Recently on the Entrecard forums, Graham Langdon made the following post:
If you could snap your fingers, and add one feature to Entrecard, what would it be? I mean this in all seriousness. Haven’t had a community discussion about this in a while. I know we have a “features and ideas” board, but I also know a lot of you only frequent the community board.
So let’s hear it. What is the one feature you would add to Entrecard (or the widget, or the Entrebar, etc.) if you could just snap your fingers and make it so?”
In response I saw many good suggestions. My own suggestion was to expand the Entrecard widget as shown below with an additional area to show affiliate ads.
As you can see, the card on the left is your traditional Entrecard, the card on the right is what I am proposing. While I have them displayed side-by-side here, there is no reason the display couldn’t be vertical. Also, the color of the card would be variable as well, all you pink haters. Both the top of the card, the “shop” button and the pink “E” would be clickable.
The various areas: The card itself will bring you to the affiliate offer. Whether it be a product to buy, a service to sign up for, or a paid survey. Clicking on the “Shop” button will bring you to that members Entrecard shop, where you can see what items they are offering. Clicking on the pink “E” will bring you to a page where the blog owner can sell their ad space for a set price in credits. I’d expect the affiliate ad space to outsell the blog ad space.
How will this benefit Entrecard: Most affiliate companies will pay you to sign up members. Some companies like Shareasale pay $1, while others like Clickbooth pay $10. Entrecard would need to partner with one of these companies to handle the offers to make sure the ads are legitimate. In return, Entrecard could collect the commission for signing up it’s members. With 12k members, that’s a 120k potential, with an additional income potential made from a share of ad revenue, say 1%-2% of all sales.
How will this benefit members: Members will benefit 3 ways. A member will have the option of either displaying their own affiliate ad in that space, or renting the ad spot to another Entrecard member. The affiliate ads pay dollars for a successful sale, click or lead. Renting that ad spot is a guaranteed profit in credits, as I would much rather run my affiliate ads than another ad for Turnipofpower.com. Finally, a person can see what items you are selling in the Entrecard shop. Rather than shifting through hundreds of obsolete offers, they can find your items directly.
How everyone benefits: Most importantly, this idea will add real value to the Entrecard credit. Advertisers can now advertise their products, not just a blog. If they want to purchase the prime ad real estate Entrecard usually offers above the fold, they can buy it directly without having a blog. The success of PerformancingAds shows that people are willing to pay $2.50 to $5.00 and more per week for an ad.
Again, this addition to Entrecard would be totally optional. If it raises credit prices, then you benefit anyway. So what do you think, good idea or you have something better?
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21 users commented in " An Idea To Monetize Entrecard Through Affiliate Ads "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a Trackback **********I like it, make it happen!
That sounds sweet. Now we just have to get Graham working on that.
1. Would that be a weekly ad?
2. How do you envision the pricing? I mean, do see it running like current ads or a PW-type scale?
Interesting idea.
This is a great idea. But just like you said. Better keep this OPTIONAL. having 2 (125×125) on a site takes up a lot of space. Some people don’t like alot of advert on their page. Again wonderful idea for those who want to monetize their site some more, keep it optional for those who don’t.
I’m fine with that.
That’s actually a great idea and sounds like a logical evolution for Entrecard. If we’re going to essentially market blogs, why not market some affiliates while we’re at it?
Tom: I see it as a weekly price rather than a daily price. People can’t micro manage ads, so I’d expect the owner to have a set price for the week. Then buyers could come along and purchase it if it was available, and their ad would run immediately for 7 days. During that 7 days, the owner of the adspace could change the price for the following week. There could be a “renew automatically at the current price” checkbox available for the advertiser. This avoids the Project Wonderful issue of bidding up prices and then cancelling ads. But allowing website owners to set their own price, you also avoid the doubling issue.
Awesome idea Turnip.
Great idea, Turnip!
Shop til you drop! (oh dear)
I like it! But I would never put it on my blog.
Gary, I think it being optional is important. Again, the pink color is just to differentiate it from the normal Entrecard, not my idea of great color choice. Even if you don’t put it on your blog, you would benefit by being able to buy the adspace, or simply enjoy the increase value of each credit.
Unless it’s use is optional, I hate the idea.
I don’t wish to be forced to carry an additional ad in order to use EC.
@Turnip I know where you are getting at. Being able to place an affiliate ad onto someone elses blog would be huge. I would definitely try to use it (buy ads for affiliate placement, I mean). However I, like many, would never want to put something like this on our blog. I don’t see how this would be of benefit to the blog owner. There would have to be a huge incentive to allow it. And even giving 10% or clicks just doesn’t seem good enough, IMO.
What a great idea! There is definately a lot of potential in this and I think it would be to everyones benefit!
Gary, My thinking is that the Affiliate ad slot would begin to outsell the blog ad spot. Thus allowing Entrecard to greatly reduce the tax on both spots. That means more credits for everyone all around. Most blog owners are clueless when it comes to affiliate ads. This would be an opportunity for them to learn about that side of blogging as well. Of course experienced marketers would rather by space from someone else than sell theirs.
But take my blog for example. I can run my own affiliate ad, and then set a high price for my ad slot. If someone truly wants to advertise on my blog, they can do so for a price. When you say “who would want to do that”, the answer is anyone who wants credits. I see countless offers in the shop already to run any ad of my choice on their blog in exchange for credits, and I have done so.
I like your idea for monetizing Entrecard with affiliate ads.
But if I had add a function, it would be to have button on the Entrecard to take you to the last site visited.
I frequently run into a site that causes my computer to freeze when I’m using the bar. I have to shut down. Then I can’t get back to where I was without going through all the sites again.
i think its a good idea.we can make an ads while we can puts the other thing.then its double benefit for us. :D.thank you
I think it’s a great idea, as long as it’s optional, which you have made clear that it would be. You’re always thinkin’ Turnip!
Nice Idea!Looks to be awesome…
The idea of more credits is… well, bad. The more credits there is the less each credit is worth. That is definitely not what I want and would hurt the community as a whole.
It would suck a huge amount of credits out of the economy. I’m also in favor of eliminating the selling of credits outside of EC and only allowing transfers through linked blogs. My idea is to give people something of value to spend their credits on.
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