EntreCard: Revealing the Secret behind the 3 identical ads in your inbox!

BigDaddyRichard from Trader's Hub wrote yesterday and Eli from Businessphere wrote today about an ad that appears in many of our EntreCard InBoxes not only once but three times.
In my case it appeared three times at the end of each day (since 27th November). I think the person behind this ad drops especially on the TOP 300 blogs to get as many clicks as possible for its purposes.

Big Daddy Richard and Eli think it is a trick of EntreCard as the same ad picture appears three times in your inbox.

But the solution is very simple, no trick by EntreCard but the member tricked EntreCard and its members.
And in this case it means, the member uses THREE DIFFERENT accounts for three blogs. As i read now the comments on some of the mentioned blogs (description below), it seems he setup these blogs in the past for other persons (or under other names) but they have the same appearance (blog templates). Some are not updated since August 2008!

If you hover with your mouse over the three pictures you can see that they are linked with three different member accounts
http://entrecard.com/t/oc/54360
http://entrecard.com/t/oc/53839
http://entrecard.com/t/oc/33411

To access now the user profile you have to take the number of each link and add it to
http://entrecard.com/user_details/

If you click on these three links, you will be taken to the three "different" accounts

http://entrecard.com/user_details/54360 --> http://entrecard.com/details/142085 Software Blog
http://entrecard.com/user_details/53839 --> http://entrecard.com/details/142089 Jennys Personal Blog
http://entrecard.com/user_details/33411 --> http://entrecard.com/details/141888 Reahsblog

The Software blog seems to have a redirect to the -for all three same- targeted web site http://blogproduction.blogspot.com/

If you click on the given URL in the Blog details it takes you to the above mention Blogproduction website (without any EntreCard widget).

Have a look at the MOST RECENT POST and click one of the posts, this will take you to the REAL Blog behind the picture (and all except the SOFTWARE BLOG and ReahsBlog which you can only access by the below mentioned Blogroll listing!) have an EntreCard widget.
If you look on this Blogproduction website you can see that in the Blogroll "Jennys Personal Blog" and "Reahsblog" is mentioned (there is the connection that it's the same user with different accounts, perhaps he wants to cash-in the referral ECs as linked blogs wouldn't be allowed to receive additional free ECs and so on?)

EntreCard System is too easy to abuse!

You just have to go to your Dashboard:

1. Take a look at the section "Your Blog" in the middle of the page
2. Click on "Edit"
3. Change the website URL to any other website which you would like to promote :)
4. Save it, EntreCard doesn't look any more if this is a page with EntreCard widget (otherwise these THREE blogs would have been already deleted!).
5. In case we report them, EntreCard might get active and sent a message to their Dashboard to place the EC-widget on this blog within a specific time frame (24 to 72 hours)
   

Adgitize: Let's see what's going on now!

UPDATED Weekly - I will write a summary of the previous week in Adgitize each Tuesday (after the Sunday-Earnings are published)

Since 21st November i could achieve the necessary 80 cents (for 30 day months, 78 cents for 31 day months) with points between 450 - 470, on 26st November i achieved 97 CENTS for 470 points (Thanksgiving-Holidays in USA, lower overall points) and it's getting better each day, see at the end of the post!

With 74 ads to be renewed in the NEXT 5 DAYS (until 2nd December) we could see a drop in advertisers by 1st or 2nd December to less than 150 from actually 177 advertiser.

This said it means, you really can get profitable again as ACTIVE PUBLISHER (with 400+ points and 78 cents/daily!) by buying an ad for 24$ in Adgitize and you can boost your traffic by 70 - 100 visitors daily.

I will publish this and the next month statistics about the amount of advertisers in Adgitize, so that we can see how many renewed their ads and how many left Adgitize as advertiser after their price hike.

If you like to participate, you could also share your earnings per day and for which amount of points you got this earnings. I will share them now daily in this blog post!

Highest number of Advertiser on 31st October - 216

In this number are around 20 persons who bought a 2nd or 3rd ad for 14$ (instead of renewing their old ad for 24$).

This means that it will be most likely to see in the next two weeks a decrease of advertisers back to around 200 (like the number has been on 29th of October!).

On 2nd November the advertisers decreased already to 213 (-3).
On 3rd November the advertisers increased to 214 (+1, but still - 2 in comparison to 31st October). That means there has been at least one member who paid the new ad price!
On 4th November the advertisers decreased to 210 (-4 towards yesterday and -6 towards End of October).
On average each day 7 advertisers should renew their ad (210/30 days = 7 ads expire each day)
On 5th November the advertisers increased to 213 (+3, but still - 3 in comparison to 31st October).
On 6th November the advertisers decreased to 212 (-1, but still - 4 in comparison to 31st October).

Ken Brown commented yesterday on this post and wrote that since 5th November 24 members renewed/bought ads with the new price (if you calculate this for 30 days, we would have 150 advertisers until end of November).

