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PerformancingAds - Interview with Chris Garrett
< Ads? Give me a break! | Advertising and Promotion |
PerformancingAds looked like a great idea: the concept was simple but appealing, the product was backed by some very respectable names, and it appeared to be a decent way to make money from ads.
But it seems things haven't gone quite according to plan.
In early September I published a review of PerformancingAds, having used the site for four weeks. I was quite critical, but kept it constructive.
I see there's been a lot of criticism aimed at PerformancingAds from other bloggers, too - lack of replies to support queries, no payments, confusion over the affiliate scheme... there are certainly some big issues.
To try and get to the bottom of this and see what the future holds, I contacted Chris Garrett to ask some questions.
1. All new sites have their issues, but it seems PerformancingAds has had more than its fair share. What caused you to take over?
Chris Garrett / PerformancingAds: I stepped in because of those issues, and because the people who were running it up to that point were on the verge of burning out with all the long hours and stress they had taken on. It's clear things needed fixing, but at the same time I think the team has done a brilliant job of creating this system. I'm still getting my head around it but I think the majority of the issues were caused by organisation and communication problems, the technical issues were a symptom of that.
2. On the subject of payments, if you remove a site, your balance is zeroed. Is it possible to verify and restore the balances for people who are in this situation?
CG/PA: I am told this is likely an issue with reporting and what you are worried about is not the case. For example, you do have money owing to you but it is under the threshold you have set in your accounts minimum payment field.
3. Communication appears to be a big problem. Some bloggers found they didn't get a reply when they contacted support. Also, when the JavaScript code was first available, this wasn't publicised on the site. What caused these communication issues and how do you plan to prevent them in future? Do you plan to set up a blog?
CG/PA: Yes communication has been a big issue and I hope it is one of the things I can improve right away. Some of the support emails have been going into a black hole which doesn't help matters. All I can ask is that anyone with an outstanding issue re-submits their support request.
A blog will be coming along soon (as anyone who knows me would expect!) and I am also asking for feedback if a forum would be useful. What do you think? Good idea or no?
4. In my view, PerformancingAds is not very user-friendly. Are there any plans to improve the control panel? A single navigation bar instead of the various links scattered around the page would be a lot easier. Actually, something a bit like WordPress!
CG/PA: Usability is high on my agenda, and some outside suggestions will help because I think the team are so close to it.
5. The affiliate scheme appears to be a bit of a mystery. According to my stats, 2 people joined PerformancingAds via my affiliate link. What does this mean for me and could this page be made clearer?
CG/PA: There is a help topic on this, http://performancingads.com/help/topic?id=41
Essentially you need to attract a paying advertiser or a publisher who has the code on their site with a region installed for a minimum 30 days. There are other things involved as you would expect, we can't be paying out for someone to create lots of dummy accounts, but that said I am going to simplify the affiliate system, because it is not as straightforward as it can be.
6. The search options only include Alexa for ranking, although the site profiles also include Google PageRank, Technorati, Yahoo! inbound links, and Bloglines. Are there any plans to allow these as search options as well? Or how about combining all of the figures to make a "master" figure so we can search based on that? Could you include FeedBurner here?
CG/PA: Search and browse definitely needs to be improved. Ideally we would use our own traffic counter rather than Alexa, though these things are never 100% accurate so I am sure people would argue with the accuracy of that too!
7. The pricing seems to be very confusing. For instance, my ad spot was set to $1.00 per week, and I had $0.45 shown for August. Was the ad split across two months? If so, why did I see zero in September? Did they only pay for three days? $1.00 divided by 7 doesn't go exactly so how are the daily prices calculated?
CG/PA: Remember if your ad is priced at $1.00 you don't get the full $1.00 because we do take our cut, so you get paid your share and we keep ours.
8. Overbooking would be nice. It seemed odd that I could see a "Book" link on one of my own regions - why would I book an ad on my own site, isn't that what the "Alternative Advertisements" section on Edit Region is for? And why is it that if an ad spot is booked (I only have 1 spot) you can't reserve a spot for when it becomes free?
