There is a lot of talk about the new widgetbucks widget from mpire. I gave it a go on NextPimp for a little while and it was by far the worst performing ad network I have ever used. Its most likely my fault as I choose the “video games” category and it probably didnt just convert. I asked for some feedback on the forums and people promptly pointed me to their terms of service (which I will get to in a minute).
The main reason I stopped running it was that the widget takes 10 SECONDS on average to load. I just don’t think my users have that long of attention span. While their terms of service (which I will get to in a minute) does not permit me to show statistics I will tell you it was getting half the click through ratio of AdSense.
I do know the guys at mpire a little bit… the were very interested in buying AuctionAds last June. I suspected then they really were not interested so for the most part I told them to fly a kite. What I do find interesting is they have totally copied the entire marketing strategy we used… Everything from incetivized payouts to built in affiliates to … well its almost a exact copy. I guess I/we should be flattered.
So onto there terms of service.
Here is the confidentiality statement:
(b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program provided to by Mpire;
So you cant share any click through rates or statistics…. ok…
Publicity:
# Publicity.Client agrees that Mpire may use Client’s name and logo in presentations, marketing materials, press materials, customer lists, financial reports and Web site listings of customers and therefore grants Mpire a limited license to use Client’s logo in accordance with the foregoing.
Hey did you know they pretty much now own your companies logo… sweet.
Backlinks:
Back-links placed by Mpire in the HTML code must not be removed.
wow your are going to put backlinks in the html code that I can not remove?
I think over all there plan is brilliant and I am sure a lot of people will try it. Its to bad no body can share there results =(.
Right now everyone and their mom is blogging about widgetbucks cause they want all the referrals (they earn a portion of what you earn). But Most of the blogs I see talking about it (that matter) are not running it.. Gotta ask yourself why? =P
June 10, 2009 at 11:03 am
Widget Bucks is great. I used to work with that on many of my sites.
It has low payout. and good looking ads.
Good Click through rates as well.:)
November 6, 2007 at 12:03 am
I’m a fresher to this widgetbucks…. The widgetbucks html code that i have placed in my blog is not displaying any ads till now… I’ve placed the code 5 days back… Kindly visit my blog and give me suggestions… Will the widgetbucks gives more online money like Google’s adsense ?
November 2, 2007 at 3:29 am
No use to place a camera ad in the middle of the page and slay reader’s pleasure.
November 1, 2007 at 6:50 pm
It’s been around two weeks since using widget bucks and I am very happy with it. The blogs I place the code on are product driven and it seems my readers like it. For social sites I do not think widget bucks is a good way to go. I know this review said it was taking 10 seconds to load. Mine loads in about 1 second. Not sure why yours was taking so long. It might just be an issue widget bucks fix these last few weeks.
October 30, 2007 at 7:56 pm
From what i read at widget bucks blog they have removed the text links from their ads and also have reduced the loading time of the ads.
October 30, 2007 at 5:49 am
You think auction ads invented that “marketin techinque”
October 24, 2007 at 9:21 pm
I dropped them as they were not doing much with me at all and was very slow loading.
October 24, 2007 at 4:17 am
So far so good…, I am making an average of $4 per day from WB. The questions thar bother me is this: Can WB sustain this high tempo for a whole year?
AllAdvantage tried, it lasted some 18 months before it caved in. Would WB last that much? I tend to be persuaded that the high CPC of WB cannot be sustained, you can’t just dethrone AdSense in one month of operation. I feel any standard higher than the CPC standard set by AdSense would collapse at the feet of the Google Giant that rules the market for now.
October 23, 2007 at 4:24 pm
Same here – I figured it was a waste and am glad someone confirmed it
October 23, 2007 at 4:18 pm
10 seconds? I know I dont have that long of attention span
October 23, 2007 at 1:16 pm
i think the blogrush reward system is not too logical… like MLM.
unless blogrush own sites which “gives” impressions and dont take impressions .
October 23, 2007 at 7:57 am
hmm, seems like the blogrush/agloco scam. Those guys cannot deliver what they are marketing as. Its astronomical, the numbers and even just the the promises. Thanks for the headsup. Will keep 2 feet away.
