I’ve been testing WidgetBucks on this blog with the CPM ads they have been offering to international users. The results are very disappointing.
I took screenshots of the various types of ads that showed up on my blog, via WidgetBucks, as a case study to find out exactly what international visitors see. Since I’m based outside the U.S./Canada this is the kind of crap that fills up my sidebar -
Really! Wow I’m so excited!
But wasn’t I just the 999,999th visitor? OK, now i’m confused?
This I can live with…
Been there, done that. Still paying for it.
Ooh! Scary! Wait, isn’t Halloween done with for this year?
So now I’m the 999,999th visitor again?
Effective immediately, I will no longer promote or write about WidgetBucks as I do not want to bombard international readers of this blog with mindless nonsensical advertising as above.
If you’re wondering how much I’ve made so far with them via the CPM ads - the grand total is $0.01!! No clicks on the regular advertising shown to U.S./Canada traffic.
About the author
Hyder has been blogging for the past two years on this blog. He started Weborithm, his web company, in 2007 and along with designing blogs and websites also releases various web related products.
Zach on December 16th, 2007
1
I haven’t had a good experience with them either. I actually lost my Page Rank because of them.
But, before I took them off my blog {for good} I had made $3.00.
mercutiom on December 17th, 2007
2
Wow! That absolutely blows! Do those cheesy ad things still work for anyone anymore anywhere???? Sorry man, good to just drop them.
Hyder on December 17th, 2007
3
@mercutiom - It doesn’t matter to me if they work or not, they just plain suck! I’m never using them anymore for this blog.
Carib Web Dev on December 18th, 2007
4
i’ve been using this on one of my sites as well, utter disappointment
Martin Fitzpatrick on January 27th, 2008
5
Hyder: I had the same reactions to the ads - they’re the sort of thing that I thought we’d got rid of in the 90s. But, since the targetted ads on WidgetBucks seem to generate reasonably high revenue, I’ve scripted something to get one without the other.
Basically, it uses the visitors browser language settings to make an “informed guess” about their location (en-us / en-ca being most likely from US/Canada). It’s not geolocation by any means but it is a simple kludge that mostly works. Using this I’ve restricted the amount of the CPM ads showing considerably and filled that space instead with something visitors might want to see.
Not perfect, but better than the tat.