My Experience With CMF Ads: Is It Worth Advertising On It?
Posted by
eli
on 12/13/09• Categorized as Consulting
I was asked by two bloggers from Estonia and Turkey if advertising on CMF Ads is effective in generating traffic to my blog. 
Since I have already stopped using CMF Ads as an advertiser just two weeks ago, I can now share my own experience dispassionately and in an impartial manner.
For the last five months since June until the first week of December 2009 I have been a constant advertiser on the many CMF publisher blogs, with 60-100 ads running at any given time. I was spending an average of $ 20.00 monthly for my CMF Ads advertising.
I am not an internet marketer, have no products to sell online; am just a blogger who believe in advertising and promotion to bring traffic to my blog.
Below are the highlights of my ad campaigns experience in CMF Ads for the last five months.
1. Ad Price per Month and Blog Categories
When I purchase ads on CMF Ads, I always choose the blogs with ad prices ranging from $ 0.10 / month minimum to $ 1.25/ month maximum. I did not buy ads from blogs with ad prices of less than $ 0.10 / month nor more than $ 1.25 / month.
Every time I buy ads, I select the blogs with niche in the business, finance, internet marketing, making money online and even in blogging.
2. Low Traffic, Some Zero Clicks
My stats for the last five months show that my adverts on CMF publisher blogs were not effective in generating extra traffic to my blog. In some blogs, I got zero clicks during the 30 days when my ads were running.
The highest clicks that I got were 10, but that is few and far between. On the average, I got only 0-2 clicks for one month for all my ads.
Again, at any given time, I had a total of 60-100 ads running on many publishers’ blogs.
3. Traffic Stats and CMF Ads referrals
My Google Analytics stats reveal that of my blog’s traffic sources, CMF Ads contributes only 177 visitors a month on the average.
Here’s my latest traffic sources overview from Google Analytics, from November 3 – November 27, 2009 when my CMF Ads were still running at its peak:
direct (none) — 2,560
entrecard.com/referral — 2,517
adgitize.com/referral — 1,812
google / organic — 1,696
adn.entrecard.com / referral– 1,343
cmfads.com/ referral – 177
No point of comparison but I figured it out that the $ 20.00 that I was spending monthly on CMF Ads advertising is not effective vis-à-vis the traffic that it generates to my blog. In terms of cost-benefit analysis, the cost is more than the benefit.
Why My Ads on CMF Have Very Low Traffic?
I will not talk about cost per thousand impressions (CPM) or cost per click (CPC), it is enough that based on the stats from CMF Ads itself, my adverts on many publishers blogs have very low clicks or even zero clicks monthly.
There are two reasons for this:
1. Low Traffic Publisher Blogs. Many publishers’ blogs are low traffic sites, and they need blog promotion to provide more value to their advertisers. Some publishers’ blogs do not even advertise their sites.
2. CMF Ads system of ads rotation. If a blog has 10 ads running, then your ad will have 10% ad views only at any given time. Some blogs with ad prices of $ 0.05 – $ 0.10 a month have 20-25 ads. That means your ad could not get maximum exposure, only 1/20 to 1/25 ad views only.
Now CMF Ads own in-house ad found on the many publisher blogs with zero outside ads promotes: “Rock bottom prices – a 30 day ad costs as little as $ 0.01.”
True, CMF Ads’ ad space sharing reduces your advertising costs but based on my experience, it is not effective in generating traffic for the reason that it also drastically reduces your ad views.
Good for Branding, Excellent Admin Support
Still, advertising on CMF Ads has positive side. It is good for branding your blog as well as in generating awareness to your target audience about your site.
In addition, it has very friendly Admins and you will get fast support. In case you have problems or questions, all you have to do is create an alert and you will get answers within 5-10 hours, based on my experience.
I take particular mention of Ben Barden, one of the three CMF Ads owners, who always attend to my “alerts” by answering my concerns in a fast and efficient way, to my heart’s content.
Why I Stopped Advertising on CMF Ads?
When CMF Ads changed its system for advertisers to buy ads and place on its publishers blogs very recently, I found it a waste of my time having to create an ad campaign every time I place an ad. To me the new scheme is complicated.