October 22, 2007 at 5:13 pm
I’ve looked into Widgetbucks but have decided to hold off for now. I’ll wait it out a bit longer…
October 22, 2007 at 8:27 am
to each, their own
October 21, 2007 at 4:18 pm
http://widgetbucks.blogspot.com/2007/10/click-fraud-warnings-suspensions.html
Take a look at the comments…
October 21, 2007 at 10:22 am
They’re on about being grammar police, lol.
October 21, 2007 at 7:59 am
I joined widgetbucks, and when I cecked my email for the activation, there was your email alert with your post about widgetbucks. I am now going to reconsider that program.
October 21, 2007 at 3:30 am
Porn on ebay? Um? …..
October 20, 2007 at 3:53 pm
when widgetbucks is out, i’ve already feel that it somehow getting the concept from auctionads but with different ‘products’. i have been having quite ok performance from auctionads so i give a try at widgetbucks.
But as mention, widgetbucks is d*mn slow… totally slowed the loading of my sites and it has lousy performance. I removed it after 1 week of testing.
October 20, 2007 at 2:38 pm
After about a week of widget bucks being on one of my sites I have found:
1) It’s more profitable for my arcade sites.
2) It’s less profitable for every forum I’ve put it on.
October 20, 2007 at 5:00 am
Porn ads did not convert ? Impossible
October 20, 2007 at 4:55 am
It is PPC ads program like adsense, they use ebay products mostly and display flash ads on your site.
October 20, 2007 at 4:53 am
No probs you can try use shoe reff ID plz.
October 20, 2007 at 4:52 am
I dont know about copying and all but WB is running well on one of my site and they are paying good.If u have some niche related why are most scoled on ebay then wb pays lot more then adsense, if site is not revelant then CRT will be less.
October 20, 2007 at 4:50 am
WidgetBucks is good i used on one of my site and it gets better then adsense if your site is niche related.
October 20, 2007 at 1:00 am
Well, I tried it on couple of site but overall their cpc is good but ctr is way too low. So i dropped it after a week.
October 19, 2007 at 10:30 pm
I still gonna try WidgetBucks after reading this article though
.
October 19, 2007 at 2:39 pm
uh…it’s not like auction ads was super original. Things like goldenCAN and Chitika have been around for a while.
October 19, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Seriously, there’s no excuse for a widget taking so long to load. It destroys the user experience at a lot of sites, and that’s really inexcusable.
October 19, 2007 at 1:36 pm
Integration is key – it’s the reason you see so much advertorial content in magazines these days and why so many radio ads are made to sound like news reports. People don’t like ads in general. Making them blend in is so important.
October 19, 2007 at 11:33 am
attention span, what do you … oh look theres a cat … wow my hand is hot … is that a bird? … I’m hungry … shiny objects … ouch, thats sharp … i like fish … wow the sky is blue today .. i wonder how babys are made … my shirt is a bright color … ADD commercial is on … i wonder how water is made … what is cheese … my head hurts … oh look there is widgetbucks … im tired … goodnight
October 19, 2007 at 10:51 am
it really matters what kind of site you put Widgetbucks ads on. I’ve got some running on my videogame sites and their performance is blowing adsense away. However, on other sites that are more general or not in the same area as a category you can pick on Widgetbucks, they have pretty much close to or a zero CTR. if WB had a cellphone category Shoe’s site would have done well i bet. but with untargetted ads it makes sense its not doing well…
October 19, 2007 at 10:31 am
I used WidgetBucks for like… a week on my blog. They’re terrible. The main reason I took them down was actually the point you mentioned Shoe. They take an AGE to load, it’s ridiculous.
Also, they look way to much like traditional ads or something an average user would associate with an ad, which I think is also why the Click Through Rates for them are terrible.
Whereas AuctionAds, Adsense etc, can all be integrated or made to look less like a tradtional ad, plus they don’t rely on flash to take 10 years to load.
October 19, 2007 at 9:01 am
I wrote a review about WidgetBucks last week after about one week of usage.
Even though it seems to be a little slow, its doing very well on one of my websites. I replaced ad units from a competing service with WidgetBucks, and the money is even better.
Read my review at http://onlinepresence.blogsailor.com/2007/10/11/widgetbucks-a-review-after-1-week-of-usage/
October 19, 2007 at 7:56 am
It doesn’t come up in my feedreader.
October 19, 2007 at 7:55 am
Good analogy!
