Considering there has been a fair amount of discussion on AuctionAds I decided to test it for myself and provide some feedback. The program was easy to join and get running on my site(s). I started off slow with one site getting about 50 clicks a day. This was at the beginning of May. It took a few days to see some earnings. On the 24th of June I added AuctionAds to another site of one which is a different niche and has more traffic. Impressions and clicks went up considerably of course. My stats for May were as follows: 05/04 <aggregate> 2138 25 1.17% $0.00 05/05 <aggregate> 7915 47 0.59% $0.00 05/06 <aggregate> 11757 64 0.54% $0.00 05/07 <aggregate> 13843 56 0.40% $0.40 05/08 <aggregate> 12354 35 0.28% $0.00 05/09 <aggregate> 9757 35 0.36% $0.39 05/10 <aggregate> 8751 28 0.32% $0.10 05/11 <aggregate> 7229 37 0.51% $0.00 05/12 <aggregate> 7278 46 0.63% $0.59 05/13 <aggregate> 12727 65 0.51% $0.65 05/14 <aggregate> 13124 53 0.40% $0.95 05/15 <aggregate> 8780 34 0.39% $0.00 05/16 <aggregate> 9867 34 0.34% $1.28 05/17 <aggregate> 9355 36 0.38% $0.00 05/18 <aggregate> 7422 26 0.35% $0.23 05/19 <aggregate> 6660 35 0.53% $0.25 05/20 <aggregate> 13129 56 0.43% $0.00 05/21 <aggregate> 15151 61 0.40% $0.00 05/22 <aggregate> 11311 31 0.27% $0.19 05/23 <aggregate> 12196 49 0.40% $0.00 05/24 <aggregate> 15956 140 0.88% $0.00 05/25 <aggregate> 16431 146 0.89% $9.80 05/26 <aggregate> 23441 151 0.64% $4.64 05/27 <aggregate> 34987 208 0.59% $8.59 05/28 <aggregate> 42669 221 0.52% $4.61 05/29 <aggregate> 37056 185 0.50% $3.77 05/30 <aggregate> 40317 197 0.49% $0.00 05/31 <aggregate> 29904 160 0.54% $0.00 Total 441505 2261 0.51 $36.44 Code (markup): As you can see it took some time for earnings to ramp up but towards the end of the month saw some pretty good figures. I do expect better figures as the 30-day cookie gets older however as many people have experienced. You will notice the low CTR of my AuctionAds.... that's expected with the type of sites I have them running so don't worry too much about that. It does help your CTR when you target your AuctionAds better so use good keywords and test them to see what items are being displayed. Ad blending also helps as well to decrease long term ad blindness and increase the longetivity of the CTR. Well we are into June now and earnings look like they are continuing in the upward trend: 06/01 <aggregate> 23973 171 0.71% $26.94 06/02 <aggregate> 22502 168 0.75% $11.94 06/03 <aggregate> 30968 188 0.61% $10.64 06/04 <aggregate> 32285 198 0.61% $0.00 Total 109728 725 0.66 $49.52 Code (markup): At this present time the earnings are about 2/3 of what my Adsense is making which makes it a very nice complementary money maker. I did notice that earnings take a day or two to show so for example you can see 4/6 above with no earnings but in the next day or two it will most likely shoe some. One thing I don't like about AuctionAds is it really only works properly with US based residents. So if you are in the US and click an ad you are directed to that item on eBay. If you are in another country it directs you to that countries eBay and conducts a search based on the keywords you selected for the AuctionAds. I have spoken to AuctionAds about it and they are confident that that approach converts equally as well. Personally I don't see how but for now I have to take their word for it. I'll report more as the month progresses.
Hey, thanks for the report. That's great. I actually gave up on AA, took them off my site after NO conversions in 2 months. There just seemed to be too many steps for the user to take, from clicking, joining, bidding, winning an item, or whatever the various paying actions are. Another annoying thing is the seeming lack of a cache like Adsense's, meaning it doesn't seem to remember your keywords long enough and you get the ubiqitous iPod ads served up a bit too much for my liking... But maybe I should give it another go, shuffle things around a bit...
Hi, If they (people clicking your ads) are already members of the auction site, do you still get credit for the sale, or is it only good if they sign up as new members. I am wanting to check out this idea for a new project. I've been seeing these ads on other sites and they seem very relative to the content and look like a lot of fun. Thank you for reading/helping.
Good question, one I have never quite got to the bottom of. I believe that you ARE credited for the sale - you are not referring members, you are referring sales. Though I could be quite wrong - another reason for my uncertainty about AuctionAds.
That's actually a question I'd like answered as well. Do we get commissions on NEW clients only or does that include existing eBay clients we refer to auctions. Shoe if you are reading this any info would be appreciated. I'll keep you all posted on my progress in June.
Here is the info on the eBay affiliate program: http://affiliates.ebay.com/odcs/custom.htm?template=Payout
Yep, a good report and nice to see how they are performing especially as I am also trying them out at the moment. I am in day 2.
If it DOESN'T include existing eBay clients, I would be surprised to see ANY sales - I mean, is there anyone left who hasn't at least registered with eBay at some point?! Being registered doesn't necessarily mean you use eBay actively, so it would seem fair to me that they would try to drive former customers back and entice them to buy, and share the proceeds with the referrer... Though the large number of existing customers of eBay might partly explain low CTRs? (mine is 1.14%)
Agree with that... would be nice to see them pay a commission if we refer an existing customer to an auction etc... it would help them retain their customers as well. I guess they have such a large market share it doesn't matter. The CTR really depends on your site, where the ads are placed, relevancy, niche etc...
My pleasure! Like I said I will provide more info as time goes on... thanks for the rep! Nice to know someone appreciates it.
I have just placed AuctionAds on my blog (AjaxGirl)to experiment it . I will inform you about my stats
Good report, and congratulations.. your experience is similar to mine. The only difference is that I started to see earnings sooner. Now after about 45 days or so, i'm averaging almost $10/day. I put AA in my forums area where I could not make squat with Adsense or Yahoo, so i'm very happy with "only" $10/day ..
If you can usee AA as a replacement for Adsense and make money from it then your laughing. If you can make the relevancy of the AA products suit your forum then your laughing!