On 7th November the advertisers decreased to 207 (-5 from yesterday and -9 in comparison to 31st October).
On 8th November the advertisers decreased to 201 (-6 from yesterday and -15 in comparison to 31st October)
On 9th November the advertisers decreased to 199 (-2 from yesterday and -17 in comparison to 31st October)
On 10th November the advertisers increased to 201 (+2 from yesterday and -15 in comparison to 31st October)
On 11th November the advertisers decreased to 199 (-2 from yesterday and -17 in comparison to 31st October)
On 12th November the advertisers decreased to 195 (-4 from yesterday and -21 in comparison to 31st October)
On 13th November the advertisers increased to 197 (+2 from yesterday and -19 in comparison to 31st October)
On 14th November the advertisers decreased to 195 (-2 from yesterday and -21 in comparison to 31st October)
On 15th November the advertisers stabilized at 195 (0 from yesterday and -21 in comparison to 31st October)
On 16th November the advertisers decreased to 191 (-4 from yesterday and -25 in comparison to 31st October)
On 17th November the advertisers decreased to 189 (-2 from yesterday and -27 in comparison to 31st October)
On 18th November the advertisers decreased to 183 (-6 from yesterday and -33 in comparison to 31st October)
On 19th November the advertisers increased to 184 (+1 from yesterday and -32 in comparison to 31st October)
On 20th November the advertisers decreased to 182 (-2 from yesterday and -34 in comparison to 31st October) (after the new day -21th- began the advertiser dropped to 176, let's see how many renew and how this affects the earnings over the weekend)
On 21st November the advertisers decreased to 180 (-2 from yesterday and -36 in comparison to 31st October)
On 22nd November the advertisers increased to 181 (+1 from yesterday and -35 in comparison to 31st October)
On 23rd November the advertisers increased to 183 (+2 from yesterday and -33 in comparison to 31st October)
On 24th November the advertisers decreased to 181 (-2 from yesterday and -35 in comparison to 31st October)
On 25th November the advertisers decreased to 179 (-2 from yesterday and -37 in comparison to 31st October)
On 26th November the advertisers decreased to 177 (-2 from yesterday and -39 in comparison to 31st October)
On 27th November the advertisers decreased to 175 (-2 from yesterday and -41 in comparison to 31st October)
On 28th November the advertisers increased to 176 (+1 from yesterday and -40 in comparison to 31st October)
On 29th November the advertisers decreased to 174 (-2 from yesterday and -42 in comparison to 31st October)
On 30th November the advertisers decreased to 171 (-3 from yesterday and -45 in comparison to 31st October)
After 12 hours we have on 1st December only 158 advertisers left (at the start of 1st December it have been just 156 advertisers)! --> More money left for the members who gain 300/400+ points, even when the earnings will be slightly lower (around 80 cents)

Will you renew your Adgitize ad?
	Sure
	No
	Perhaps
pollcode.com free polls

0.80 $ are needed daily to get a 24$ ad paid back (in the bracket you can see, if i reached this amount!)

1st November - 500 points - earnings: 0.79 $ (0.79 $ - 1 cent less)
2nd November - 500 points - earnings: 0.75 $ (1.54 $ - 6 cents less)
3rd November - 520 points - earnings: 0.75 $ (2.29 $ - 11 cents less)
4th November - 500 points - earnings: 0.72 $ (3.01 $ - 19 cents less)
5th November - 500 points - earnings: 0.70 $ (3.71 $ - 29 cents less)
6th November - 500 points - earnings: 0.72 $ (4.43 $ - 37 cents less)
7th November - 450 points - earnings: 0.73 $ (5.16 $ - 44 cents less) less overall points give higher earnings, look out for high points on weekends!
8th November - 450 points - earnings: 0.67 $ (5.83 $ - 57 cents less) seems to be so low from the massive drop in advertisers on Sunday
9th November - 470 points - earnings: 0.67 $ (6.50 $ - 70 cents less)
10th November - 450 points - earnings: 0.64 $ (7.14 $ - 86 cents less) the decrease in advertisers affects the earnings as the "old 14$ ads" won't get renewed until 1st December!
11th November - 450 points - earnings: 0.66 $ (7.80 $ - 1.00 $ less) like the day before... not many new ads are getting bought, earnings remain like in October for the next few days!
12th November - 450 points - earnings: 0.66 $ (8.46 $ - 1.14 $ less)
13th November - 450 points - earnings: 0.71 $ (9.17 $ - 1.23 $ less) higher earnings due to less overall points during the weekend!
14th November - 440 points - earnings: 0.76 $ (9.93 $ - 1.27 $ less) higher earnings due to less overall points during the weekend!
15th November - 440 points - earnings: 0.76 $ (10.66 $ - 1.31 $ less) higher earnings due to less overall points during the weekend!
16th November - 470 points - earnings: 0.73 $ (11.39 $ - 1.41 $ less) it seems like the earnings are rising for the first time even with less advertisers!
17th November - 450 points - earnings: 0.71 $ (12.10 $ - 1.50 $ less) it seems like the earnings are "rising" as we have less advertisers/points!
18th November - 450 points - earnings: 0.75 $ (12.85 $ - 1.55 $ less) after 3 days i think we can called it CONFIRMED the earnings are "rising" despite less advertisers!
19th November - 450 points - earnings: 0.77 $ (13.62 $ - 1.58 $ less) CONFIRMED the earnings are "rising" despite less advertisers, can buy new ad for 24$ in the next days!!
20th November - 450 points - earnings: 0.77 $ (14.39 $ - 1.61 $ less)
21st November - 450 points - earnings: 0.83 $ (15.22 $ - 1.58 $ less) FIRST DAY WITH MORE THAN 80 CENTS/DAY, overall weekend points low!
22st November - 470 points - earnings: 0.84 $ (16.06 $ - 1.54 $ less) SECOND DAY with more than 80 Cents/Day, even with 5% higher overall points but weekend!
23rd November - 470 points - earnings: 0.82 $ (16.88 $ - 1.52 $ less)
24th November - 470 points - earnings: 0.80 $ (17.68 $ - 1.52 $ less) It seems 180 advertisers is the limit to get 80 cents, let's see which earnings we can score for the 25th with just 179 advertisers!
25th November - 470 points - earnings: 0.80 $ (18.48 $ - 1.52 $ less) still could score 80 cents, even with just 179 advertisers and 1.700 more overall points in the system!
26th November - 470 points - earnings: 0.97 $ (19.45 $ - 1.35 $ less) Thanksgiving holiday weekend until 28th/29th November in the USA, low overall points!
27th November - 450 points - earnings: 0.98 $ (20.43 $ - 1.17 $ less) WOW, the highest daily earnings i ever got in Adgitize since i started in April 2009!!
28th November - 450 points - earnings: 1.05 $ (21.48 $ - 0.92 $ less), the best earnings but also the lowest overall points, earnings will be lower for the next two days but still around 80 cents :)
29th November - 460 points - earnings: 0.97 $ (22.45 $ - 0.75 $ less) USA back from holidays, overall points growing again, same will be valid for tomorrow!
30th November - 470 points - earnings:0.84 $ (23.29 $ - 0.71 $ less)

EntreCard: Facts about Sponsored ads!

