I thought I'd let you know I've made a change to my Entrecard advertising policy. I previously expressed displeasure at Entrecard now doing paid advertisements on the same widget as credit advertisements. I chose to limit myself to advertising on "no paid ad" blogs in the hopes that my ad would gain more exposure there. I also chose not to accept paid ads for my own blog, for the sake of consistency. However, I have decided that this has become more trouble than it's worth, for several reasons. First, looking for blogs that I can afford to spend credits on, have high traffic, AND accept no paid ads was taking more time than I and my employer are willing to spend. Second, I have been given cause to believe that paid ads do not hurt the Entrecard system as many have supposed. The following is the response from another Entrecard member to the double-widget idea.
impNERD Says:
@Reg Fife The ads together at a whole would get 100% exposure, yes, but not each individual ad. They are paying per 1000 views. So no matter where the ad is being displayed, it will still only show those 1000 times.
CPM means cost-per-thousand (M is the roman numberal for thousand).
The difference between a double sided widget (or four or six or however many people want) is that right now the paid ad shows in the exact same spot as the EC ad. So when someone attempts to click ‘drop’, the ad is right above and easy to see and ECers won’t know whether or not the ad is paid or EC until they hover over it.
So no matter what, the ad is being seen by 100% of the people who are dropping when the paid ad is being shown. Once you have a double sided widget that number goes down. It is much easier to go up and down than it is to go up then right.
The best example I can give on what I am talking about is a heat map. Search Google images for ‘blog heat map’ and it’ll show where people’s eyes head to first. I imagine that an EC blog will have a darker red around the drop box, then a ligher color on the ad, and an even lighter (if not blue) color anywhere else near the ad.
So say 1000 people drop an EC card on your blog. 100 of those click through to the ad (no matter if it is paid or EC). Only 10 of those bother looking to the right of the ad and probably just 1 looking to the direct left after the click. Each advertiser will still be paying the exact same amount of money they are today, but will receive 90% less clicks. That isn’t good business.
Lastly, due to various blogs having problems loading on my computer (making drops more difficult), and because of other time constraints, I have decided to be a paid advertiser myself, to compensate for lost drops. So in order to be consistent, I am now accepting paid advertisements on Entrecard.