That’s the time when I created an “alert”, requesting that my advertiser account be cancelled effective immediately. That was two weeks ago. I’ve read that they are still making improvements and changes to the advertising interface, to make it better.
But in my case I think it’s time to move on and try other ad networks.
11 Comments
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True. Same experience with mine. I don’t think that CMF ads is as effective as Adgitize or Entrecard.
One possible reason is your advert. If you are using the same advert that you use in Entrecard, it does not provide a true representation of your blog.
“Business blogs” are very diverse and have a tendency to be disguised as spammers.
On Entrecard and Adgitize, the appearance of the advert is irrelevant, isn’t it?
As a matter of disclosure, Source Blogger has recently removed itself from participation on Entrecard, and is not affiliated with Adgitize or CMF Ads.
We prefer social media and blogging communities – and good, old-fashioned SEO. Your business blog may be more suited for this approach as well.
Wishing you the best,
Source Blogger
http://www.source-blogger.com
http://twitter.com/SourceBlogger
I am an internet marketer, therefore I have not used such advertising for my blog. I seem to be doing just fine with my safe lists and Entrecard at the moment. I do appreciate your post telling us of your experience with CMF. I wish I knew more of such means to get my blog noticed but for the moment I guess I will stay with what I’m doing.
Friends 4 Life!
Hi Eli –
I also spent a bit advertising with CMF when they first started. I had the same experience as you, not many clicks at all –
I understand that the CMF guys want to keep the clicks natural and not the drop and run of EC and Adgitize, BUT, let’s face it – there are so many sites to see on the internet that you almost have to give people a reason to click. Once you get them their it’s your job to keep them their.
I quit advertising with CMF because I just wasn’t getting any traffic. I keep their running their ads because I want to support them. A lot of these guys are ex-EC members who were treated like crap. They are the smart “cool” guys and I think eventually they will come up with a formula that works. I’ve also made a little money on the side.
Sheila
Hello,
Interesting analysis. I can’t argue with your stats, but I do have some comments that may help to clarify the points you raised.
Your blog was originally a publisher at CMF Ads, but this later changed so you were only an advertiser. This is quite unusual – we mostly have bloggers who run the widget and place ads from time to time, or advertisers who don’t run the widget and buy funds every now and again. One of our longest running members purchased funds at the very beginning and has never had to buy funds since, because that member has been able to earn from the widget and use the funds to place ads on other blogs. This is a slow but steady approach and will not suit a larger scale advertiser, but it’s a good option for bloggers.
I didn’t realise that you avoided blogs who charge less than 10 cents per ad. We have some quality blogs who charge less than 10 cents for the ads on their site. You may have been missing out on some great ads.
The problem with not getting a lot of clicks is an interesting one. CMF Ads does not give any incentives to members who click ads. If we gave everyone 1 cent for clicking an ad, you’d see a lot more clicks, but how many people would be clicking just to get that extra cent?
One quite important correction: You said – “If a blog has 10 ads running, then your ad will have 10% ad views only at any given time”. This is only true for sites with the smallest of our widgets. A site that displays 5 ads at a time and has 10 ads running will show your ad roughly 50% of the time.
Finally, some news. We recently updated campaigns so you can add sites to an existing campaign. We also included an option to quickly locate the blogs with spare ad slots so you can maximise your ad views.
Thanks for the positive comments and I’m sorry that CMF Ads didn’t work out for you. If you ever change your mind, the door is always open should you choose to return.
Ben
I get clicks from CMF, on certain sites. – yet others merit -0-. I think I may be that member Ben is refering to not needing to repurchase more than my first initial credits. everymonth I get enough credits back to run the next months’ ads. I like this. especially since I’ve found certain blogs where I get 30+ clicks monthly with under 5000 impressions. might seem like a small margin, but that’s consistent monthly and the hits are from unique visitors and not the owner himself. this is the same for all three of my blogs which are on cmf. one of my cmf blogs has had as many as 10 ads in queue to run at the same time. I think more than 5 really shows that your traffic can support driving traffic to another blog. it’s working for me, so I’m sticking with it; and my initial $10.00 is still working, after 6 months.
RE – actually, you weren’t the member I was thinking of, so that’s one more person who uses the system in this way.