Like mentioned in the previous post about the first sponsored ad, we got this week a real invasion of sponsored ads (up to 12) from members of EntreCard. Yet there are still no advertisers from outside the blogosphere who wants to promote their products in the EntreCard network.

And there are good reasons for those Outside-Advertisers and EntreCard-Members NOT to spent a part of their budget in the EntreCard network

1. 25 $ is good for only five days FULL EXPOSURE in the whole EntreCard community, for a targeted campaign it's depending on the amount of blogs and activity in the category (10 - 30 days).
   For one month you would pay 150-200$ but if EntreCard members recognize there is NO CARD TO DROP or you DON'T drop back, the clicks will get less and less but the ad is paid by "automatic" ad views NOT for each click! The result will be disappointing over a longer period (more than one week!).
   
   
2. Goal of the ad campaign is to get more visitors (clicks)
   EntreCard promotes the price of 25$ with 40.000 (over all categories) or 20.000 ad views (one targeted category).
   The information Eli from Businessphere and Chinaren about their Click-through-rate is in my opinion more than disappointing for this 25$ investment.
   You can get in these four - five days around 450 - 600 clicks, depending on the amount of sponsored ads and the approval of your sponsored ad by the EntreCard members.
   
   In comparison to Adgitize -where you get "on Auto-Pilot" monthly around 2.000+ clicks for a 31 day ad for the price of just 24$ - the EntreCard-Deal is TOO EXPENSIVE especially when you see the 1-week-ad in Adgitize for 12$ which give you on average 77 clicks/daily = 540 click/week!
   
   
3. EntreCard "promises" EC-based ad price raises up to 2.000%.
   This promise is just fulfilled if you have an ad price of 2 or 4 ECs!
   Like we see/have seen on the actual sponsored ads which are in the TOP 15 most popular blogs (EZGreatLife, Businessphere, Seek No More, SpicyBugz World, The Junk Drawer), there was just a slightly higher ad price to achieve (from 1.024 to 1.536 or 2.048 EC) which is the normal price hike after a weekend (when the ad prices are always lower!).
   Strangely the ad price went up for most of them as the sponsored ad has expired :)
   
   You should think twice when you buy an ad on one of these sponsored ad members.
   As i said, the ad usually runs just for five days (the sponsor has the possibility to pause the ad, too, and run it hours, days or weeks later again as long as there are remaining funds!).
   
   If you buy there an ad, the ad price should be lower than 32 EC, otherwise the traffic surge has stopped already when your ad runs and in case the member didn't drop back, your investment might be worthless.
   
   

What's positive on sponsored ads in EntreCard?

1. If you are for a few days not available for dropping your cards, you could buy your sponsored ad to maintain your position and your ad price in EntreCard or ad/page view points in Adgitize (but like i said, it's expensive).
   
   
2. You could reach immediately many blogs without spending tons of ECs to advertise (success is around 1,5% of the ad views give you clicks for all categories and 3-4% for targeted category ad campaign), some of them could become regular readers!
   
   
3. You can pause the sponsored ad (after you deposit the 25$) and start a new campaign hours, days or weeks later (they write about a 30 day period when the deposited money should be used), suitable for low-traffic weekends!
   
   

UPDATE 29-11-2009:

• EntreCard marks members who have opted-out of sponsored ads with a star in their ad picture (if you look in the campaigns), i saw two or three blogs today (SpicyBugz World, Maitri's Blogs)!

What's your opinion about Sponsored ads in Entrecard? Are the sponsored ads acceptable or not?

As advertiser have you been satisfied with the results?
Is it worth the investment or would you say, i learned my lesson? :)

Join the Holiday-Contest now!

Sticky post (read below for my new interesting articles):

All you have to do is... just drop your EntreCards on one or more of the our mentioned blogs and make ONE comment on this Holiday-Contest post for having the chance to win FREE Advertising on Cornyman's Money-Blog (from 19th to 27th November).

The prizes have a worth of more than 200$, you can see them on the above mentioned link. If you do a blog post about this Holiday-Contest, you can get some free ECs, too.

How to get more referrals + EntreCard's new inflation!

I wanted to write some more tips how to get referrals and about EntreCards new fight against their EC inflation.

I guess, it's just time to write a short summary of both topics now before i will go on holidays (this post was pre-written on 19th November).

Getting more referrals for your programs:

There are a lot of programs in the internet and offline which allow you to earn additional income by referring other members to these programs.

The best way to get referrals is

• write honest reviews about the programs
• show the advantages and disadvantages of the programs
• in case you get incentives, you could give a partial kickback to your referral
• show off your payment proofs

More about this points will follow after the holidays (on the weekend).

EntreCard's fight against the inflation!

I hope everybody reads the blog in EntreCard and buzz's on the Dashboard :) Then you know that you can "earn" a lot of ECs by referring new ACTIVE members to EntreCard.

Now it's 800 ECs that you can get instead of the previous 300 and on TOP the new referral will get 200 EC as starting capital, so that they can see immediately the effect of advertising.

Will there be a great impact by advertising with just 200 EC?

In case you use it for the 2 EC-Blogs, the new referrals might get disappointed, if they use it for 32 - 128 EC-Blogs it will look much brighter but then the ECs are already used and they have to be really active, so that YOU get your 800 EC :)

Now, with 200 new ECs in the system (virtual money from hot air!), EntreCard is driving itself more and more into the inflation and ad price bubble. By giving away 800 EC to the old members it seems that they are really in need of new MEMBERS, MEMBERS and again MEMBERS. I mean not really members... as we are their AD INVENTORY.

The real purpose of this new EC inflation!

It's not about the benefits of the new members (as they have to work to earn new ECs each day). It's really just about getting more ad space for their own survival. The same is valid for their 50% discount on buying ECs. They make this offer just because they need money, yes!

