Recently Ad.ly launched its self serve advertising platform which allowed anyone to go in and purchase tweets from publishers. When we relaunched the ShoeMoney System I tried it out with a 1200.00 test buy.
Even with a small budget of $ 1200 I was able to get over 30 tweeters including:
TMZ
Stephen Colbert
Stanley Tang
TwtFM
The campaign stats:
Here are stats from part of the campaign:
Total cost: $1,138.65
Followers reached: 411,772
Total clicks: 3,253
Campaign CTR: 0.79%
Average Price Per Click: $0.35
So how awesome was the return? Well…. I am such a badass Clickbank marketer that I did not know I could not track my own affiliate for my own product…. so I have zero stats on exactly what did what.
However we did do over 40 sales that came from twitter as a referral that did not have an affiliate code… which would equal $8,000.00 per month, but again I am not sure they came from ad.ly…. there is quite a bit of talk on twitter about the ShoeMoney System.
I will do another test buy next week and report more accurate ROI 
But with the introduction of the self service platform now on ad.ly I am finally starting to see the 1200 plus people that I have referred to ad.ly start to make some cash . This was always the biggest feedback that we get from people who signed up to be publishers with ad.ly. They just never got any offers. Well *some* are now:
I hear you…. big deal… well its better then a goose egg. Its still very pale in comparison to our earnings from sponsored tweets:
But with the self serve advertising network now running on ad.ly we will see what happens. Better get on board and sign up now!
About the author...
Jeremy Schoemaker – who has written 2415 posts on ShoeMoney.com.
Hi I am Jeremy Schoemaker and ShoeMoney.com is my blog. 99% of the post here are done by me but you will see others occasionally make guest posts. This blog is fun to write but for my day job I run several online companies.
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{ 71 comments… read them below or add one }
Oho! So the Twitterati are making even more money out of parading their lives out in public. Can’t say I don’t approve, though. After all, if you’ve the fame and influence, why not make use of it? I wonder if I can use ad.ly to my advantage as well?
Woah. You got Stephen Colbert tweeting about ShoeMoney! And is Stanley Tang really 17y/o? That makes me a little bit insecure.
Just seventeen, and already making lots of money!
He IS 17. He started blogging at 14, I think. I couldn’t believe it myself. But you know kids nowadays, some of them are tech-savvy and they’re quick to learn the ropes of internet and technology. When my nephew was 12 he was already making blog layouts for friends. And my daughter is only 7, and she’s asking me why I don’t have an iPhone. How does she know what an iPhone is, anyway?
Well, to compare myself with those kids you mentioned — when I was seven I was trying to sell lemonade. At 13, I was selling baseball cards, and at 17 I was working at a fast food joint.
Kids are all about technology today, it’s kind of amazing and scary at the same time.
That is not a bad cost per click! Can’t wait to see the results of next weeks tests where you let us know your real return.
i was excited to see the post title and thought we will get some numbers to finally see if sponsored tweets work for advertisers. Looking forward to your next post on this. (BTW, two posts on this mean more referrals for you
)
You’re going to give Matt Cutts a heart attack. You have to stop. He pops out of nowhere on Twitter to say things like, “Unfollowed. I don’t want garbage going through my stream.” He did it to you, and I’ve now noticed him to do it to a handful of people now. It’s bizarre.
Jason Calacanis asked on Twitter, “Thinking of running Sponsored Tweets and donating the earnings to charity. What do you guys think” Right on cue, Matt said: “I would unfollow you.”
WTF? It’s weird, really.
I’ve not tried the ad.ly system yet. If Shoe is so confident about it then it must be something worth the try. Awaiting for your next post on this. I like to look at the figures, then it will be easier to give it a try.
Nice, this. So all you need to really make money on Ad.ly is a bit of patience? I thought about doing this before, but got such mixed reviews on it that I’d given up on it completely. This post has resurrected my interest in the system. With your vote of confidence, though, Jeremy, I might give it a try.
Thanks Shoe. Always looking for new traffic sources!
Will definitely stay tune for updates on this. I’m very curious about the ROI.
I didn’t know TMZ tweeted ads. I thought they only tweeted about celeb gossip. I had to unfollow TMZ since they kept on spamming my feed.