October 19, 2007 at 7:40 am
I don’t have 10 seconds online to waste. If something I have takes more than three seconds to load I start to cringe because I know it will cause visitors to leave. You had me at 10 seconds…
October 19, 2007 at 7:36 am
I don’t run it. I’m just one the people who talked about it
October 19, 2007 at 7:32 am
That’s someone else’s problem now
October 19, 2007 at 7:26 am
I guess you’re behind in referals but if you have a product related site its never too late.
October 19, 2007 at 5:35 am
Good points Shoe,
It never occurred to me what you said about them owning my logo. I have the widget on one of my websites and it takes forever for images (from shopping.com) to load. As an affiliate I can suggest a better deal. Sign up for the affiliate program with Ritz Camera or even Amazon for that matter and you will make more money than with WidgetBucks.
October 19, 2007 at 5:15 am
I guess WB is performing better than Auction Ads though. The reason being that it’s ad panels are more attractive. Maybe you should give WB a try since you get 97 Auction Ads referrals.
October 19, 2007 at 5:13 am
They are just starting out this and if they get strict like what Google Adsense does, they are like killing off their own income.
October 19, 2007 at 5:12 am
New things often get more clicks as reader are interested in where the panels will bring them..
October 19, 2007 at 5:10 am
I am not using it because I am not in the tech gadget niche. Although their T&C says that revealing the stats are not allowed, I still see many bloggers showing off though…
October 19, 2007 at 4:50 am
Nice one, might give it a try!
October 19, 2007 at 4:27 am
I gotta agree with the comment you made there Michelle!
October 19, 2007 at 4:06 am
At least someone don’t like widgetbucks like me… Damm how much I hate their statistics in their member area…
October 19, 2007 at 2:21 am
I tried them for a few days when John Chow blogged about them. They are dreadful. The ads were not only slow to load by they caused my whole site to crawl while it was loading.
Won’t be using them again and won’t recommend them to anyone.
October 19, 2007 at 1:30 am
the terms are similar to Google’s.
At least with Analytics Google has the (exact?) same statement about using company logo’s….
BlogEarners
October 19, 2007 at 12:42 am
LOL. Sounds like sour grapes to me. Maybe they weren’t interested in buying AuctionAds after they got a peek under the hood. Figured they could do something better themselves.
As for their terms, no different than a lot of other networks. You’re exaggerating and trying to create issues. They don’t “own” your logo. But if you don’ t like them flashing it on their marketing slides then you should take a pass on them.
They’re new so we have to wait to see if they crash and burn like so many others. At least their website isn’t under construction and saying “We are still in the process of making these major changes” like your buddy over at BlogRush. Talk about a lame widget/site.
October 19, 2007 at 12:28 am
Well, if everybody blogs about it, and I’m away from two weeks, then I’m 2 weeks behind everybody with promotion. It sounds a bit rubbish, so I’m not bothering
October 19, 2007 at 12:02 am
WidgetBucks slow down my page. Many people removed their widgets because of loading slowness.
October 18, 2007 at 11:39 pm
saves you money
October 18, 2007 at 11:28 pm
I cant be bothered to try it to be honest. Good you let me know on earlier i shouldn’t waste any time on it.
October 18, 2007 at 11:25 pm
I’m surprised you mention that now. They’re running for 3 weeks already.
October 18, 2007 at 11:24 pm
The CPC is very high. Higher than adsense. It’s true there is lower CTR but on my blog they make me a little less than adsense.
October 18, 2007 at 10:19 pm
i knew widgetsbucks was totally stupid!! thx for confirming this shoemoney!! keep up the good work!!
October 18, 2007 at 10:00 pm
Yeah same here. the loading is taking too long. Just placed it anyway.
October 18, 2007 at 9:27 pm
ShoeMoney should have stayed away from this… because both AuctionAds and ShoppingAds are SO bad… I am still waiting to see ONE cent from 97 AuctionAds referrals!
October 18, 2007 at 9:25 pm
Can’t share stats? How about these stats – http://zacjohnson.com/widgetbucks-top-performer/
October 18, 2007 at 9:17 pm
Same reason I removed it – took too long to load!
October 18, 2007 at 9:03 pm
In addition to those you mentioned, there are other important WidgetBucks program policies similar to Adsense’s such as the rule on invalid clicks, incentives for users to click, and proper ad placement.