But on the other side, they wanted to get rid of ECs in the system by giving less ECs to the users (remember the only 1 EC-policy for the dropper which started on 1st September). Sure, if you give less it's more likely that someone will BUY ECs.
I wonder if really someone did buy (i read from two or three persons that they did as they re-joined EntreCard in the past) for a price which is not really valuable for the return you get.

Quick calculation:

Buy 4.000 EC for 12 $

my average ad price 1.024 EC (max click one advertiser got once: 90, if it went bad: 20 clicks)

3$ for one day exposure x 30 days = 90 $, i guess for a one month ad on this blog i charge 20$

A NO-GO for serious advertisers!

There are cheaper methods to buy ad space on my blog.

Look on my sidebar, there is LinkShowOff for 2$ (Eli's Businessphere link is there since July, if someone else buy now, he would drop out of the list as he is the fifth one... so the 2 $-investment would be good for 5 - 6 months).

Or use CMF-Ads for at the moment 0.33 $ for 30 days (but you share it with around 20 other advertisers), in December the price will go back to 0.60 $ (which means more exposure for the advertisers, as there will be less who want to pay this price).

Tomorrow a new article will follow about the way the new sponsored ads in EntreCard are working and if they are worth their money!

Adgitize: Week III after the ad price hike! It's getting profitable!

This is the Adgitize report for Week 3 after the ad price hike from 14 to 24$ and we see now daily improving earnings, especially when you can score more than 300 or 400 points.

Ken Brown from Adgitize pointed out in his new blog post that even the members with just 300 points can get now earnings of more than 50 cents daily. In October these earnings have been just around 40 cents per day.

Why the Adgitize earnings rise now faster and you can get profitable from this week on!
For this statement we have to look at the overall points and to the number of advertisers.

Until Sunday, 22nd November, the advertisers dropped to 181 from 216 on 31st October. The "loss" of 35 advertiser means that there has been for the first 12 days in November less income from the new higher ad price.
But as most of the lost advertisers (or better to say ads) have been ads which have been run as "second, third or forth" ads - mine second ad was for this Blog and my first ad (for the Baby-Blog) expired already on 6th November - the OVERALL POINTS decreased daily since 12th November and now we are already back to the average points from October with a daily range of 120.000 - 135.000 points!
Now to the statement "Why the earnings rise faster these days", even when we seem to loose advertiser there are still four to six advertiser who renew or buy a new ad each day (previous month there have been 6 to 8 renewed ads daily). The advertiser who didn't renew or let their second ad expire earn less as many of their points drop now between 25 - 180 points daily.

Members who have been in the 400 point tier could fall now into the broader tier of 200 - 300 points with earnings of just 15 - 22 cents instead of 70+ cents. Most of these members will loose between 5 - 55 cents daily.

But as old ads with 14$ drop out of the system - they contributed with 30 cents (as Adgitize keeps 35% of the ad price) and new ads with 24$ (or shorter period ads with daily higher cent contribution) join the system we see now 50 cents flowing in the system. Additionally the PAID Preferred Publisher Program with prices from 6 - 8 $ / month gives an extra of 13 - 17 cents daily. Some of the previous advertisers might have made a move to this traffic (up to 25 visitors) and point (25 points, 10 for the free option) generating option.

As long as we don't loose more than 100 advertisers by end of November 2009 (which is in my opinion impossible), we will have stable and growing earnings from this week on and many members will see during this week but especially after the next weekend earnings are published (for 27-29th November) that you can score the necessary 80 Cents for a 30 day period (78 Cents for 31 day period) with 400 points or even slightly lower points.

With 450 (21st November) and 470 points (22nd November) i achieved already on this weekend 83 and 84 Cents, you can read it daily updated in my Adgitize earnings and advertiser report or in the picture in the middle of this post.

Now it's again THE TIME TO BUY ADS to BE THE FIRST WHO PROFITS from the NEW and IMPROVED EARNINGS and a HIGHER PAYOUT ALREADY IN NOVEMBER.

If you are NOT YET A MEMBER OF ADGITIZE, feel free to join now and

• get 4,50 $ via Paypal for your first ad in Adgitize from me (after purchase and acknowledgment of Adgitize, usually in the first week of the following month)

As of Sunday, 22nd November, the Leaderboard stated

• 40 members in the tier above 400 points (average earnings: 70 cents = 28 $ daily),
• 75 members above 300 points (average earnings: 50 cents = 37.50 $ daily),
• 79 members above 200 points (average earnings: 18 cents = 14.22 $ daily)
• 157 members with more than 100 points (average earnings: 2,25 cents = 3.53 $ daily)
  
• more than 4.400 (!) members with less than 100 points (average earnings: 0,1 cent = 4.40 $ daily).

From this data we can see that only 8% of the members are actively involved and the other 4.400 members are just here for the view. Further can be said that only around 115 members get guaranteed monthly payouts while the other members have to wait 2 or more months for achieving the payout amount of 10$.

JUST IMAGINE WHICH IMPACT IT WOULD HAVE IF THE REST OF THE LEADERBOARD which score less than 100 points daily (around 150 members), would start clicking ads from day to day! Each advertiser would get between 30 and 80 clicks more daily and more advertisers would join the game!

I hope we can show the non-members and the "retired" members that it's again MUCH MORE WORTH to be an ACTIVE MEMBER in Adgitize as it's too easy to achieve 200+ points daily with just ONE ARTICLE and 100 clicks (which may take up to 40 minutes), with FREE TRAFFIC for you if you click regularly and with even more TRAFFIC if you join our advertiser group for 24 $ (BEST VALUE!) which gives you 31 DAYS exposure for your ad and more than 2.000 visitors monthly + you get a big CASH REBATE AS Active Publisher, so the 24 $ won't hurt you as you even could score a PROFIT like me (and many other members) in the last five month (my ADGITIZE payment proofs) and this month will be again a profit of more than 10 $ (after deduction of the OLD 14$ ad price)!!

