One thing we pride ourselves on at CMF Ads is doing things better than the competition. We heard the feedback that campaign screens were too messy and that stats were meaningless if nobody understood them. People wanted a simple yet effective way to deliver readers to their blog at a low cost per click. At CMF Ads we inspect every blog joining our network. You can be sure that if one of our publishers visits your blog, they aren’t a bot. Likewise, they know that every blog they visit has been pre-approved. Now for the good part. This setup allows CMF Ads to create a new feature that will deliver clicks for our members, from our members, at a rate cheaper than any of our competition. All with the press of a single button! Thus we present to you CMF Spike.
Press a single button, and your blog will have 50 clicks delivered to it for a low price of $0.20. That works out to a cost of $.004 per click. One button advertising! No more buying banners in a sea of ads and then following some formula in hopes of getting your money back. We recognize there is a market for those who want to pay for traffic. So we made a system to be the simplest, most cost effective way possible without being scammed.
What if you want to do a little clicking yourself? Visit the links of our advertisers and you will earn funds immediately. For every 50 blogs a publisher visits, they will receive $0.10 in their account. Those publishers who click links to earn funds will be fairly paid for their effort, immediately and for a known rate. No more waiting until the end of the month.
So if you buy 50 clicks per day, and click 50 links per day, you end up spending $.002 per click. Compare that figure to other traffic generating systems out there. You might find sites claiming to deliver clicks for less, but they don’t. At best the traffic will be bot traffic. At worst, it will be a single IP address refreshing your page over and over. Now at CMF Ads you have the choice of buying traffic or buying a banner ad. Face it; if a blog already has twenty 125×125 ads running down the side, nobody is clicking them. This is why we limit our publishers to a single widget running 4 ads at most. Banner ads are great, but always make sure the ad spot has quality placement. You want cheap traffic and CMF Ads will deliver it to you.
The downside? I still don’t like paid clicks. Which is why participation is entirely optional. This new feature is to compliment and extend our current features, not replace them. This means there might not be hundreds of publishers links to start. Since no publisher can visit a link more than once unless a publisher buys another Spike, your funds may go farther than you expect. I guess that’s a good thing, as it ensures each of the 50 clicks is unique. So if you absolutely want to make sure fellow bloggers see your latest article, CMF Ads Spike is set to deliver.
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Very nice option and indeed cheap.
But there is no guarantee that they stay on my blog
I guess another way to give members a higher bounce rate as most of the visitors will just look for the few cents they could earn with this option.
I will do the test and see who is visiting my blog!
Cornyman: You are quite correct in that you can’t predict the bounce rate. As I stated in the article, I don’t like paid to click programs for exactly the reason you mentioned. However, make no mistake that there is a consumer demand for such a service, especially a quality service, which I feel CMF Ads can provide. There is also a great demand for bloggers who wish to generate funds through clicking. A professional marketer might scoff at such an arrangement, but sometimes you have to give the people what they want. So why not do it better than anyone else out there?
Months earlier I checked out a site offering similar services. Mind you that the one I picked looked the least sleazy. Ben set up a test landing page that would record page views and unique IP’s. The results would have shocked you. Nothing but bots visited. We may have had 3 legit visitors out of the 1000 visits they claimed they sent. To this day I still get spam emails telling me how great their service is. Please, I welcome you to test our service and then compare it to some of the others out there.
I’m trying Spike today. It’s taking a lot of time I should be scurrying around getting ready for Christmas tonight. Still have to pack everything up for the trip to my sister’s house. I have not put my site into Spike yet. Just visiting the others who are there.
As to the question of people not spending time at your site. In my case it depends on the content you have up there. I’ve left a comment on almost each site today (only skipped a couple with comment forms that suck big time). I have read at least two or three posts on each site. Except for one which would not give a link back to the site once you left a comment on their idiot form. I left a second comment to tell them their comment form sucks.
Season’s Greetings. (Turnip, your comment form does not suck).
Thanks for giving Spike a test drive, Laura. Ben and I had quite a discussion of whether or not seeing who visited via a spike was a good thing. We decided that people need to demonstrate their presense on their own, either by comment or some other means. Sure you can drop and run, as that is what many are used to. There is no simple method to prevent that. Timers and I-frames found on some networks are annoying. Since there is no inbox, there is no obligation. Feel free to take the week off from Spike, and you won’t see visits to your blog dry up to zero because you didn’t reciprocate. The 50 unique visitors are guaranteed regardless.
Turnip, I’ve always wanted to ask you if you have a real name, but never dared.
I participated in Spike just as soon as I got the email about it. Checking it out, I realized right away that it was a great way to find new blogs to advertise on! My network had been shrinking a bit lately, and I think this is just the thing to get me back expanding again. I never was one to drop and run, and I certainly don’t do so now.
I have yet to run into a crappy blog through CMF, and I am amazed at how well you guys have put this system together.