Does this mean that twitter gets something too, from all the increased traffic on their site?
I’m not sure. I think it’s just the Twitter user who will earn. And I don’t often hear of non-Twitter users visiting the TMZ twitter. TMZ has its own site, so people can visit that instead.
I read somewhere that ad.ly brings in sponsored tweets from celebrities. Are these tweets for real?
I suppose they are, because otherwise, the celebrities would probably be entitled to sue the advertisers.
I think they’d be honest, at least, about their endorsements. A lot of people put their faith in their favorite celeb and would think that they can’t be steered wrong by them. So I guess the celebrities have their reputation riding on every tweet.
As if celebrity reputation matters to anyone anymore. Brittney Spears breakdown ring a bell?
Most probably. But then who knows for sure?
I gotta say, that’s some ROI right there.
I have friends who are into ad.ly as well, but I haven’t asked them about their returns either. If there are good figures, I’d join in on the ad.ly bandwagon!
Would definitely like to see more stats from a publishers end. I never see anyone do real indepth analysis of Twitter PPC (Although your one back in the day using RevTwt and Social Spark was pretty good, And managed to flood Revtwt with Social Spark ads within a day). I’ve seen others have a go at it, but they have either severly limited budgets, or don’t know how to word tweets at all well. Copy writing is just as important on Twitter ads as it is in regular PPC, I think personally that’s why Sponsored Tweets does so well, is that publishers can make the ads fit with their normal tweets.
Also pretty suprised at the clicks (Lack of). Less than 1%
I admit I didn’t know anything about Ad.ly before you mentioned it, Shoe. I’ve just looked it up and now I’m really interested. But I’ll wait for your update.
Nice find Shoe. I’ll definitely give ad.ly a try. I’m eagerly awaiting your next updates on your profits. Thx again.
This can more than make money.
You don’t have to wait, if you have a product worth promoting cough up something like 500 bucks and see what return you get.
Your results will surely be different than Shoemoney’s because of who he is and the type of product he’s selling.
You have a point there. I’m basically a nobody when it comes to marketing. Still, it would be good to see Shoe’s results first. And I’m not really planning to go ahead and use ad.ly. I’m just tempted, but I’m still on the fence about it.
I love following the promotional tweets of my favorite celebs! Though I can’t say that I’m encouraged to buy every single thing they endorse.
You know, I wonder about the benefits of tweeting ads too. I mean, yeah, people see it, but who really does anything about it?
A lot of people. That’s why celebrities are such a strong influence on buying behavior. If Miley Cyrus said that she “loved the thrill of Brand XY orange juice” in the mornings, you can bet your bikini that a lot of pre-teen girls will be begging their moms to buy them some come grocery shopping time.
Hey, I’ve heard about celebs twittering about products to endorse them, and I’ve wondered if the promotions were authentic. But a little research reveals that they are – advertisers get to choose a celeb to tweet about their product, and if they do, the celebrities get some sort of compensation. It’s completely win-win, though one has to wonder how much celebrities are getting paid to tweet about, say, soda. On that note, it’s authentic. Whether or not the said celebrities actually use the product they’re tweeting about, well, your guess is as good as mine.
That sounds good. I wonder how much it costs advertisers, though?
I read that the person Tweeting gets to set the price that they wish to be paid per tweet, but the system automatically suggests a price, as well. I guess that’s to prevent some people from getting too greedy. But really, it’s got to be a price war out there.
There’s something to be said for making people compete to offer manufacturers the lowest price possible. If you’re just some hack without a ton of followers, you won’t get anywhere, even if you do have one of the lowest prices. But if you’re a celebrity, even an internet-made celebrity, you can rake in the dough and demand a pretty good price.
Well, them’s the perks of being popular.
Ara600, it depends on the popularity or celebrity status of the person tweeting. Some celebs have been touted to rake in as much as $10,000 per tweet.
That’s a lot of money for 140 characters.
I don’t even follow twitter anymore. There’s too much clutter online!
Hdelacruz, there’s always going to be a lot of clutter online. The trick is sorting through everything.