New facts about EntreCard :)

Do you know everything about EntreCard?
I don't! :)

Or do you just drop your cards with the EntreCard Toolbar and don't look anymore on the EntreCard homepage or in your Dashboard for new "improvements"?
Then you miss something :)

I usually investigate some of my programs when i'm kind of bored or if i have too much time left :)

That's when i found out that you can stalk your favorite bloggers in EntreCard. It's very easy to do this and the information can be important for your own decision, especially if you want to advertise on one of their blogs :)

If you look in your EntreCard Dashboard there are a lot of tabs, one is called News feed. I thought it's about EntreCard's own news or blog posts but it's way better. It's about your favorite bloggers.

I can see

• who they added as new favorite blogger (and probably drop on them from now on)
• on which blog they bought an advertisement for the coming days

How can you use these information?

With the favorite news, you know if they drop on the same blogs like you, which in case you advertise on this blog can lead to clicks from your own favorite bloggers (this would be good in case you didn't drop on them because of holidays or if you exceed the 300 drops).

With the advertisement news, you know when the ad might run (+/- 1 or 2 days). So you could time your own ad on their blog in case they bought one of the expensive ads on the TOP 30 blogs or if they bought a lot of inexpensive ads. In this case you can be sure there will be a traffic surge on their blogs and your own ad could get much more clicks (usually most of the ad clickers drop their cards from ad to ad).


What's the friends feed all about?

It's the next tab in your EntreCard Dashboard. There you can find the previous posts of your favorite bloggers, it's like Google Friend Connect. Only difference is it's not necessary completely chronical as EntreCard seems to fetch the posts every second day. So you could see one or more posts of one blogger at once and afterward is another blogger with an earlier post. But i guess this doesn't matter :)

It's good if you have been on holidays and want to see a quick update of your favorite blogger's articles!

EntreCard: The first real sponsored ad!

Now it's there or is it there already longer - the first real sponsored ad in EntreCard. I didn't click on it as this would give the owner of the ad already free traffic :)
but like i said in a previous post or comment to my post:
It's very clever from EntreCard to hide the sponsored ads in the menu of the Dashboard and not like in the past show them publicly beside the regular EntreCard ads.

UPDATE (ONE DAY AFTER THE LAUNCH OF THIS AD and three more joined):
EntreCard promotes now additional in the blog sponsored ads as there are now a few advertisers who try this service. As of now i saw that this ad is an EntreCard-Blog in the category "Graphic Design". The ad price is now 128 EC (don't know the price from yesterday but i guess it was significantly lower). Seems like EntreCard uses this ad price as example for their prediction that your ad price could jump up to 2.000%.
I'm not sure if it would be worth for you to pay 128 EC when you got in the last five days just 142 visitors (less than 30 per day).
On my blog there would be around 10 - 15 ad views for this paid ad and another 10 - 15 ad views for the other 2 or 3 ads.
This means for the TOP 30 popular blogs, there might by up to 450 ad views/daily. Looking at the TOP 300 blogs with 120 - 450 visitors daily we would get around 2.000 ad views/daily for this sponsored ad.
At the moment i guess it's around 75 - 100 visitors that you can get per day as i looked just now after i discovered the ad one day ago. Will look tomorrow again, where the popularity is now and see if it raises now faster above the 200 mark.

There are now EIGHT SPONSORED ADS IN THE SYSTEM, you might have a look and judge yourself who can be disabled :)

How many EntreCard members look daily in the sponsored ads if there are new ads to uncheck?

Adgitize: Did you criticize or promote me?

Hello Chris from Roezers Rants,

i just read your new comment on the Adgitize blog "Decision Made!".

I'm happy that you mentioned my nickname "Cornyman" and that you like my "Recommendations on how to use Adgitize the correct way".

It's a pleasure to know that you read carefully the blog posts in Adgitize and it seems you also read my Adgitize posts in this case.

My name was mentioned once in an Adgitize blog post "Adgitize gaining market share in Blog advertising". There Ken Brown took my quote about his fantastic and fast growing ad network as a reason for his new blog post.

I added once a link to my blog in the forum, so that the Adgitize members could take part in the survey about "Will you renew your ad?". This poll is now located in the sidebar for easier access!

Another time i commented on the blog post of the "Open Question about the Advertiser Only" and put a link to my blog as i wrote an analysis about this topic. Nothing wrong with it as it's related to his topic and could enhance the discussion.

Now the big question will be - does your comment hurt my traffic in the next few days or do you "accidentally" promote my blog with this comment?

Everything that i did with my Adgitize posts is for the public, most of my readers/visitors are already Adgitize members.
NO, i don't steal a lot of referrals from anyone with my posts. There are hundreds of blog posts out in the blogosphere which published their Adgitize payment proofs and referral link each month. It's a big "fight" for referrals if you mean this (with stealing) and the blogger who can promote it in the best way may be the winner of some referrals (which is another idea for a new blog post in the coming days!). Only that my referrals are more likely to be publisher and not advertiser

Perhaps it's about the frequency that i post at the moment about Adgitize (several times a month in the last few weeks), that makes you so worried?

Yes, this can influence the decision of some readers/visitors who are NOT yet members of Adgitize.

But as you can see, i talk about the actual side effects of the Adgitize ad price hike, not a topic that non-members want to read if they shall decide to sign-up or not. I write honestly about what happen to members and encourage them to stay or become advertiser as this will be again a great opportunity in December.

If i would chase just for referrals, i could use a language that is more persuasive and just report that i get since 10th of November 20% more traffic (ad clicks) from Adgitize than in the first week of my advertisement.
Sounds good, too! But would be just half of the truth as the earnings didn't improve yet in the way it was predicted!
Members who doesn't want to loose money, would loose money in this case and just because i would get 9$ for their first ad and give 50% back to them (if they knock on my blog with a comment), doesn't mean i have to pressure them with wrong facts to buy an advertisement!

I would like to get with my readers in a dialogue or discussion but therefore the reader has to make a comment on my blog. In this case i could have responded to your questions or suggestions.

