widgetbucks

WidgetBucks Money for Bloggers

2020-02-28T07:29:00.000-08:00

Bloggers: Be on your wayto more money in no time.

Your site visitors want one thing: your content. Why not make a little cash by displaying rich media ad widgets that complement what you have to say? So if you have a digital camera blog, WidgetBucks will show top selling digital cameras next to your posts.

What Makes WidgetBucks Different

With WidgetBucks, you can start earning more money today — and keep your focus on publishing.

Higher eCPMs Hands down, WidgetBucks exceeds traditional publisher's CPM targets of $1-$2
Content vs. ads WidgetBucks delivers engaging, contextual, rich-media widgets that complement your site content
Easy deployment Placing customized code on your site takes just minutes, and only MerchSense auto-optimizes your widget rotation based on performance tracking

	Sign Up
	Start by taking a few seconds to sign-up for WidgetBucks.
	Customize
	Customize your widget colors, sizes and categories, or have MerchSense auto-select the category for you based on your site content.
	Publish
	Our ad network integrates with Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, Movable Type, and other large blogging platforms making it even easier to drop in widgets. When users click your ads, you get paid.

Forbes: New automated tech firms reshaping digital media

2009-04-26T03:27:00.000-07:00

Forbes.com posted an insightful piece today on the rise of an emerging set of ad technology companies that are helping brands conduct their media buying more efficiently and effectively as people increasingly spend their lives online.

Mpire Corporation, maker of both WidgetBucks and AdXpose, was among the private companies cited in this lengthy article. The other technology companies in the piece include Mpire partners OpenX, Rubicon Project and Pubmatic, as well as Google and Yahoo! [full article here]

Matt Hulett, Mpire's CEO, (pictured) was quoted in the article -- "We've seen half a billion dollars of venture capital poured into building optimization and planning companies." -- and Mpire's new service -- AdXpose -- was highlighted as well:

This week, Hulett's firm unveiled an application to help advertisers track on which Web sites networks place ads, where on the actual screen the ad appears and if Web surfers pause their cursor over the ad. The tool is intended to help marketers better figure out how much of their ad spending is essentially worthless.

For more information and background on AdXpose, check out last week's press coverage, press release, and demo on YouTube.

Widgetbucks - It's Time to Vote! Seattle 2.0 Awards 2009

2009-04-13T03:23:00.000-07:00

This may be considered a very "local thing" but every vote counts, no matter its location. The Seattle 2.0 Awards recognizes accomplishments and exceptional people of the best of over 300 Seattle area technology startups. Voting ends April 28.

WidgetBucks is honored to be a finalist in four categories:

Best Startup CEO: Matt Hulett
Best Startup Technologist: Greg Harrison
Best Blog from/about Startups: Startup Whisperer by Matt Hulett
Best Venture Capitalist: Bill Bryant, WidgetBucks board member and Venture Partner at Draper Fisher Jurvetson, which led WidgetBucks' Series B funding in June 2008.

Those outside of the Seattle area may not realize the amount of innovation coming from the Puget Sound region from names like Picnik, Redfin, Wetpaint, iLike, and BuddyTV. Check out a full list here. We encourage to offer up your support and vote.

Here's a full list of categories -- Vote now!

Best Startup
Best Boot-strapped Startup
Best Startup CEO
Best Startup Technologist
Best Venture Capitalist
Best Angel Investor
Best Startup Product Designer
Best Service Provider to Startups
Best Blog from/about Startup
Best Social Event for Startups

Widgetbucks The Beginner's Guide to Ad Optimization

2009-03-29T03:19:00.000-07:00

WidgetBucks CEO Matt Hulett is a featured contributor in Monday's edition of Adotas, one of the interactive advertising's most targeted publications. Matt delves into the world of ad optimization, where he feels there is a lot of innovation happening today despite very little other good news coming from within the sector.

Matt discusses a group of optimization startups, including WidgetBucks, that are adding a tremendous layer of value between the supply and demand. These companies are still getting funding when other sectors have gone dry, and some have even been acquired recently.

The five areas of focus in what Matt calls the "ad optimization stack" include:

Container Optimization. Companies such as SnapAds, Tumri, Clearspring, Gigya and WidgetBucks
Targeting Optimization. Companies such as BlueKai, Exelate, Lookery and OthersOnline
Yield Optimization. Companies such as Pubmatic, Rubicon Project, YieldBuild, YieldX and WidgetBucks
Exchanges. Companies such as Right Media’s Publisher Media Exchange, Microsoft’s AdECN, DoubleClick
Auction-based marketplaces. Companies such as ContextWeb's ADSDAQ, AdBite, Turn, Google AdSense, and Yahoo! Publisher Network

Check out Matt's full Adotas post here.