I agree with socialanim00. As internet marketers, we have to know not only what will make us stand out from everyone else amidst the virtual slew of information on the internet, but also what are the potential gold mines. Twitter is one such site – I mean, if you have regular followers, I’m willing to bet that at least half of them see your posts. Maybe, if you’re lucky, half of that buys your product or the product you endorse. All that for the cost of a tweet – which is free, by the way.
Yes And Adf.ly Pay Too
Read More: http://view.cz.cc/
Make you wonder why you would ever post an ad.ly affiliate link proactivly with a crummy referral return. Maybe they just need more people trying them, but they aren’t the popular short url site right now. Cant wait to see what you got next Shoe
I think ad.ly is still worth a try. It might just need a bit of time, even with the crummy rate. Who knows, maybe if more people try it and stick to it, it could be the next dark horse of the social marketing scene. Or maybe not.
Great post. Good job with the detailed information.
Still a big money..
Good job..
I got an offer the other day from a medium size product website for a tweet…it was for $.13, although I only have 400 followers so I guess its a start.
Hey, congratulations! That’s still a start. Hope things look up from here.
That’s a good conversion from Twitter, who says Twitter traffic does not convert…
Soon, real soon ad.ly will catch up with sponsored tweet and surpass it.
I’m pretty bummed about the amount of offers Ad.ly has come up with so far. Sponsored Tweets seems far more active at the moment for both my referrals and for me.
Any tips on how to get offers other than having 60,000 active followers that convert?
I have saw a lot of ad.ly sponsored tweets.
Hey so whats with the Vemma/Verve energy drink ad? i didn’t think you would be into the mlms?
I just registered ad.ly. I have not got a sponsor since then. I also signed up I was fortunate to be able sponsoredtweet sponsors 5.
Hopefully I see a few offers from ad.ly soon
I read someplace that there was an issue with the FTC regarding these sponsored tweets. Anyone got the latest news on that?
WhateverWorks, I heard the same thing through the grapevine a couple of months back, and since then, it’s become something of an issue in social media. Not a very big one, but an issue nonetheless. People felt that the Federal Trade Commission should step in to regulate sponsored tweeting. There was even an article on imediaconnection.com on how advertisers can keep their noses clean when making use of this hybrid of marketing and PR. Mostly by being absolutely sure that people know it’s an ad, not a personal endorsement, and by being really careful about what a Tweeter can and cannot say per tweet.
The FTC has released a set of guidelines that covers sponsored blogging and sponsored tweeting in 2009. Which just shows that the government is keeping up with the times, at least.
I look forward to seeing those numbers. No doubt, Twitter is a largely untapped resource. Thanks.
I know, right? Twitter has over 50 million users and growing! Why, activate but a fifth of that and you’re made.
Thanks for the info. I just signed up for it. We will see how it goes.
I wonder if some of the celebs who are tweeting ads are really the celebs they’re claiming to be. I mean, it could be their agent or a close family member/friend who tweets for them. Who knows, right? It could be like the agent’s/friend’s sideline.
Well, as with so many things in this world, we will just have to give them the benefit of the doubt and trust that the posts were made in good faith, I guess.
Didn’t know about ad.ly, although I have to say a couple of my Twitter friends have been posting ads lately. So that’s how it works. Interesting.
Yes, it’s fast becoming a mainstay in the twitter universe. It’s a pretty cool way to make money off your content.
Wow, the sponsored tweets numbers are really impressive; I tried both services with my 50k followers acc, but I didn’t get many ads – I guess it’s really hard for European tweeters to join the game when their Twitter location is set to something outside the US.
Wow. You have 50,000 followers? Man, that’s massive! But I’m surprised that European advertisers haven’t taken up the same initiative that US advertisers have. You really haven’t had much luck finding ads?
Beautiful site, I like that.
thnk about info
Not sure if its enough money made from 1220 referrals only 13USD… from that number I made thousands in other networks… anyway thanks for the tip.
What is the avg. rate which people with over 50,000 followers charge?
I’m just doing some research and since it’s sunday ad.ly won’t be approving my advertiser account today.
Ad.ly is scam just like everything else that promises to make you money.
It really is amazing what you can do through twitter. 40 sales through twitter referrals is impressive in my book.