How CMF Ads is changing blog advertising

Way back in 2008, when the world was young(er) and so was I, a few advertising services were available for bloggers. At the time, Entrecard was the main place where I advertised my blog. Sure, you shouldn’t rely too heavily on one traffic source, but it worked wonders for me.

Exactly one year after I joined, I removed the widget and joined forces with Turnip and Stan to set up CMF Ads. They had already launched the service to a small group of bloggers – I was one of 20 in the initial group. Honestly, it was a bit daunting as I’d heard how much traffic the other members of the group were getting. I wasn’t getting very much at all, and didn’t really understand why. Now I do…

Widget advertising, taxes, and a near-perfect model

The widget-based model adopted by Entrecard had clearly influenced a few other sites, including Spottt, SiteHoppin and 125Exchange.

CMF Ads was also built with the widget at the centre of the economy, but with a few key differences. Firstly, we chose to display a random selection of ads, instead of one ad at a time. Secondly, we opted for a 30 day ad rather than a 1 day ad. Third, we eliminated all taxes except for a hefty (50%) cashout tax. This allowed members to exchange ads back and forth indefinitely, but was painful if you wanted to cash out.

In 2009, we believed we had a near-perfect model. A few members seemed to echo this. Unfortunately, most people wanted to make money, perhaps fuelled by the ability to make your money back (or more) over at Adgitize, probably one of our biggest competitors.

Criticism eventually pushed us to review the taxes in CMF Ads. Now, we are almost at the final stage – where ads will be taxed at 10%, and the cashout tax is a mere 10%. This will be the case from September 2010. Even with the large cashout tax, I still think we had a better setup when the ad tax was at zero. But as I said, too many people wanted to make money, so the cashout tax was more of a barrier than the ad tax.

Does widget advertising actually work?

That really depends what you’re advertising. Do you want to make money from your ads? Can you actually make money from someone visiting your blog and maybe clicking on one of your ads? Or are you relying on money from the widget ad itself?

I think that widget advertising works best with a decent image – actually, that’s true of most advertising. It’s just especially true of a widget ad. Your ad often has to stand out in a massive crowd of widgets and other ads. Too many blogs have too many widgets on their site, and no ad is going to perform too well in that situation.

Is it all about making a quick buck?

I really don’t understand bloggers who feel like they should be entitled to a rebate because they’re paying to advertise. A few people have wanted this in the past, and I know a few people won’t use CMF Ads because we don’t give them back everything that they put in. The reality is that if everyone made a profit on their ads, the ad networks wouldn’t be around for very long.

If people really want to make money, they should consider running a small widget for CMF Ads and one for Adgitize, and losing all the other sidebar junk. I’m sure the ads would perform a hell of a lot better.

Even with the possiblity of introducing larger banner ads somewhere down the line, the end result is likely to involve blogs that are already saturated with ads plastering the larger ads all over their site, in the hope that more ads = more money. It really doesn’t.

Who really wins from widget advertising?

The savvy folks. Anyone with a decent amount of traffic, and anyone with knowledge of how to create a truly awesome ad. An ad that is actually advertising something that will benefit the advertiser if people go to look at it.

If you’re thinking, well I’m not in it for the money, you’re not alone. However, that’s not the only view out there, as a lot of people are in it for the money. Ironically, some of the people who desperately want to make money from advertising are the ones who really need to spend a little more time working on their ads, and a little less time clicking.

And if you don’t have much to advertise, there’s another approach. Referral links can earn you quite a bit. CMF Ads just introduced them, for instance.

The walled garden approach

At CMF Ads, Spikes are a quick and affordable way to push your blog out to people. You’ll only get clicks from members of CMF. This may seem like it could cut out a lot of potential traffic, and I’m sure it does, but I think the traffic you do get is likely to be much more focused.

If you’re intrigued enough to register at CMF Ads and starting clicking on a few Spikes, I’d imagine you have some interest in the content of the blogs you click on. Furthermore, because you can find the blogs quickly and easily, I think you’ll use the system that much more.

It’s similar to Facebook games, and Facebook ads. Once you’re on the site, there’s a lot more that can be done than is possible within a 125×125 widget.

How blog advertising should be used

If you’ve been using solid keywords in your post titles – not to mention your domain name! – then you’ll probably start to get search engine traffic as time goes on. The blogs I’ve had online for years are getting more search engine traffic than any other type of traffic. I use blog advertising to supplement this traffic, similar to social media, by highlighting the blog when a new post goes up.

Endlessly promoting every post is pointless if you post a lot – it makes a lot more sense to only push the best posts via blog advertising, and let the others pick up search engine traffic as normal.

By combining your advertising efforts in this way, you’ll save time and money, and maybe earn a little more, too.

How do you advertise your blog? Do you use CMF Ads?