Widgetbucks Make Room for AdSpace - Special Discount Code Available

2009-03-26T03:15:00.000-07:00

There is a new conference called the ADSPACE Contextual Advertising Conference + Expo on April 22, 2009, at the Moscone Center West in San Francisco. It is co-located and associated with the ad:tech conference that runs April 21-23.

There are two tracks, one focused on small to medium sized publishers and another focused on advertisers. WidgetBucks CEO Matt Hulett is participating on a panel, "10 Proven Methods to Increase Your eCPM and Generate More Revenue." Hats off to the folks who put this together -- it promises to be a very informative few days.

For those who might want to attend, here is an early bird code that is good thru this Friday: Promo Code: ADSPACEB. It will deduct 20% off the rate of $395. At times like this, every bit helps.

See you in San Francisco. by Dean

Widgetbucks- Three Reasons Why Amazon Should Buy Twitter

2009-03-06T03:12:00.000-08:00

Matt Hulett

With Twitter currently experiencing explosive growth and visibility, WidgetBucks CEO Matt Hulett takes a look at why it would make some sense for Amazon to buy Twitter. Check out his blog on AlwaysOn's VC & Money section -- a good read. If you're having a hard time visualizing it, below is a mock up of what might look like if Amazon were to integrate Twitter into its listing pages.

Eric Engleman of Seattle's TechFlash also wrote about this today as well.

Speaking of Twitter, check out this like-gold add-on that makes your Google searches real-time with Twitter.

Do you use Twitter? If so, start following WidgetBucks here. by - Dean

Part II: Fast Company TV's Robert Scoble Inside WidgetBucks

2009-03-03T03:07:00.000-08:00

Robert Scoble

Widely-known tech geek Robert Scoble of Fast Company TV recently visited WidgetBucks' offices in Seattle. Along with talking to WidgetBucks CEO Matt Hulett and CTO and Co-Founder Greg Harrison in Part I, Robert ran Part II of his video interview that featured more with Hulett along with an inside look at new creatives and a short demo by WidgetBucks Creative Overlord Nick Redmond.

Part II of II (Watch Part I now)

Peek Inside WidgetBucks with Fast Company TV's Robert Scoble, Part I

2009-03-02T02:54:00.000-08:00

Blogger, tech evangelist, author and widely-known tech geek Robert Scoble of Fast Company TV recently visited WidgetBucks' offices in Seattle, Washington, on a recent trip to the Pacific Northwest. He spent some time chatting (and videotaping) WidgetBucks CEO Matt Hulett about the company's background, what we're focused today and where we're headed tomorrow. Check out the video below or directly on the site here, and stay tuned tomorrow for Part II here on the WidgetBucks Blog.

Robert also interviews WidgetBucks Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder Greg Harrison, who explains WidgetBucks' biggest challenge today, its stance on cloud computing and iframes, as well as how lack of Flash capability on mobile devices like iPhone limit the user experience, especially with ads.

Part I of II (Part II comes tomorrow)

WidgetBucks December Payments Distributed

2009-02-20T02:53:00.000-08:00

WidgetBucks earnings for December 2008 were distributed to publishers today. Our apologies for the delay in payment this month.

WidgetBucks Publisher Payment Update

2009-02-17T02:51:00.000-08:00

Last week we announced WidgetBucks payments would being made today- Feb. 17 - due to the odd timing around the previous weekend and U.S. President's Day holiday. Unfortunately, due to an unrelated technical glitch with PayPal, those payments are further delayed and are now scheduled to be delivered no later than Feb. 23.

We apologize for the inconvenience. -by Dean

WidgetBucks Reporting: Enhanced (and Proud of It)

2009-02-11T02:48:00.000-08:00

Don't say we didn't warn you. When you use WidgetBucks' updated MyWidgets reporting pages, you are knowingly and willingly using performance-enhancing data. That's what WidgetBucks publishers are going to find when they log in to MyWidgets reporting pages today. Publishers can now:

view by-country reporting within their MyWidgets page
download data reports as a CSV file (to view within Excel)

We heard from many publishers who wanted this feature given their amount of blended domestic and international traffic, so the wait is over. This change ultimately helps you as a publisher figure out exactly how much you are making in the U.S. versus the UK, Germany or France, for example. (See WidgetBucks' full list of CPC and CPM countries)

