts people who do not take part in the community. And those people will never have enough credits to do anything ....

    ReplyDelete
  5. Yes, very good post, with better analysis.

    Before, I am decided to paying the $50/year just to get rid of the sponsor ads on my site.

    But now after reading your article, plus the intelligent comment (as always) of Aldon of Orient Lodge, I am re-examining my options.

    Now, back to wait and see.

    ReplyDelete
  6. I also won't pay. Why did i am still using .blogspot for my blog if i can pay for my own domain which is just around that amount.

    *sigh* I really don't know. i'll wait and see what happens.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I think like you, the benefit of members is really low, I'm going to be out !

    ReplyDelete
  8. $ 50 is just too expensive!
    Let's just boycott them!

    ReplyDelete
  9. On this we agree, Corny.

    My biggest question is:

    Exactly what's in this for us (the members)?

    Currently, the answer is:

    Not a damn thing.

    Hope this finds you well.

    Sincerely,

    Mike

    ReplyDelete
  10. I had been busy in the aftermath of Typhoon Ketsana/Ondoy that I don't know anything about this news from EC. Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

    ReplyDelete

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