Somehow it sounds for me that you have other "correct ways" how to effectively play the Adgitize-Game and in case you want to share them here with us, i would be happy to discuss them further with you and my other readers!
I just showed my experience how i achieved 20$ each month (excluding referral earnings!) with Adgitize if you are a very active publisher with several blogs (which won't be achievable for me in this month as i'm not able to click for the next days).

I started this blog around 1 year ago, with the intention to help other visitors finding information about interesting programs, investments and ad networks and to keep them away from Scams!
When you look at my first posts, it's also a guide about myLot - a money-making discussion/forum program- and how to increase (double or triple) your earnings with some little steps each day.
The same is valid for all other guides which i wrote and will write in the coming days, weeks and months.

Adgitize: Week TWO of the ad price hike!

Now we reached already the 2nd week in Adgitize and publisher/advertiser don't see yet a real improvement in their earnings. The major cause for this is that over 10% of the previous advertisers dropped out of the system (and many second ads are still running for 14$ until 1st December 2009).
Today as the points/earnings have been calculated, the advertiser count saw a low of 189 but recovered since then to 191. This means a further loss of 4 advertisers or ads compared to 15th November and a loss of 25 advertisers compared to 31st October!

In this environment we can't see the expected earning estimates. I doubt that we might see them even in the first week of December. 802

The reason:
Like i wrote in a previous post, the earning estimates are based on 180 advertisers and we should drop below this level (by end of November) as it's still unsure for many members if they can get back their invested money in the following weeks.
Most of them won't buy an ad so early and CHRISTMAS is also knocking on the door :)

Is the "Advertiser ONLY" option the solution for more advertisers/higher earnings?
Some days ago, Ken Brown published a new blog post and asked the members if we would like to have two AD OPTIONS as he saw from three comments on his price hike blog post that some members just advertise without any/much participation in Adgitize (mainly no clicking and/or no Adgitize ads are displayed on the landing page).
I pointed out that if you want to save money (18$ instead of 24$), you could do it if you want to advertise your Etsy Shop or other business related websites.
For everyone else it's a no-go because you loose all of the benefits of a regular advertiser = Advertiser PLUS (advertiser points, click bonus and page/ad view point doubling). You would just earn 30 cents or less depending on your traffic with more time needed for clicking again 100 ads! This would end the month with just 9$ for your invested 18$.

Another disadvantage for Advertiser Only could be (if they don't show Adgitize ads) that they don't get as many clicks as advertisers who show Adgitize ads on their blogs. I'm one of these members, too, who DON'T like to click on the ETSY Shop and other Adgitize ads which have no further Adgitize ads.
If i click on them, then just when i finish Adgitizing with the last few clicks but this means i don't really look what's on this website!

This seems to be one of the experiences which you still can influence by voting on Sharkbytes Blog "Just Throw Money" - How do you click Adgitize? (opens in a new window)

I just saw the decision is already made --> There will be NO ADVERTISER ONLY option.

What i think can be criticized on Adgitize!
In my opinion it was wrong to predict an earnings estimate which can't be fulfilled in the beginning of November. Everyone was/is looking for these numbers but as of now, we are far apart to see it.
Adgitize should have considered that many members will buy a Last-Minute ad and that this will affect overall earnings and in the end minimize the available advertisers (and funds!) until the end of November and even in December!
Most of the members don't have the funds for buying an ad (especially first timers!) and "loose" their money when in previous month everyone who was an active publisher could gain back the invested amount.

Sure, like you can see in my Adgitize earnings/advertiser statistic post, it won't be a big loss (after 15 days i earned 10.66$, double it and it would be 22+$) if you can achieve more than 400 points. But not many members can achieve 400 points daily.

At the moment only 44 members can achieve daily 400 points on average and just 121 can achieve more than 300 points which means these members will get a guaranteed payout each month as they can reach 10$.

For these members the loss will be daily 5 to 15 cents higher than my earnings. But i just can say today, wait until the last week of November starts on 24th and you will a more positive effect of the ad renewals.

Take care of the number of advertisers from 30th November - 3rd December, there you can see how many of the old 14$ ads will be renewed again or if they give up.
In case they give up, you would have a more valuable ad for the 24$ as you will get much more clicks for your ad and your earnings will be acceptable from the first week of December on (not necessary the earnings prediction from Ken Brown but more than at the moment!)


I can't update this series for Week THREE as i'm on Holiday next week, i will update it immediately when i'm back (in the last days of November). In this time my statistics are also not updated but i guess they will be affected "negatively" as i won't earn the 100 click points ;) But i will get a new perspective how much/less i will earn, when i only achieve 200+/300+ points for some days.

You can take part in our Holiday-Contest from 19th November - 29th November :) and win on each of our blogs which you visit ad space and some ECs.

Holidays-Contest and advertising on my blogs!

Hello readers, visitors and advertisers!

We will be not able to drop cards and do Adgitize clicking from 19th November on. I guess we'll be back from our holidays between 27 and 29th of November.
Then we will start to drop again 300 cards daily.

In this time of absence we have several scheduled articles (so it doesn't get boring visiting us + there will be a Holiday-Contest on all five blogs.

The 10 prizes will be for each blog

1. ONE x ONE MONTH AD (December) - Value: 4.000 - 30.000 EC - 5$ to 20$
2. Two x TWO week ads (January) - Value: 2.000 - 15.000 EC - 3 $ - 11 $
3. Four x ONE week ads (February) - Value: 1.000 - 7.500 EC - 2 $ - 6 $
4. 2.500 EC
5. 1.500 EC
6. 1.000 EC
   

The Blogs are

Cornyman's Money-Blog
Cornyman's Blogreviews
All about babies and kids
The One Minute Guide
Best travel pictures in the world

What do you have to do to win ONE of these prizes?

Simply drop cards on one or more of our blogs during the time of 19th - 29th NOVEMBER.

In case you would like to write a blog post about this contest, you'll get at the end of the contest

• 200 EC (if the blog post is written between 18 - 20th November),
• 125 EC (if the blog post is written between 21 - 23rd November),
• 50 EC (if the blog post is written between 24 - 25th November),
• 0 EC (if the blog post is written after 25th November).
  