In all, publishers' MyWidgets pages now consist of four reporting sections, or tabs:

Summary. This view continues to roll-up of all impressions, earnings and total eCPM, along with the graph of daily earnings and all the widgets you've created listed below.
Widget Detail. This view breaks down the performance of the widget by the type of advertising "views" (as we call them) of CPM, CPC, and International CPM (that is, CPM ads for countries not supported by a CPC widget) advertising.
Referrals. This view lists all your referred WidgetBucks publishers and what amount you've earned through them. In case you haven't heard, WidgetBucks has increased its Referral Program payout to 15%! Check out our new referral creatives here.
By Country. As discussed above, this view breaks down the traffic at the country level for impression, click, and revenue volumes. Each of these reports can provide useful information for optimizing our advertising to best fit your site and the type of traffic you receive. Note that the country-level reporting is only from February 5th forward. We had to change some of the ways we tracked data and this could not be applied retroactively to provide a more historical view.

Combine all four tabs (click the screen shot above for a better view) with the ability to download any report to a Excel/CSV file and the analytic crowd can have some fun playing with the data. We hope these new features prove useful to you and as always, we welcome your feedback on things you'd like to see added to the WidgetBucks platform.

If you feel you are having trouble with these new features, please contact us at WBHelp [at] widgetbucks [dot] com

- Gary Kamikawa
VP, Interactive Marketing
WidgetBucks

Widgetbucks PaidContent: In A Widget Economy, Is Your Ad Smart Enough?

2009-02-11T02:43:00.000-08:00

The notion of a "widget economy" was the focus of a post today by PaidContent writer Tameka Kee, who took a look back at recent investments in widget companies and asked, now a year later, if the opportunity is still viable. It's an interesting read, which includes WidgetBucks.

eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson provided this perspective in the article: "This is still a developing market, and most of the companies are spending their resources on making the widgets smarter, more intuitive and improving their tracking capabilities." Kee called out WidgetBucks and Gigya as those companies that have built in-depth analytics and other features into widgets.

If you are a WidgetBucks publisher, you know this means YieldSense, WidgetBucks' yield-optimization technology that makes publishers' ads super smart so they provide the best rate of return.

WidgetBucks December Payment Timing Alert

2009-02-10T02:42:00.000-08:00

This post is to alert WidgetBucks' publishers that December 2008 commission and referral payments will be distributed on Tuesday, February 17 -- exactly one week from today. Funky calendar timing has February 14 & 15 falling on a weekend and February 16 is President's Day, a national U.S. holiday, meaning payments are being pushed to the next business day. Thanks for your understanding.- by Dean

WidgetBucks Profiled on Vator.tv

2009-02-09T02:28:00.000-08:00

Earlier today, Vator.tv, the voice of the entrepreneur, posted a WidgetBucks profile on its site along with a video interview with CEO Matt Hulett. If you haven't looked into Vator.tv, you should. It's a social media company for businesses, leveraging community-generated content to connect investors, strategic partners and startups. The site's CEO and co-founder is Bambi Francisco, who started the site a little shy of two years ago. If you've followed the tech space for any length of time, Bambi's name probably rings a bell. She's written for Dow Jones MarketWatch and also produced at CNN's financial news network.

She did a nice job of capturing WidgetBucks in this piece. Check out the written piece here or the video below, and/or view WidgetBucks' profile on Vator.tv.

Widgetbucks-What's in Your Affiliate Marketing Toolkit?

2009-02-06T02:23:00.000-08:00

As many of you may know, WidgetBucks increased its Referral Program rate to 15 percent recently, so as referred publishers earn money through their ads, affiliate marketers get more bang for their WidgetBucks.

What you may not have noticed is that WidgetBucks has also updated its Referral Toolkit, a whole new set of pre-designed ad creatives with related code for easy placement on your site. (Note that you'll need to be signed-in to your WidgetBucks account to view this page).

There are 20 various sizes and new creatives from which to choose, including six of the popular 125x125 size option, animated ads and plain text referral links to include in your email and forum signatures. Each is also integrated with TypePad, WordPress and Blogger. Just grab the ad code, drop it into your site and you're done.

WidgetBucks Referral Program highlights:

* You earn a 15 percent referral fee based on the commissions earned by the publishers you refer.
* You receive this 15 percent for the full 12 months after the new member joins.
* Payouts to you are monthly, along with your commission payment.