Theresa, I do have a real name I use offline, but most people call me “turnip” online. In the beginning I didn’t really guard my privacy too much. But as time went on, I received the occasional death threat from spammers in another network. The very first thing some a-hole does when they disagree with me is do a whois on my site to try and harass me offline. I know because they always tell me “haha, you don’t really own your site”. Like they will somehow goad me into changing my privacy settings so that they can annoy me in person.
Spam in other networks disgusts me. Just to give you a clue to what I mean, here are some stats about the CMF Ads straight from my admin dashboard:
Publishers with widget and site image: 603
Declined Sites: 449
As you can see, we decline over 42% of all sites submitted. Every one of those declined sites had widgets from other social networks on them.
So far, what I’ve been getting for comments is “…coming from Spike” instead of commenting on the content of the post the comment is left on. It seems like another version of drop and run. I think as time goes on and people see the value of Spike, these kind of comments will disappear.
Thanks for the explanation. Right now, I am transparent. So far, it hasn’t been a negative or a danger to me, and I’m happy to be able to remain congruent. I’ve “known” you for years now, Turnip, and truly appreciate the brain behind the name.
And, many thanks for weeding out the garbage!
Theresa, I checked and saw who made the “coming from CMF Spike” comment. I would hope others have enough sense to not “spam and run”. At least with “drop and run” you don’t have to moderate any comments. Most of the users of CMF Ads are familiar with the pitfalls of any clicking system based upon other social networks. Do you have any suggestions on how we might improve the system? Right now it is set up for simplicity. Do you think a method of blocking certain people from getting your Spike, or you clicking on their spike would help?
It’s never a perfect world, Turnip. I think that your previewing of the blogs beforehand weeds out the majority of problem children. The benefit of leaving comments, on the surface, is a link back to your own blog, increasing search engine ranking. While a spammish type comment may have an immediate benefit, it sure won’t in the long run. Networking is a two way street. No one will click to check out the blog of someone who writes only “coming from Spike” and even fewer will choose to visit that blog from CMF itself. Their own actions will punish them. My plan is to leave those spam comments to see if they return. They will have the chance to redeem themselves. If it’s habitual, then they will be deleted as soon as I find them.
I forgot to answer your question. I sort of implied it, but I do not think you have a “problem” yet. I’m a three-strikes-you’re-out person, so I tend to wait for patterns to emerge. While a blocking system may hurry the end result along, I really do think, with the quality bloggers that are here at CMF, the problem will take care of itself.
I’m taking it for a spin… and yes, I’d rather not see any comments at all if all I’d get to see is “I came from the spike”.
Great article Turnip! I was impressed enough to buy a spike for each of my blogs. I’m taking a bit of a different approach. I don’t want to encourage spam but I like a commenter to say “I’m visiting from here” at least the first time in addition to commenting on the post. That tells me my advertising is working. The implementation of this new CMF option comes right at the time that most blogs have the holiday messages so other than leaving holiday wishes back there isn’t a lot you can say but letting them know they found you through CMF spike is a good idea if you ask me. I honestly don’t see a spam problem now or even in the making with CMF spikes. Besides if all comments are moderated you can easily reject those borderline comment spam messages. Maybe I’m missing something. I also don’t see where 50 visits will increase your bounce rate all that much especially when compared to other advertising options.
Happy Holidays
Mom’s Cafe: Like any new venture, there are growing pains as people get a feel for the system. We have no written rules other than for the blog itself. I think the fewer rules the better. If someone spam’s your blog you can delete their comment, lecture them in your own comments, lecture them in their comments, or even leave their comment and make their URL no follow, then ask them not to be so “off topic” in future comments. Everyone handles things differently, and not everyone disapproves of certain comments. My guess is issues will decrease as publishers learn to use CMF Spike to maximum effectiveness.
Turnip, I agree, at least this is accompanied by a live forum.
Regarding “Hit and Run”, it also depends upon the content of the target blog/site. I can not post junk and expect comments [no offense
].
Keep the quality, other things shall follow in due time.
Heads up for Spike!
Dai, you are correct. Exactly what am I supposed to comment in reply to a paid post? Maybe something like “I refused to accept their paid post offer of $1.50 because this product truly does suck”? I’m joking of course, but garbage posts do attract garbage comments, no doubt.
oh, sorry, wanted to add that having a shout box can bypass some of the spammy comments…
Just saying!
Shout Box? How about a STFU Box? Oh wait, it’s Christmas, so I should mind my manners. I had a shoutbox on my own blog and it did attract it’s share of spam. Truth is I find shoutboxes incredibly boring. Not to mention I have no trouble weeding out spam comments from my blog. The problem is greatly blown out of proportion. The real enemy of bloggers is automated spam, not hand typed spam. As time goes on CMF Spike will be refined, the novelty will wear off, and it will function as a useful tool to generate traffic amongst the blogging community. The nature of Spike is that it brings fellow bloggers to your site, CMF Ads publishers specifically. Traditional advertising is still required to attract outside visitors.