The more often you drop, the more chances you will have to win. A blog post doubles the amount of dropping entries (Example: You dropped 3 times and write a blog post, your entries will be 6 + guaranteed ECs)

Please remember to make a comment on the first day (from 19th on) when you start dropping, if you want to take part in the contest (i only count the drops of members from that day on when the Participation-Comment is written!).

In case you wrote a blog post, leave the link to the blog post and your EntreCard Details, otherwise there will be no transfer of the ECs.

Winners will be announced in the first days of December!


To my Advertisers

If you bought/buy an ad from 19th November - 29th November in EntreCard on one of these blogs

Cornyman's Money-Blog (up to 380 visitors)
Cornyman's Blogreviews (up to 70 visitors, didn't click 300 daily, otherwise up to 200 visitors)
All about babies and kids (up to 200 visitors)
The One Minute Guide (up to 200 visitors)
Best travel pictures in the world (up to 180 visitors)

be advised that the visits will usually drop daily by 20%-30% and you might not get the return of clicks for what you have paid (even when i bought several ads and make this contest)!

I don't mind, if you like to cancel your ad and buy it in the last days of November, when it's sure that you will receive a better price and much more clicks in December when your ad will run!

The ads will be on auto-approval from Tuesday 17th November on!

If you like to buy an CMF-Ad, i have until end of November a Special Birthday Prize of 33 cents for one month. From December on the price will be again 60 cents!

Have a nice time, keep on reading/commenting on our articles and good luck to our participants of the Holiday-Contest!

Adgitize: ONLY Advertiser or Advertiser PLUS?

If you have read the new blog post in Adgitize, you know what my questions means. If you didn't read it yet, i'll explain it to you in a quick way.

Background story of "Advertiser ONLY or Advertiser Plus?"

There have been some comments on the Adgitize Blog post "Adgitize to raise ad prices in November" which pointed to another direction.

To summarize this direction, it's just about branding their blog and getting traffic from Adgitize members. They are no active members in Adgitize which means there are no ads displayed on the landing page and they don't click the ads to get additional points (and in the end a bigger cash rebate).

It's understandable that for these members a price hike by 10$, especially with multiple ads, is a bigger loss than for members who participate actively as publisher and advertiser and get at the end of the month a full or partial cash rebate for their activities.

The OPEN QUESTION to ALL ADGITIZE MEMBERS!

As Adgitize sees now the impact of the price hike -since 31st October we lost over 20 paying advertisers and still counting!- they want to introduce a special second section for advertisers to attract these lost members back as advertisers.

This will be called "Advertisers ONLY".

The ad price will be just 18$ instead of 24$ and you would loose the following benefits:

• This member would receive NO advertiser points (100 points).

• They would receive no doubling of the ad views and page views points that is normally a part of the advertiser bonus (10 to 100 points per day).
  
  
• If they decide to click on ads they would have to actually click 100 ads to receive 100 click points for the day and would not receive the doubling of the click points that is normally a part of the advertiser bonus (50 points).
  
  
• They would NOT be able to have a Regular Ad and an Advertiser Only ad at the same time. Once the member chooses an Advertiser Only ad then all of their ads fall under the rules of the Advertiser only designation.

The regular publisher-advertisers would be called "Advertiser Plus" as they would get for their 24$ ad the above mentioned benefits!

With this new price and point structure the overall points would drop by around 2.000 -5.000 points daily (my guess, overall points: weekdays 140.000, weekend 130.000) as i think most of the ETSY shop and selling business advertisers could join this program.

As an Advertiser Only the highest point you could achieve would be 400 (+preferred publisher points depending on the number of blogs/free or paid option - 10 points free option/ 25 points per paid blog!)
But i doubt that 400 points are achievable when you don't get the doubling of page/ad view points (i would get just 60 to 80 points instead of the previous 140 - 160 points for page/ad views).
That means i would end up with less than 300 points which give me earnings of around 25 - 30 cents daily (with the new earning plan), at the end of the month 7.50 - 9$ which wouldn't be enough for a monthly payout!

But as this option is designed for Advertisers Only, they wouldn't mind about this kind of cash rebate as they are not active within the Adgitize network, so their earnings would be even more likely less than 100/200 points (which equals to 1 - 3 cents daily)!

It's not a good option for active publishers even when you save 6$ because you couldn't get the usual cash rebate of a fully paid ad.

Like i wrote in the beginning, i don't see a big effect on the overall points as business owners would gain the most from this kind of ad but without a blog there wouldn't be article/ad/page view points.

In case someone wants to advertise both -their blog and their business website- they have only the choice to choose ONE of the options for both ads.
I would suggest in this case that you split your account and open an ADVERTISER ONLY-account for your Business ad!
With this move you can get the "full" cash rebate for your Blog ad and the reduced price for your business ad!

Like i see now, the article did get longer than i thought but i hope i gave a few valuable suggestions and tips for members or persons who want to join now because of this soon available new advertising option!

Write Ken Brown your opinion about this new ad price model before 20th November!

My opinion which i will express on the Adgitize blog soon (Ken Brown also likes to read your opinion!) is:

Yes, it's a good move to attract some of the previous advertisers (which aren't active publishers) and increase (improve) the earnings for the active publishers and advertisers!
But in case someone wants to buy this cheaper ad for traffic purpose and being sometimes active, too, it's not that attractive.
There should be a small incentive as Advertiser Only for the advertiser points (50 points) as you also give advertiser points for the preferred publisher program when you pay (25 points) and even with the free option (10 points).
Otherwise you could make it an optional requirement that these "Advertisers Only" have to click 3 out of 4 days the 100 click points to get additional 50 advertiser points.
This would positively affect the other advertisers in getting traffic and less active advertisers would get a fraction of a cash rebate.

Join the poll before you leave your opinion on my blog and on the Adgitize blog!

