This post will cover three of the Blog marketing resources that I use and the traffic that I get. I'll talk a little bit about how they work, and spend most of my time on
Adgitize, because I actually make money with
Adgitize.
If you would like to start using Adgitize and start generating revenue from very little work, you can sign up here. Or you can sign up by clicking the
Adgitize logo above. (Note:
these are my affiliate links, and if you use them, I will make a few bucks).
You won't get rich on the program, but it's a nice way to get a few dollars in Pay Pal.
But
Adgitize isn't just a tool for generating cash; it can also generate traffic.
But you are probably wondering about the cash.
In May, I added Adgitize ads to my blog and made $2.23 between May 23 and May 31.
In June, I began running my ad on the network. That costs $14/month. I made $18.34 -- a $4.34 profit.
In July, I did the same thing and made $16.52 -- a $2.52 profit.
In addition to the small profit, Adgitize also drives 15%-20% of my traffic.
Here is where visitors to Cromely's World are coming from:
June 2009 Traffic Sources:
July 2009 Traffic Sources
Each month, my top traffic source has been
Entrecard. Cromely's World has been in the top 15 most popular blogs on Entrecard for the past several months, and has spent most of the last two months in the top 5.
Direct traffic is another big category. That could include people getting here by clicking in their favorites folder, typing in my URL, or getting here some other way without a link. It could also inlcude other search engines or Entrecard hits that just don't show up in Google Analytics for whatever reason.
The other big traffic source in July was Stumble Upon, primarily because of my
post about a hotel in SC. While the other sites provide fairly steady traffic, Stumble Upon traffic is often a surprising bonus.
CMF Ads is another advertising network. It sends me a realtively small amount of traffic, but considering I put very little effort into it, I'm okay with that. I can likely increase my traffic from
CMF by being a more active participant in their forums, instead of the lurker I am. There are some great people in the network, so I'm happy to be part of it.
So how do they work together?Entrecard allows members to earn credits by clicking on the Entrecard widget on other blogs (up to 300/day) and to earn credits by hosting an Entrecard widget on their own blog. Users also earn credits when someone clicks on the widget on their own blog. Users buy ads on other Entrecard members' blogs by spending the credits they earned.
The advantages are that it's free to participate and people will visit your blog just to earn their credit. Users can also see who has visited their blog and clicked on the widget, so they can "return the drop" by visiting that other blogger's site and clicking on the widget there.
The disadvantages are that all that clicking (or dropping) and loading web pages can take a bit of time. Also, some people deride the traffic as "junk" because people are coming just for the credit. I disagree with that view, but it is a legitimate argument. It's also a topic for another post.
On Adgitize, users earn points in a different way. The maximum number of points per day is 500. But there 5 ways users can earn points:
Posing a new Blog entry = 100 points
Visiting 100 Blogs (or just 50 if you are an advertiser) = 100 points
Being an advertiser = 100 points
Ad Views = up to 100 points
Page Views = up to 100 points
You earn money based on how many points you earn each day.
Users who host ads can have multiple Adgitize ads running on their blog at one time. The more ads that a blogger runs, the more points that blogger earns. I run a total of 9 ads on my blog for Adgitize sites. And the ads change each time you load the page.
Becuse I run 9 ads, that means for every page view I get, I get 9 ad views.
The advertising system is different from Entrecard. In Entrecard, only 1 ad runs for an entire day, and a blogger can host only one Entrecard widget. Plus, you get to approve or reject each ad individually.
In Adgitize, multiple ads run throughout the day and there is no interaction between the advertiser and the blogger. Bloggers do not approve ads in advance. However, they do have the option to manually reject ads and prevent them from showing up in the future.
So it's a different philosophy of running ads.
The other similarity is in "Clicking" Entrecard users get credits for each site they visit that has the Entrecard widget (up to 300/day). Adgitize users get points for each Adgitize ad they click on (up to 100/day or 50/day).
On Adgitize, if you are a paying advertiser ($14/month) you only have to click on 50 ads to get your 100 points a day. If you are not a paying advertiser, you have to click on 100 sites.
