My Experience With Entrecard’s Sponsor Ads
Posted by
eli
on 12/04/09• Categorized as Consulting
I tried the EC Sponsor Ads after I received an e-mail from Entrecard, written by Cindy Ung, which was also sent to all member-users on November 21, 2009, as follows: 
The E-mail
“Do you need extra traffic? We are slowly launching our sponsor program and are looking for sponsors. It’s easy, you can sponsor Entrecard for only $25! In return, this is what you’ll get:
Receive 40,000 ad impressions across +20,000 blogs ($.60 cpm)
or
Receive 20,000 ad impressions across a targeted vertical ($1.20 cpm)
Not only will Entrecard bring traffic to your blog, but you will see a HUGE increase in your widget ad price (up to 2000%!). Because of all the traffic you’re getting, many other entrecard members will advertise on your blog. This is an awesome way to earn MORE EC credits!!”
Entrecard Needs Funds
I know Entrecard needs cash for its operating and maintenance expenses, so I accepted the invitation to be a sponsor, created an advertiser account and paid $ 25.00.
I Did Not Need Extra Traffic From EC
Actually I did not need extra traffic from Entrecard because this blog “Business Sphere” has been consistently in the Top 15 of the most popular blogs in all categories. My trying the sponsor ads was more of an experiment, out of curiosity.
My Ad Campaign and Cost
My ad campaign, which I chose an Internet Marketing category, started running on the morning of November 22, 2009. Even though I set my campaign to Internet Marketing category only, yet my ad appeared in all categories, in the entire EC network.
Therefore, since my ad appeared across all blogs in all categories and considering that Entrecard is charging on a per impression basis, and not on a cost per click, my $ 25.00 has completely gone with the wind after only 4.5 days.
My Stats
My advertiser’s stats as reported in the EC dashboard are as follows:
Impressions: 41,776
Clicks: 577
CTR: 0.0138
CPM: $ 0.5984
CPC: $ 0.0433
EC Sponsor Ads is Expensive
Based on the foregoing statistics, I can say that EC sponsor ads is very expensive. Its cost per click (CPC) at $ 0.0433 is 4x expensive than that of Adgitize’s $ 0.01005. Advertising is expensive in Entrecard because, as mentioned, it is charging on a per impression.
So when your ad runs across all categories and appeared even on the widgets of inactive blogs, with ad prices of 2ec, 4ec, and 8ec, EC counted the impression and deduct it from your funds.
EC Sponsor Ads and Adgitize: A Comparison
In the case of my ad in the Adgitize, my $ 24 ad runs for 31 days, with cash rebates, while my $ 25.00 in Entrecard lasted only for 4.5 days, without any rebate.
In addition, in Adgitize I got a total of 1,923 clicks for the whole month of November 2009, with hundred of thousands of impressions. In contrast, in Entrecard my $ 25.00 has given me only 577 clicks, with 41,776 impressions and lasted only for 4.5 days.
Conclusion
Entrecard’s sponsor ads is good only while your ad is running, in a matter of 4.5 days in my case. It did bring extra traffic, but my ad price did not increase up to 2,000 percent. During the 4.5 days that my sponsor ad was running, my ad price has remained constant at 1,024 – 1,535 ec/day.
Well, at least, I was able to contribute my share to EC’s operating and administrative expenses, knowing fully well that running an ad network with 20,000 member-users entails a lot of expenses.
Hi Eli,
Based on your data, it does not appear to be cost effective to advertise with EC.
I did not believe it was. Your test run confirms my suspicions.
I hope this finds you well.
Sincerely,
Mike
I wouldn’t use it long term. But, if you need an extra burst of traffic, you don’t have any regular ads running that day I would do it. But I preferred when they had this the last time, at the beginning they offered cpc and the $25 would last a couple of weeks.
Sheila
Yep, very similar to my experience as well, and similar conclusions!
Hi Eli,
from the data of four members who run sponsored ads there was no exciting news about this topic to read.
It’s really only if you need a boost or during holidays/weekends when you’re lack of traffic that you should use it, even it still remains expensive.
Adgitize rules!
Seems like opting out of sponsored ads has not yet the positive effect on the EC ad price, nothing changed in your case and Sheila’s or the other three blogs.
Thanks for the report of Another Entrescam.
the entrecard membership never really gets the facts straight, unless it’s on a Members Blog Post. this is good fresh data for anyone thinking of wasting money, on an ineffective ad campaign. your conclusion brings hard numerical fact to the table.
No Doubt about it; Another Entrecrime In Progress.
For an interesting comparison, I recently started reviewing and renewing my ads on CMF Ads. I haven’t paid as much attention to them recently, but I’ve noted my historic average CPM and CPC are .12 CPM and .04 CPC
That places them as one fifth the CPM cost of EntreCard, but about the same CPC, which is four times higher than Adgitize.
On the other hand CMF ads does not incentivize clicking, so their clicks are perhaps more valuable. They do have slightly lower bounce rates and higher time on site. Yet they also have a very low percentage of new visits.
It does seem like CMF is another important part to have in the mix
I’ve been a user of Entrecard for about six months now. However, it seems like everything to do just makes it a worse service.
I think my days at Entrecard are definitely numbered.
The good news is I saw your ad on my blog and clicked it to see what the site is all about. The bad news is that I now do this because there’s been some really shady sites that have been listed on my blog via Entrecard.
I did a similar experiment when EC was still toying with the idea of introducing paid ads back in October 2008, posted the charts and the clicks to show that it was totally not worth it although I was an advocate of it being a way for EC to make money and stay afloat.
The only sure way to get traffic from EC is to drop on other blogs that are active EC members.
After the most recent debacle where the company said no more paid ads and then promptly reinstated it and banned comments and removed the forum, I left. Interestingly, my adsense clicks have gotten back to the pre-EC days where they cost a lot more than $0.01 per click. I’ve since found out from many that they have seen the same thing happen.
So it is true after all that the driveby traffic of EC causes Google penalties …
This is my first official visit to your blog. It is sad to hear that it didn’t work well for you. Frankly speaking I haven’t tried any of the service as I am worried about the bounce rate.
Thanks for the information, Eli.
Thank you, also, for introducing me to Adgitize. I’m really enjoying the extra traffic I get from there.
I still love Entrecard, but won’t be paying to advertise across their system. In you situation, I would complain that the ad was listed across all blogs instead of on your targeted option. You didn’t get what you paid for.
Yep from what you are saying it sounds like Entrecard has made some mistakes which hurt their customers. Although for people like me I’m kinda forced into sponsor ads because I am having major budget problems and can’t afford paid advertisement.
I think sponsored ads are good for poor folks, and starting businesses but when a business becomes huge they kinda don’t want sponsored ads and I can understand that they want their ads to be 24/7. Really traffic comes day and night on the net!