There’s a summary here: WidgetBucks Terms of Service
October 18, 2007 at 8:39 pm
Im just happy they didnt use widgetbuxs.;)
October 18, 2007 at 8:18 pm
i tried it and it works for me
Hopefully, they will pay on payday.
October 18, 2007 at 8:13 pm
Not only did Auction Ads NOT load quickly, it gave a lot of pornographic ads in my site for teenagers/young adults. It was also down a lot of times and I did not get a single dime even though I got click-thrus. Auction Ads suck!
October 18, 2007 at 7:19 pm
I’ve tried it and the loading is really a problem. It takes too long. Maybe that’s the reason why the clicks are very few or none most of the time.
October 18, 2007 at 5:57 pm
I do hate how long it takes to load. I removed it from 1 of my sites after the length of loading time.
I also think that it’s a great idea but pretty much was a modified version of auctionads. But hey, they figured a way to do it and get a lot of buzz in the process…
October 18, 2007 at 5:54 pm
I agree on the loading slowness – very poor.
However while I do promote them – I also use them on my product related blogs and my initial testing is showing pretty good results. I’ve got a split test on at present that rotates chitika and widgetbucks in the one position. WidgetBucks has a CTR that is 3 times higher than Chitika in that position and Chitika had a CTR that was 2 times higher than AdSense when I previously did a split test between Chitika and AdSense.
Chitika seems to be paying more per click in that ad position – but with the higher CTR it seems that WidgetBucks is the better option for me so far. Of course it’s early days so I’ll continue to test.
I think WB has some room to improve though. For example there is currently no way to target specific products/models which I think would improve it’s performance a lot.
For me it’s one of those things that I think people should test for themselves on different blogs. It’ll definitely convert well for some blogs (product related ones) just like AuctionAds converted well on certain blogs (but not others).
I think that it’s probably unfair to critique people for promoting it and not using it on the blogs that they are promoting it on – simply because the kind of blog you’d write about it on wouldn’t be suitable. So for me at ProBlogger I promoted it (as I did AuctionAds) but didn’t run either of them there because it’s not relevant to do so – of course I did test it elsewhere.
Hmmm – enough of my rambling.
October 18, 2007 at 5:53 pm
Widgetbucks are slow, but they are earning me more than Chitika or AdSense! I’m giving them a shot. They’re new right? Let them flesh things out a little.
October 18, 2007 at 5:46 pm
Id have to disagree on WB being a rip-off, cause AA was a cpa focused on a single company ebay while WB is a cpc thats fead by multiple online stores. So with wb you dont have all your fish in one barrel.
October 18, 2007 at 5:41 pm
Catching up with what? Its an ad network, you publish their ads and everytime someone clicks on the ad they pay a high rpc.
October 18, 2007 at 5:38 pm
For me Widgetbucks works well since its cpc unlike AA which made me .02 off of 77 clicks. Widgetbucks has paid more than adsense and has higher ctrs.
The logo thing is B.S. and I think they would have been better off getting permission on a person by person basis instead of placing an all encompassing statement like that in their TOS.
October 18, 2007 at 5:24 pm
Wow! Very interesting about the fine print of WidgetBucks. That just goes to show you that it really does pay to read the fine print!
October 18, 2007 at 5:07 pm
i used it on wootagent and it performed exceptionally well. so far.
October 18, 2007 at 4:45 pm
Come on Mr Money, their banner looks shit, 20 different products in 20 seconds (ok slight exageration
just not clickable.
What do I need “product rating” and “trend” for when looking at world famous brands?! Give me the god damn lowest price I’ve ever seen (in big letters/numbers) and I’m yours.
October 18, 2007 at 4:41 pm
Well I will not be joining widgetbuckets – bloody stupid name anyway. but I wish I had not joined bloglines either. I didn’t have rss and I’m trying to enter the competition and they will not send me my validation email – and it has not gone in spam.
I will try again – with a more sensible feedreader company.
October 18, 2007 at 4:30 pm
You missed the directions then… click the link from your FEEDREADER
October 18, 2007 at 4:19 pm
I’ve been sharing results, as well as commenters on my site. Mpire has been visiting my site and they haven’t seemed to care.
October 18, 2007 at 4:13 pm
AuctionAds has not alwyas loaded quickly
October 18, 2007 at 4:11 pm
Nobody uses it because like auctionads, it performs like crap.
