Why I Pay $ 5 / Month To Entrecard To Reject Its Sponsor Ads?
Posted by
eli
on 1/09/10• Categorized as Consulting
I’ve been asked by fellow blogger-users of Entrecard why I continue to pay $ 5.00 per month to opt out of Sponsor Ads. 
I have already published my reasons last month, but it seems the issue on Sponsor Ads refuses to die down. I like to conclude the issue in this post.
100% Ad Views vs. 85% Ad Exposure
My answer is simple. It’s been my personal policy to give my fellow bloggers and members of Entrecard who advertise on my blog “Business Sphere” FULL VALUE of their hard-earned entrecredits (ec).
By “full value” I mean maximum exposure or 100% ad views for 24 hours while the ad is running on my widget. This translates to an ad views of 800-1,000, considering that my blog has 800-1,000 daily visitors.
This is only fair since the paid ec advertisers are paying for the full value of the ad price, hence, 100% exposure for their ads.
This is to distinguish from the 85% ad exposure when there’s Sponsor Ads because the remaining 15% is reserved to the sponsor ads which also run on the widget 15% of any given time.
Sponsor Ads Is Needed For Entrecard’s Survival
I have no quarrel with Entrecard’s Sponsor Ads. It is part of EC’s survival as a blogging network. To stay afloat, EC must generate funds and revenue to pay for its maintenance and operating expenses, including server expenses which are expensive, plus a healthy return for the owner’s investment.
This is the reality, and every blogger must accept this fact. There’s no such thing as a free lunch. Somebody has to pay for it. Either Entrecard must make money or perish. There’s no other way.
Respect For Bloggers Who Are Against Sponsor Ads
At the same time, I have also no quarrel with bloggers who are against Sponsor Ads. I respect them because they are entitled to their own opinion.
But having trained in economics and business, I know the harsh realities in the market place – that any entity that does not generate enough revenue to pay for its costs cannot survive and will simply collapse. That’s includes Entrecard as a business firm and a blogging network.
Entrecard’s Sponsor Ads is similar to a blogger accepting advertisements on his/her blog, like ads from Google Adsense, CMF Ads, Adgitize, Project Wonderful, etc. The purpose is to monetize traffic to earn income.
Sick And Tired Of Ads On My Widget Which I Can’t Reject
Paying $ 5.00 is better than to have ads appearing on my widget 15% of the time which I can’t totally reject. If there are 6 Sponsor Ads, you can reject a maximum of 3, leaving the other 3 to appear on your widget, whether you like it or not. This is not right.
Entrecard Sponsor
Entrecard calls a blogger who opted out of Sponsor Ads by subscribing to it and paying $ 5.00 monthly or $ 48.00 for 1 year as “sponsor”.
To identify those Entrecard “sponsors”, EC gives a Star to the user’s ad image in the Campaign section, plus a notation in the member’s profile page as “This blog is an Entrecard sponsor.”
As a sponsor, advertisers on my blog get 100% airtime for their ec-paid ads because all the sponsor ads have been removed from my widget.
I also pay the $5 a month – it just seems crazy for people to pay so many credits for some of the blogs and to not get 100% air time. I also agree that EC needs to make money and the only gripe I have is that they feel the need to run THEIR ads so often – I mean come on we advertise them just by having their widget on our site.
I respect you for the stand that you have made regarding the Sponsored Ads on Entrecard. I, too, don’t like the Sponsored Ads and am currently re-evaluating my advertising budget to include the No Sponsored Ads on Entrecard.
I commend you on your stance and also agree with it. Yet I have not paid my $5 a month to EC to not have them run the ads of sponsors. I figured out, as I am sure we all have at one time or another, how much time we spend on EC monthly and if we were to be paid say just $10 an hour for dropping, it turns into a great amount of money to use their service.
I also believe that EC should be able to make a decent profit for the service they render. There must be a better way to do so. And I am sure this debate will continue for some time to come.
Well I need to pay more attention. I didn’t realize there was a difference between sponsored ads and non sponsored ads. I do agree that Entrecard does need to make some money just like all of us. I just can’t afford to pay the $5.00 at the moment. Thanks for this info.
I am definitely with you on saying Entrecard must make money in order to survive and stay open. We need Entrecard in much the same way that it needs us. We must help Entrecard because it is helping us.
Let me add that the Entrecard advertisers whether they pay using cold cash or EC credits deserve more than ad views or impressions. What all advertisers, not only those at Entrecard, need are click-throughs and not just views or impressions. Are we getting the click-throughs on the ads we place at EC network? That is the question and the answer, I am sorry to say, is we are not in most cases.
I hadn’t opted out of the paid ads until I read your post and your reasoning so I went ahead and paid to get out of the forced ads. Don’t mind paying the money to help support EC. Thanks for the great advice.