CG/PA: Alternative ads are used to fill up blank space in a region so you don't have gaps, but they don't prevent an advertiser from booking an ad. Any alt ads being displayed in the region are bumped out as soon as a real ad is booked in the region. This is like in Adsense where if you don't want to see PSAs you specify an alternative.
Self booked ads on the other hand do take up space because they are so you can show ads for your own products or sites, or have an existing private arrangement with an advertiser to make it easier for people with booked space to migrate to Performancing Ads. If you self book enough ads to fill up your region, an advertiser can't book any ads in the region. They don't get bumped out when more ads are booked. Essentially we have given you the ability to book ads using our service without us seeing any money!
9. Is there anything else PerformancingAds is doing that we should be aware of?
CG/PA: Right now our focus is on reorganising and improving what is there, both technically and in terms of customer service. But, I am open to suggestions!
One final note: Chris has said in a comment on another blog that all payments SHOULD have gone out by now, providing you were owed more than your minimum payout value - if this is not the case, you need to submit another support request.
My responses
Blog: I think a PerformancingAds blog would be a very good start for keeping everyone informed of current and future news. Although I really appreciate Chris's responses here, it'll take some effort to get my post seen by others. An official blog would be much more visible. Still, this is a good start. I'm not complaining.
Forum: A support forum could work too. One of the first things I learned as a moderator (now an administrator) at Entrecard is that some people prefer to raise support queries in a forum. Some prefer to raise them privately, but not everyone is the same. Providing both routes may seem like duplication, but it makes it a lot easier for people to get in touch.
Pricing: I think the pricing is confusing because some networks show you the full balance and only make deductions when you withdraw (e.g. Project Wonderful). I think it should be made clearer that PerformancingAds have taken their cut before you see the balance, as that could reduce queries. Reducing queries = less support.
Overbooking: I think that if an ad spot is filled, it should be possible to reserve an ad for when it becomes free - this is what I meant by my "overbooking" idea.
Drawing a comparison
I've always liked Entrecard, but frankly, the support just wasn't that great once a lot of bloggers joined. It was obviously too much for the small team to handle. Just like PerformancingAds, a lot of support queries did not receive a reply.
However, I'd say we have a handle on the situation now - partly due to me helping out. 
Entrecard recently signed up three new moderators and between us we have been removing a lot of the sites that caused Entrecard to receive so much criticism - you know, the ones that broke the guidelines but continued to use the service!
The point is, things can change. Don't give up on a service because they had a shaky start. PerformancingAds has not had a great start, but in my view, one of the biggest problems was the lack of communication. The communication channels are now open, and they are listening to us. Don't refuse to give any feedback just because they wouldn't listen to you before. If bloggers had given up on Entrecard months ago, Entrecard might not be around today. Remember that before you write off PerformancingAds as a bad idea. Everyone deserves a second chance.
What do you think?
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Comments on PerformancingAds - Interview with Chris Garrett
I know for me, after seeing all the posts about Performancing Ads, I'm too confused and concerned to join in. Project Wonderful and BlogHer Ads is what I've got running - and they kinda take care of themselves. They are just very user friendly, and everything about PA seems not to be right now. Maybe once the kinks are worked out, and people are being paid the way they are meant to be all the time, then maybe I'd reconsider. For now, it's not worth any extra headaches! Thanks for the article/interview.
I can understand your frustrations and confusion, all I can say is I am going to do my best to make it better from now on
I'm glad to hear others are being paid and not just myself. I pushed Performancing Ads on my blog because it really sounded like a great idea. The programming issues, the confusing interface, combined with a lack of updates, all contributed to me having to take the widget off my site. I'm sure many of my signups removed it as well for the same reasons, costing me considerable affiliate income.
i'm looking forward to hearing if things improve for performancing ads. had been looking into it, but heard of some of these issues.
I'm glad as well to see that they are interested in fixing these issues. That means it is hope for them. I look forward to follow them to see what they manage to acchieve.
Thanks for the comments guys, I'm going to put the PerformancingAds back up to show my support. Maybe a follow-up review would be worthwhile.