Here's how one WidgetBucks' publisher used the code on their blog. - by Dean

Michael Vernon Joins WidgetBucks Board

2009-02-02T18:56:00.000-08:00

Former aQuantive CFO Michael Vernon Joins WidgetBucks Board. I wanted to jump on the WidgetBucks' blog this morning and share with everyone that Michael Vernon has joined our Board of Directors. For those of you who know about Michael, this is a real coup for us here at WidgetBucks. For those of you who don't, Michael was the former CFO at aQuantive (acquired by Microsoft in 2007 for $6B -- yes, with a B) so he knows online advertising technology, knows how to inject ‘big thinking’ into an emerging company like ours, and he's a fantastic complement to our existing experienced Board and management team. His background includes being responsible for financially guiding aQuantive to profitability and a multi-billion dollar market cap before the Microsoft acquisition.

He joins WidgetBucks' Board at an important time, as we hit our second full year of rapid growth after seeing ad impression volume grew by 150 percent over the course of 2008.

In Michael's words: “When it comes to core fundamentals within the online advertising space – monetization, expansion and targeting – WidgetBucks is well positioned to be a big ad play. What further attracted me to this appointment is the management team’s successful history, new proprietary optimization technology, including YieldSense, and their sound financial backing and infrastructure.”

We've added a lot of industry experience lately. Michael is the third industry veteran to join WidgetBucks’ management team and/or Board in the last several months: Chief Revenue Officer Kirby Winfield joined in August, while Chief Financial Officer Jeff Bergstrom came on board in October. Combined, the two chief officers represent over $3 billion in shareholder value from past acquisitions.

WidgetBucks Publishers Now Earning More Revenue from European Traffic

2008-07-15T09:53:00.000-07:00

WidgetBucks is expanding its cost-per-click (CPC) network, giving publishers and bloggers two ways to earn revenue from their Western European traffic. Starting today in the United Kingdom, when publishers serve WidgetBucks ad widgets on their sites, visitors based in the UK will now see a short-duration CPM display ad followed by a CPC shopping widget featuring UK-based merchants and products listed in British pounds sterling. (see a sample UK screen shot here)

The CPM-CPC hybrid gives publishers two revenue streams from the same ad widget instance. Before today, only CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) ads were served to visitors outside the U.S. and Canada.

Additional Western European countries, including Germany, France, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, Norway, Denmark and Belgium will come online over the next two weeks.

From a reporting standpoint, this CPC expansion is seamless. In addition to current CPM impressions, additional impressions will simply and automatically be tallied into CPC roll-up and daily totals, as well as resulting revenue. At this time, we are not breaking out by-country CPC impressions and earnings.

At the left is a breakdown of CPC and CPM Country Lists, the latter of which will continue to see only CPM advertisements.

It's May Pay Day!

2008-07-14T09:51:00.000-07:00

PayPalWidgetBucks payments for May were sent via PayPal earlier today. Checks are being processed and sent later today or tomorrow. As always, we encourage you, if all possible, to switch to PayPal. It's faster than mail, more secure and there's no fee when receiving the money.

- Dean

Will All Online Ads Become Widgets?

2008-07-09T09:50:00.000-07:00

It only seems inevitable that all online advertising will be "widgetized" in some way. Our CEO Matt Hulett has been espousing this for quite some time, and as this year increasingly becomes the Year of the Ad Widget, it seems others are adopting this point of view as well, including eMarketer Senior Analyst Debbie Aho Williamson. She just posted "Banner Ads Get Widgetized" on her Next Steps in Marketing blog, indicating that the movement toward widget advertising makes a lot of sense -- and cites WidgetBucks as example, along with a partner, VideoEgg.

- Dean

WidgetBucks Posts May Earnings

2008-06-17T09:48:00.000-07:00

WidgetBucks publishers can now view May earnings on their MyBucks pages. Also, May earnings payments will be distributed by July 10.

- Dean

A WidgetWebExpo Fly-by

2008-06-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

WidgetWebExpo is taking place in Brooklyn, New York, this week. Earlier today, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures held a keynote on, what else, widgets. Lawrence Coburn of Sexywidget was in the audience and provided a verbatim recap of Fred's talk, which opined that widgets are too cumbersome and that people want to consume info in a river (i.e. Twitter, Friendfeed, Facebook Newsfeed, etc.). Also, that engagement of widgets is what matters -- who’s clicking and doing what.

WidgetBucks Secures $10 Million Investment to Expand Ad Widget Network

2008-06-15T05:04:00.000-07:00

We're very pleased today to announce that WidgetBucks has secured $10 million in Series B funding.

