It has seemed to me that my blogs get fewer clicks from Entrecard widgets than they used to. I have no way to prove this since I haven't saved early data, but I was able to collect some statistics from the last 20 ads which I purchased on other sites for each of my blogs.
The 15% EC ad placement has really put an end to effective chain clicking. I used to do this myself. It was a quick way to get in a number of clicks and a good way to see some new blogs. Now, you get hung up very quickly. If you have the EC toolbar you can click to see a random blog, but I have found this frustrating because a rather high number of the blogs served don't have widgets.
By choosing the Ads tab and then "turbocharge" I was able to look at the stats from the past month, not just the top 10 which are presented in the regular statistics tab. I looked at the past 20 blogs on which I bought ads, and how many clicks total I received.
| name of blog | blogs advertised on | number of clicks |
| My Quality Day | 20 | 56 |
| Just Throw Money | 20 | 27 |
| Get Off The Couch News | 20 | 55 |
| North Country Trail News | 20 | 15 |
Subjective Observations:
There were a lot of ads that received no clicks at all.
Most hits came from blogs where I had not run an ad before, or at least not for a long time.
To aid in any conclusions I should explain that I haven't been buying any ads that cost more than 64 ECs for this entire time. (OK, I might have bought a couple at 128.)
Subjective Conclusions:
EC is not a source of very many hits. It definitely gets your banner out for people to become familiar with. (This is similar to CMF ads, which also results in very few actual hits.)
I should place ads on more different, and unfamiliar blogs. I continue to be frustrated by the small number of nature and outdoor recreation blogs on EC. And as long as they refuse to add an appropriate category, they won't attract many. And quite a few of the ones they did have left as the result of one of the many rough spots.
I will continue to use Entrecard because as long as I don't invest very much time into trying to accumulate points by dropping it's still a good way to earn "brand recognition."
Entrecard 15% Ad Checking
| web ad income Nov 5 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $.00 Adgitize $.56 Project Wonderful $.04 Pine Cone Research $3.00 Chitika $.03 Neobux $.04 ______________________ Total: $3.67 |
8 comments:
Apparently I've had 1379 clicks via ads I placed in the last 30 days. I'll calculate some stats to see if there's anything interesting.
I'm a small blogger, but you are welcome to place your EC ad on my blog anytime! :)
I don't buy anymore ads only from my category, too boring and most of them are too pricey if i look in the Finance and Investing TOP 30.
I just choose from the popularity rating with my system (2 EC >20 points, 4 EC > 40 points, 8 EC > 80 points, 16 EC > 160 points, 32 EC > 320 points and so on, only no more useful from 128+ EC, there i look that blog has a popularity bigger than 1.000 points + the ad price.
The price ~= popularity/10 formula is working pretty well for me too. :-) I advertise in all categories and usually avoid blogs which haven't uploaded a custom image.
John- You are doing really well! I think many of your pix are more exotic than mine. I don't have wonderful rock cliffs. Well, I think maybe you advertise more than I do too.
A Marie- You were already in my favs. I just bought an ad.
Cornyman- That seems like a pretty good system. I'll check it out and test it on some sites that I buy from.
John- Yes, I almost always avoid non-custom widget sites.
All things being equal, a 125x125 ad sitting on a blog will receive the same number of clicks per 1000 page views regardless of the ad agency behind it. Run millions of ads on thousands of blogs like I have and will see for yourself. Project Wonderful makes this easy enough to accomplish through their automation. The #1 factor in clicks is the strength of the ad. If it interests people they will click it.
However, there are other factors to consider:
1. the number of ads on a page.
2. the location of the ad.
3. the source of the site's traffic. Is it search based or traffic exchange traffic.
4. If the blog's content updated while your ad was showing. (this leads to more real viewers).
5. Publisher clicks. Does the publisher click their own ads out of curiousity, fraud, or loyalty toward their advertisers?
6. Page view fraud. I recently caught a blog refreshing it's page 3 times for each reader, thus tripling their pageview stats.
7. Accidental clicks. Hundreds of people clicking yellow rectangles in a mad rush are bound to miss click every hundred clicks or so.
8. paid clicks. Either a person is paid to click a 125x125 ad or they are not. You can't compare a traffic exchange click with a true ad click.
I have to agree somewhat with what Turnip said, however when people are encouraged to visit one another's blogs, you may see different results. For example, people dropping cards won't visit the default Entrecard ads as often, for obvious reasons.
Some of it also has to do with whether you are using one of the default widgets or one that you've created yourself. Results also vary greatly between users, but the network could have some part in the quality of traffic.
Turnip- everything you say is true, of course. I was merely trying to compare current EC droppers with the past, and that with only half the data. So everything I said was pretty subjective.
EC tips- I think that what you and Turnip have said is accurate, but much broader in scope than what I was looking at. Thanks for your thoughts.
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