The key difference (besides the volume of clicks) between the two approaches, is what you click on. When a visitor comes to my site to get their Entrecard credit, they do it by clicking on the Entrecard widget in my side bar.
When they come to my site to get their Adgitize points, they click on a Adgitize ad, which opens a new tab or browser window with that new site. So the new site defiintely gets traffic.
The other difference in a level of anonymity. When an Entrecard member clicks the widget on my blog, I know who they are. It shows up in my Inbox so I can then go visit and click on their site.
I have no way of knowing who in the Adgitize network clicks on my site.
There are advantage and disadvantages to both those approaches. On Entrecard, you can get in the habbit of doing mutal clicks which means you visit a lower variety of sites. Also, that daily click becomes an informal currency. On Adgitize, I seem a wider array of blogs, but I don't know who my regular visitors are.
The other challenge with Entrecard is the volume of sites involved. Visiting 300 sites in a day means spending less time on each site than when you are just trying to visit 50 sites a day.
If you already use Entrecard, why would you want to ad Adgitize to the mix? It seems like in addition to the 300 drops you might try to make on Entrecard each day, Adgitize is now asking for 100 (or 50) more.
Here's the trick -- many Entrecard users are also Adgitize users. So if you participate in both networks, you can come to Cromely's World, read my post, maybe make a comments, click on my Entrecard widget, and then also click on one of my Adgitize ads to be taken to another site.
Adding those Adgitize clicks doesn't result in any significant increase in time or work. And the ability to cut the number or clicks you need to do in half by becoming an advertiser makes it even easier.
If you don't want to do anything other than write your content, just become an advertiser and put the widget on your site.
Unlike Entrecard, the amount of clicking you do has
nothing to do with how much traffic the site will bring you. Without clicking, you may not make as much money on the system, and you may not even clear your $14 ad cost, but you will definitely subsidize it by just being an advertiser, producing frequent posts, and hosting ads.
If you put both the Entrecard and Adgitize widgets on your blog, you also increase your traffic because those who participate in both networks will have an added incentive to come to your site.
Success in the Entrecard program requires more effort.
Success in the Adgitize program requires good blogging habbits, being an advertiser, and bringing in outside traffic.
What about CMF Ads?CMF Ads is a little different from the other two. In CMF Ads, there is no clicking involved. You simply host ads and buy ads. You can purchase ads in the system with cash you bring to the system, or with cash you earn within the system.
When I started with CMF it was just by hosting ads. People within the network could choose to purchase an ad in my rotation. Each ad ran for a month. Multiple ads can run simultaneously. After a month, I had enough cash in the program to start buying ads on other sites. It generates a little bit of traffic, but that traffic requires zero effort on my part.
Success in the program, and increasing my earnings requires, that I increase my traffic. The more ads I sell (and have rotating through the three slots I make available) the more money I make.
A key metric advertisers look at is the cost per impression. To make that number look better, I can either lower my monthly cost (currently $.50 through the CMF network) or increase the number of impressions. Increasing the number of impressions means increasing the amount of traffic I get to Cromely's World.
And how to do I increase traffic?Through advertising on Adgitize, advertising on Entrecard blogs, and visiting Entrecard blogs.
How do I earn more points in Adgitize? By generating traffic through the Entrecard program and by bring in more traffic through my ads on CMF, which I can buy because more people buy ads on my site through CMF.
How do I increase my traffic on Entrecard? By being an active participant, and hosting an Adgitize widget which encourages Adgitize/Entrecard members to visit my site.
The three systems work well together, and I'm happy to participate in all three.
What about Stumble Upon?Stumble Upon is the big wild card. My Stumble traffic from July decreased my cost/impression in CMF Ads, and the extra ad/page views gave me more points in Adgitize.
Right now, I'm dependent on having sites "stumbled" by the right power users to generate those big spikes in traffic. My network isn't big enough yet. But it's getting there.
My Stumble page is here.I may have rambled a bit comparing and contrasting programs, but because of their differences, they work well together.
At least until the next big thing in blog marketing