The investment was led by Draper Fisher Jurvetson, one of the world’s premier venture capital firms. Ignition Partners, which supplied the company’s original venture backing, also participated in the financing. This investment really allows us to expand our vision as an ad network, which will only mean great things for our publishers.

We plan to put greater resources into our YieldSense technology to further optimize your earnings and simplify your ad serving decisions. We also plan to build more revenue options around our ad widgets, including more ways to monetize international traffic and increase the number of ad model options for you. And finally, we'll continue innovating around ad design and content for those ads, creating things such as mash-up ads with a choice of content feeds within the same widget. Expanding our team is also a priority, particularly around engineering, sales and support.

According to Bill Bryant (pictured at left), startup veteran and venture partner at DFJ, the investment decision in WidgetBucks was simple. “DFJ invests in companies that are bringing disruptive technology to major sectors of the Internet economy. We love what WidgetBucks has built around its ecommerce platform. While the recent growth has been phenomenal, what we invested in is the promise to truly transform performance-based advertising for publishers.”

Since launch in October 2007, WidgetBucks has had rocket-ship growth, and your participation as a publisher has brought us to this successful milestone. We just surpassed 5 billion total ad widget impressions, and July is projected to be our first 1 billion impression month.

Again, we appreciate your participation in our program. As our ad network continues to "season" and mature, we look forward to expanding your earning potential.

Click the YouTube logo to see a video message from myself and CTO & Co-Founder Greg Harrison. Also read our full press release here.

Matt Hulett

WidgetBucks Payments Shipping Through End of Week

2008-06-15T05:00:00.000-07:00

The sweet sound of cha-ching will be hitting PayPal accounts through Friday this week as WidgetBucks earnings for April get distributed. A softer-sounding cha-ching -- that from snail mail checks -- will also be heard this week. Incidentally, few publishers are still electing to receive their payments by check. As always, we encourage you, if all possible, to switch to PayPal. There is no fee when receiving the money, it's much faster, and more secure.

WidgetBucks Joins ProBlogger's Quarterly Top Earner List

2008-06-01T18:30:00.000-07:00

Darren Rouse, ProBloggerDarren Rowse of ProBlogger today posted his quarterly list of top income streams, where WidgetBucks is a newcomer and ranked No. 8. Rowse (pictured at left) highlights each entry, including this excerpt on WidgetBucks:

WidgetBucks is similar to Chitika and Shopzilla in many respects and works well on product related sites. It does best on sites with US traffic (the reason I’ve not used it as much as I get a lot of international traffic) so if you have a product related site with a US audience it’d be a no brainer to try out WidgetBucks. I’m hoping they’ll continue to expand their offerings in terms of ad types and visitor location.

In fact, publishers will be hearing a lot more about WidgetBucks' product and distribution expansion plans, including international CPC content, in the coming weeks. Stay tuned...

Dean

April Earnings Posted This Week; Payments Coming Soon

2008-05-30T18:23:00.000-07:00

WidgetBucks publishers can now view April earnings on their MyBucks pages. We apologize for the delay in posting these and thank you for your patience. Also, April earnings payments will be made by June 11.

- Dean

WidgetBucks, AdSense: Living in Harmony

2008-05-20T18:17:00.000-07:00

Pop-unders have been running just under a week now through the WidgetBucks network, and over that time, we have had some inquiries that we hope to clarify in this post:

1. Compatibility with Google AdSense
Below is an excerpt pulled from the AdSense Terms of Service to clarify that there is, in fact, no conflict with running WidgetBucks ads (that offer a pop-under) and AdSense ads on the same page:

Site and Ad Behavior Sites showing Google ads should be easy for users to navigate and should not contain excessive pop-ups. AdSense code may not be altered, nor may standard ad behavior be manipulated in any way that is not explicitly permitted by Google.

* Sites showing Google ads may not contain pop-ups or pop-unders that interfere with site navigation, change user preferences, or initiate downloads. [Editor Note: WidgetBucks does none of these] Read the rest of the Google AdSense TOS here.

2. Opting-In/Out
Those opting-out of these ads need to be sure to select "Update" on their code once they uncheck the box. Note, these ads do NOT require repasting code into your blog or site -- just hit "Update" to apply.