October 18, 2007 at 4:09 pm
Can you tell me what you site is about,
Is it content related or is it ecommerce related?
October 18, 2007 at 4:01 pm
I completely see why they would want the back links to remain in tact. It gives them an easy way to get more signups. I think they’re a little overbroad on the logo use, though. I can see how they would want to mention use of their system by big players, but will they scare off a few of the big players who become nervous about the free use of the BP’s logo, name, etc.?
October 18, 2007 at 4:01 pm
So far WidgetBucks has out-performed AdSense on my sites, but I used the higher CPC paying ads like LCD TVs. I’m not a big fan of what AuctionAds became.. one of the worst stories I’ve every seen..
October 18, 2007 at 3:59 pm
Another sidebar cluttering option, that seemingly pays you money when someone clicks on it. If they click that is.
So far I’ve had 24 referrals, lets hope they promote it more than me. So I can make some moolah!
October 18, 2007 at 3:55 pm
No matter what it was still a rip off of auction ads, and what I have read its not doing that well,
But then again, I would think it depends on your site as well
October 18, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Love your blog! I just wish you would use the proper form of “their”.
October 18, 2007 at 3:49 pm
I signed up and got the code. It was strictly javascript, no hard link to their site from the embedded code that I could see. Javascript links don’t count anyway… so no biggie there.
I ran it in auto-mode (merchsense? dumb). Anyway, it seemed to work OK on some pages… way off on others. That was expected. But the ad was so damn flashy it was almost annoying… and I wasn’t in the mood to piss my users off on that particular day… so I yanked it.
I realized I was pretty happy with my balance of ads now and didn’t really have a place for it… but curious to see how success some folks are. I hear the payouts are decent right now… but remember YPN??? Enough said.
October 18, 2007 at 3:48 pm
Wasn`t happy with the results so i pulled it. Might give it a run again soon.
October 18, 2007 at 3:48 pm
I think we’re going to see a lot more AffiliateWidgets soon. AuctionAds did too well to be ignored.
October 18, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I know it takes forever to load and it will not load unless its viwable – which is BS – also I always almost get data unreachable – I do not know if anyone else is getting this
I do not think its out of its alpha stage
October 18, 2007 at 3:47 pm
I got the same thing when I tried too.
October 18, 2007 at 3:43 pm
I should say, I only ever tried AuctionAds after it was sold, so got in late but it does preform a lot worse than WidgetBucks for me now.
October 18, 2007 at 3:41 pm
same with me…
October 18, 2007 at 3:40 pm
WidgetBucks is working a lot better for me than AuctionAds ever did on many of my sites…will wait till payday though before I recommend them to anyone.
October 18, 2007 at 3:40 pm
Just read this on e-mail and tried to enter in the contest and the error “You must be a subscriber to enter” came up. Huh? I came from my e-mail, LoL
October 18, 2007 at 3:29 pm
I personally think that the guys from widget bucks stole your concept and figured with the auction ads transfer ( being sold ) , they had a chance to jump in and take over the market,
But what they didn’t realize is that it takes more then just someone elses idea to become successful,
I bet these guys will dry up, I can see it already ..no offense, But just my opinion from what I am seeing across the net and such
October 18, 2007 at 3:26 pm
I signed up for it and placed the ads on my site for all of about 5 minutes. My pages immediately took so long to load I went right back and removed the adds. I had the exact same problem with AdBrite, well maybe AdBrite was worse, but just barely. All of my other ads work fine.
October 18, 2007 at 3:23 pm
what’s widget bucks?
October 18, 2007 at 3:15 pm
I missed the whole beginning of Widgetbucks, and to be honest I cannot be bothered catching up. I’ll stick to what I know, and widgetbucks appeals to me as much as standing in the artic sea in a jockstrap.
October 18, 2007 at 3:11 pm
Lovely! Thx mate for sharing this, I was about to try it but now I’ll just pass… :p
October 18, 2007 at 3:01 pm
agreed…
October 18, 2007 at 3:00 pm
saves me time, thanks for the heads up.
October 18, 2007 at 2:42 pm
Your AuctionAds was successful because it was small and loaded quickly. This WidgetBucks looks about as smooth and easy and trying to sh!t a brick.