I sent in a support ticket last week about not getting paid and still haven't heard anything.
"installed for a minimum 30 days." That makes perfect sense, but it DOES NOT state that ANYWHERE on their site. I hope that the 10 signups I sent them had it on their site for 30 days, but how am I supposed to know? It doesn't tell me who's underneath me.
Look at that, just tried to login and it says my password isn't correct. When I enter my email address to get my password, it says my email isn't valid?? I know it's valid, it's the only one I used for the site...
Thanks for this Ben - good to hear from the horse's mouth, so to speak. I guess it's inevitable there'll be teething problems with a new system; perhaps they need just a little time to get things under control. As you said, it's a good idea - let's see if they can pull it back around!
Hey Ben, remember me? ;) I feel like I'm very out of the loop with having been away (I have 12 of your posts unread in my feedreader right now). I didn't even know Chris Garrett had taken over Performancing Ads. I agree with you though, people are too quick to ditch things when they have teething problems. Often the teething problems are caused by a lot of people using them - meaning the idea has merit, it just needs a little sorting out. Can't say that I've had much success with Performancing Ads so far but not ready to give them the flick just yet.
They Do really take a cut from the revenue and this cut is quite big. Although I do make some money with them I don't really see the difference between creating an adspace on your blog. - . The only plus is that you don't have to find an advertiser yourself. I like you post - very informative.
hi great post but i want to know what are the harm effects of performancing ads...... because i've heard that there are some dangers in that too.... so can anyone please brief that out for me
I agree with the responses that you wrote. Better communication would the next big thing. Just some bit of confusion there. By the way..this is Ben writing too!
Ben and others, I was a big supporter of Performancing Ads early on, but keeping my word, I've now ditched them after two months of giving them a shot.
Some reasons:
a) Their website is often slow and glitchy
b) Support is hit and miss... usually miss.
c) Sold a $.99 ad in September. Didn't even get credited for a penny in my account?
d) Ad blocks often do not show up properly
I'm now trying ViralBlogAds at http://www.viralblogads.com which is currently in a pre-launch. They seem geared towards communication with their publishers, and they wisely have a javascript offering from day one. Most importantly - the ad block showed up the FIRST TIME I tried it.
Thanks for all the comments. Chewru, thanks for the info. I'll give them a few more weeks. I haven't had any ad sales since I put the code back on my site though...
great interview Ben! I've been testing out performancing ads and so far so good.
thanks noob. :) Nice to see you!
Thanks for such a good post and it helped me find a few answers too. I also have never received a response on my queries so much so that I wondered why they bothered with a contact form at all. Still I have sold a few ads so I hope they fixed some of the problems they are facing.
Peter Lee
I recently had a reply to a message I sent via the contact form on the PA website, re: zeroing my balance when I deleted my site despite being owed some money. I've also had two bookings since I put the ads back up. Whether or not PA is going to work for my site in the long run, I don't know. I'll see how it goes.
Ben, I was wondering whether you or any of your readers have had problems with ads being booked without your approval? I've had an ad consistently showing up in my region for the last 3 weeks - without approval or payment. I do NOT believe it is an exchange ad because
a) it's been showing up so consistently, and
b) my region indicates there is a booking, but to my knowledge I don't currently have any.
Interestingly, I did have a response back from PA support, and they seemed to agree it's a booked ad, but didn't quite seem to understand my concern about not being paid or given the opportunity to approve the ad! I would have thought they'd be concerned about this too, as they're also potentially losing out on their share!
Rod, I haven't seen that myself. I'm just glad I am still getting bookings. It seems to be doing OK so far.
I wrote this on the Entrecard blog:
I'm so happy that it seems like people are getting paid now and you guys are on top of it. In the end, that's really all I wanted.
It is unfortunate that I needed to write a (Entrecard) blog post about this. (I write fantasy baseball, not this shizz!) I really wish it didn't have to come to (that) post. As seen here:
www.ewriting.pamil-visions.com/2008/09/08/performancingads/
In the comments, this could've been cleared up three weeks ago. Anyway, life's too short. Cheers for taking care of it now.