Would you accept two options in Adgitize -Advertisers Only (18$) and -Advertiser Plus (24$)?

Yes, i support this new ad price proposalNo, i want that everyone pays the same priceOther suggestion (please leave a comment!)

pollcode.com free polls

Save your Dollars, use less $ and get more!

Image via Wikipedia

In the first parts of the series "Save your Dollars, use less $ and get more!" we have a look in our kitchen.

There are many things which we can use less, more or just utilize in a better way so that we have at the end of the month much more money left for savings, repayment of debts or for other urgent expenses!

Is your fridge full or empty?

On the picture you can see a fridge which is not at all fully utilized. This means it seems to be more empty than full.
A empty fridge costs you a lot of money when we count the daily electricity.
It's better to have the fridge full because

1. it needs more energy to cool down only a few items
   
   
2. items which are already cooled down help in cooling down the new items faster which will save you energy!
   
   
3. To start saving electricity put some frozen ice in plastic containers or just some jugs with 75% filled up water in the back of your fridge. This will help your fridge to maintain it's low temperature longer and easier - save up to 50% energy.
   
   
4. Use this technique for your freezer, too. So you can save the double amount :)
   

Get more milk in the dry appearance!

Can we really save money and space when we exchange the bottle of milk with MILK POWDER?

• Yes, you can store the Milk powder in an airtight container and it's expiry date is usually several months instead of just a few weeks for bottled milk.
  
  
• It is a cheaper solution as Milk powder costs you around 50% less when you buy it in the medium size package (1+ kg which equals around 10 liter if you use the reduced fat milk, full cream milk gives you around 8 liter of milk)
  
  
• You don't need to carry so much milk and buy it so often when you have the Milk powder in your cupboard.
  
  
• Put just two or three spoons of Milk powder in a cup and pour it with 200 ml water - ready to drink!

More tips for the kitchen (and other parts of our life) will come each week for everyday savings!

Do you like to add something?
If so, write a comment and get a link back to your blog when i use your tip in "Reader's solution to Save your Dollars, use less $ and get more!"

Adgitize: Week 1 after the ad price hike!

Let's discuss what has happened during the last week in Adgitize.

At first i want to thank the members of Adgitize who voted in the Earnings and in the Ad renewal poll! After 41 votes for "Will you renew your Adgitize ad?" the majority seems to be not sure or doesn't want to renew their ad!

Will you renew your Adgitize ad? Selection Votes Sure 39% 16 No 24% 10 Perhaps 37% 15 41 votes total pollcode.com free polls

The same poll will be online now but i think your votes may change throughout this week until next Tuesday, 17th November!

Will you renew your Adgitize ad?
	Sure
	No
	Perhaps
pollcode.com free polls

Adgitize earnings aren't rising like what members had expected!

Like predicted the earnings "disappointed" a lot of Adgitize members as they didn't raise at all in the first days. It seems difficult for the members who bought in the first days of November an ad for 24$ to earn this money back. It's just because of the members (including me) who bought a Last-Minute ad in the end of October! One more week and we will have around 40% bought ads with the new ad price of 24$!

But it's not yet the end of the month and like Ken Brown wrote in a comment to my last blog post, there are still members renewing their ads - just not the usual average of 7 members/day.
Until 5th of November 24 members bought an ad for the new price by calculating this until the end of November we could reach around 150 advertisers (which would be less than the 180 advertiser we had on 28th September 2009 when the earnings prediction was made for the new earnings!).


What else will happen when we have only 150 advertisers?

There will be again a much better value for buying an ad! Why? Because you will receive more clicks than at the moment. I recognized this as the advertisers dropped from 216 (31st October) to 201 (on 10th November).

With just 150 advertisers the clicks should be more steady above the 80 visitors-Level because the other 50 previous advertisers have to visit 50 more blogs daily to get the whole 100 click points and new publisher will join Adgitize, too.

If we just reach 150 advertiser by end of November the predicted earnings should be lower by 15-25%. In this case it would be only possible to break even when you reach around 400 points on average.

At the moment only 120 - 130 advertiser reach on average 300 points daily when we look in the Adgitize Leaderboard.
If we loose 50 advertiser there will be again less members who can reach daily 300 points -to reach the 300 points you need to click 100 ads/publish one article daily and get up to 60 ad view/40 page view points or additional Preferred publisher points - 10 (free option) or 25 points (paid option from 6$/month).
To show you the difference we take the numbers von Ken's example in the Adgitize blog

Old earnings (similar to first week in November 2009)
290 points - 22 cents (if you reach this daily, you get payout only every two month!)
300 points - 44 cents (if you reach this daily, you get around 12$ payout monthly)

New earnings (my prediction with 150 advertisers from December on)
290 points - 29 cents (payout again every two month)
300 points - 60 cents (wow, your payout could reach 18$ monthly)

In the end this could lead to higher earnings for all advertisers who click, publish daily and receive additional traffic from EntreCard and other blog networks/search engines and reach more than 400 points.
Why- because these members who dropped now below 300 points earn 22 - 50 cents less each day and the earnings calculation is usually better for members who get more than 300/400 points daily!

There is also another possibility!
Why should you advertise when you could reach 18$ monthly without advertising but just 300 points?
With advertisement costs of 24$ and earnings of around 0.75 - 1.05 $ (for 360 - 500 points, my prediction with 150 advertisers), you would probably just break-even or make a small gain of some cents up to 9 $/month.

The first advantage is clear by advertising, you will get new visitors daily to your blog, new followers (since April 2009 i got now 101 new followers from EntreCard + Adgitize) and comments... i guess around 80 visitors depending on your blog's content and ad picture, ad placement and if you are an EntreCard member who drops back!

The second advantage is that you don't have the trouble of clicking 100 ads but just 50 ads which save you daily up to 30 minutes time. Time which you can invest in writing better and more frequently blog posts :)

How much did you earn over the last week?

You can see my earnings/advertisers statistic each day in the previous Adgitize blog post. Up to 8th November i could accumulate 5.83$. What about you?