Apr
EntreCard - A New Start… Or End?
by admin
Recently EntreCard changed it’s pricing structure for the ads, this is no news for active EntreCarders but I thought I would discuss my thoughts about it. First for non-EntreCarders and those that are confused, here are the two systems:
Old Pricing System
Previously the blog owner had a degree of control over the ad price because it was calculated as the the average of the last five days plus todays drops multiplied by two. Reciprocal dropping was encouraged to up the possibility of higher returns, there were and still are a number of lists of these droppers. So the more you drop, the more drop on you. This upped the ad price and gave you the credits to buy ads to get more drops.
New Pricing System
Now the system is supply and demand. Count the number of ads in the queue, whether they are approved or not, and then apply that number as a power of two to get the ad price. For example there are currently 11 ads in my queue so 2 to the 11th equals 2048 and that is the price of my next ad spot. If I decline an ad or an ad expires the ad price halves and if an ad is placed the the ad price doubles.
Pros And Cons Of The Old System
Popularity and thus exposure was dependent on the ad price, so that the higher your price the more exposure the more drops. As long as you had a decent blog, this was a bit of a snowball effect.
Your ad had to target the EntreCarder so that you would get more drops. This caused a bit of a problem because although your traffic could quickly rise, it was mostly drive-by droppers with the occasional reader/commenter. This produced high bounce rates.
EntreCard is addictive, especially to a new blog that has little to no traffic. You can see sudden increases, you see how easy it is, so you concentrate on EntreCard and forget other ways of getting traffic.
There is a limit of 300 cards that you can drop per day per blog and 600 per IP per day, so if you have three blogs then you have to divide the 600ec’s between the three. To visit 300 blogs a day is time consuming. It takes me an average of two to two and a half hours to drop 300 and read/comment on any new posts that grab my interest. I have a question for you, the reader, if you drop 300 a day how many of them do you drop on purely to get a credit and you wouldn’t normally ever visit?
Fallout From The New System
Because the ad queue could have 15 or more ads from the old system prices are crazy right now at 32768ec’s or more in some cases. People are gnashing their teeth and wondering how they can afford to buy ads, it’s quite comical. In a lot of cases you can’t right now. Give it two to three weeks before all pricing finds a more reasonable level. Don’t worry about buying ads until then, this will also give you the chance to build up some ec credit power.
Ad prices should be more realistic compared to the possible returns. The pricing should be more stable as, if people determine that your site is worth no more than, say, 128ec’s then each day as an ad expires a new ad spot will be bought. Occasionally someone may splurge and buy an ad spot for 256ec’s.
The only control you have on your ad price is to decrease it by declining an ad. All the control is now in the hands of your visitors. Each ad placed will double your ad price.
The one good thing I can see happening is that the crap blogs will dwindle away because no-one will let them buy an ad or drop credits on them so their only source of income would be from their drops, so they could only buy stuff from the shop and that’s it.
A Possible Scenario With The New System
If everyone stopped buying ads for 1-2 weeks then ad prices would be universally 1, 2 or 4 credits - EVERYBODY could afford to buy ads. At the moment only around 55% of all members buy ads, with lower ad prices more members would be able to buy ads.
The lower ad prices would mean there would be less pressure to drop 300 every day. Right now only around 40% of all EntreCarders drop more than 50 cards a day, so the lower pricing would make advertising more attractive.
All this would need is some self-control to not buy ads above a certain price. We already limit ourselves via our available funds but that limit would need to be lowered consciously. This would also reduce the pressure to drop 300, a 100 a day could buy all the ads you would need. You would no longer need to buy credits. This would also have a knock-on effect on the ec harvesters.
The advantages, especially for the new blogger, are:
- Real visitors and less, if any drive by droppers.
- More time to concentrate on other forms of promotion.
- More time to create blog content.
- More time for those of you either with or who would like a life
- Genuinely network and find new interesting blogs.
The Ads
This brings me to something I mentioned in the forums, the quality of the ads themselves. First of all, the default ads are not really ads they are placeholders so that the newbie can actually get started with EntreCard. Next, an awful lot of ad designs really are bad and need to be changed if they are to attract non-EntreCarders.
Browse around, have a look at ads not from EntreCard users, see the difference? Do you click on ads if you don’t know where they go or why you are going there? If EntreCard is to be taken seriously along side other ads, something needs to change and that can only come from the membership and not the management.
Having a better ad will increase your CTR (click thru rate) thus increasing both the number of drops you get and the number of non-EntreCard visitors, but most of all it will show the blogosphere that EntreCard is a professional alternate to getting more traffic to your site.
Tags: advertising, entrecard, Traffic
Category Traffic |
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All right CK, now I understand a little more. Do I really not have to drop 300 cards,not that I ever did. It does take a long time especially since I have a very old computer and a dial up connection. I have to say as I get more comfortable with the new way of doing things I’ll be ok. I for one am not quitting entrecard. I enjoy the whole thing. I never understood the whole buying of entrecards. I will be glad to see that go away.
One thing I don’t understand is I know that people have bought ads from me for 100+ EC and they are displaying now. However, when i check my transactions they say like 48 and 52 EC. I know it’s off topic, but thought I’d present this question.
BTW…I don’t like the new system. It’s a bit of a pain…I’d rather keep my cost low to attract more advertisers.
In fact I don’t like the new system but now I don’t have to drop a lot everyday
BTW, my daily price is 256 instead of 128, though no big change comparing with somebody has a price higher than 5000 or 10000 …
This new system is confusing me, and the prices can reach to thousands for some slots. It took me more than a week to collect such amount of EC credits.
@EttaRose: The pressure to drop 300 a day should lessen, it really depends on the herd mentality.
@Bryan: You get only 25% of the ad cost. People are willing to pay what a blog is worth to them, so if I was you I wouldn’t worry about trying to keep a low price.
@Franca: Give it time.
@Mohamad: The prices on some blogs are so high only because of the sudden change over, give it a week or two and prices should be more reasonable.
I never knew this until I read your blog! I wondered why a lot of blogs are now very expensive to advertise… Thanks for the info!
P.S. I prefer the old pricing system
Hi Colin,
Michael here. Thanks for this post. I was about to write a similar one, especially regarding the question if the new sysstem is the end or perhaps a new start to a “better” entrecard.
My statistics reveal I got a lot of traffic from entrecard lately, but mostly from chaindroppers, who didn’t bother to read psots or leave comments.
So i hope the new syste3m will bring in more quaility traffic and visitors, who have an interest in what the might get to know at my blog, instead of just dropping cards mechanically …
Regards,
michael
Thanks for clearing that up for me Colin…I was wondering what was up.
I much prefer the old system. More so for the easier clicking on other ads but also because the prices are way overpriced for some of the top spots.
Well, that makes me quite glad that I stumbled onto your blog via the entrecard directory. As a new entrecarder I really have no idea of how it was before (except through your explanation of how the system worked) but what I thought I do know is how it works now. Not too far off the mark as it happens and your explanation confirms it. On the basis of that, it seems like this will be a better way overall than before. What Entrecard has corrected is the kind of malady that linkreferral (another similar traffic referral site) still suffers from. Lots of droppers and no prolonged stays. O seconds on average to be more exact. I think I’m going to like Entrecard more and I thank you for the excellent explanation.
I’m still learning about Entrecard so I appreciate this info. I’ve wondered about the very high advertising prices, seems like it would take a long time to have enough credits to advertise on some of the blogs in the system.