3. Display Ad Reporting
Today we've rolled out changes to the MyWidgets reporting page to make it easier for publishers to differentiate revenue and impressions from U.S.-based display and international CPM ads. All Display Ad reporting -- including impressions and revenue from pop-unders -- is now broken down separately from International figures. Previously, these had been one. While both are still found under the CPM Ads tab, having them in separate columns should make distinguishing this information much easier and informative. Incidentally, the roll-up figures and pie-charts continue to reflect the aggregation of the tabbed sections. Click on the image below for a snapshot of the new columns or checkout your own MyWidgets page.

Thanks for the continued input and for using WidgetBucks!

- Dean

Reminder: WidgetBucks Rolling Out New Ad Type

2008-05-18T01:36:00.000-07:00

As indicated in a recent newsletter to publishers, WidgetBucks publishers should soon begin seeing an increase in display CPM rates due to the introduction of pop-under ads. These are ads that display in a new browser window behind the current browser window, and will appear to both U.S. and international viewers. Revenue and impressions from these ads will be rolled into the existing "CPM Display Ads" buckets, and as a reminder, log-in to your active widgets and confirm if you would like to opt-in or opt-out of this revenue opportunity. This opt-in/opt-out option is also provided when creating new widgets. Currently the pop-under frequency is set to one display for each visitor per day (24 hours).

WidgetBucks Cracks comScore's Ad Network Report

2008-04-20T02:02:00.000-07:00

Just six months after inception, WidgetBucks is getting recognized as one of the Internet's leading ad networks, according to the March 2008 comScore Media Metrix U.S. Ad Network report. See comScore's Ad Network press release, where they focus on niche ad networks, such as WidgetBucks, that are emerging to help advertisers target specific audiences. Also see our own release for more details.

Ranked No. 33, WidgetBucks is the first-ever ad widget network to enter this advertising-focused report. While they don't hand out 33rd Place ribbons, presence on this list is more significant than actual position, according to Jeff Hacket, vice president sales at comScore, Inc.:

“The addition of WidgetBucks in our March 2008 report underscores the growth of niche ad networks and the role widgets are beginning to play in online advertising."

Inclusion in the March 2008 report comes as WidgetBucks, which has gone from zero to three billion impressions in its first six months, expands beyond shopping widgets. Publishers will soon be able to earn money through interactive travel, pay-per-call and local ad widgets (currently in private beta), and later this quarter, real estate, auto and text link ad widgets.

- Dean

WidgetBucks' RPCs Rebounding

2008-04-20T02:01:00.000-07:00

Over the last 48 hours, many publishers have been seeing a steady increase in their RPC (revenue-per-click) rates, recovering from last week's drop. We have been able to make progress on pricing issues with partners much more quickly than first predicted, and as a result the RPC increases can be seen across most categories and climbing toward pre-drop levels. Thank you for your patience.

- Dean

WidgetBucks - CPC and CPM Rate Update

2008-04-01T19:47:00.000-07:00

This post touches on a couple revenue updates, largely around recent shifts in CPC (cost-per-click) rates and the baseline CPM rate publishers are seeing for U.S. and Canadian traffic.

CPC

CPC rates have have dropped significantly since this past weekend (March 29-30). Widgetbucks are working through those issues with partners right now and anticipate these rates will rise again within the next seven days. Incidentally, this drop Widgetbucks are seeing is not unique to the WidgetBucks network when it comes to shopping CPC rates right now; nonetheless, Widgetbucks working to get those CPC rates back to their week-ago levels.

CPMs within "Hybrids"

After launching combination CPM/CPC "hybrid" ads nearly a month ago, Widgetbucks are seeing a baseline .$25 CPM across the board and anticipate this to hold steady or even rise over time. Widgetbucks are working with a number of large ad networks to provide top brands within the CPM rotation, and currently Widgetbucks seeing ads that are contextual, and targeted by geography and category, and as a result, these are remaining competitive.

A number of Widgetbucks publishers have updated their code to take advantage of this extra and/or off-setting revenue. If you haven't done so, Widgetbucks encourage you to check out this post for instructions on how to update your site code.

WidgetBucks MediaWeek: Advertisers Embracing Widgets

2008-03-15T04:26:00.000-07:00

MediaWeek's Digital Download reports on widget's bright future, which was heavily bandied about at this week's Media Summit in New York. Writer Mike Shields points out that "advertisers and media companies are beginning to embrace the power of widgets."

One source within Shields' piece predicts online ad networks will serve largely as widget distribution platforms. Widgetbucks feel this prediction has no merit...the future is already here! In the opinion of WidgetBucks, we're living it. Our ad widget network is firmly planted between innovative widget makers (i.e. RockYou, Slide), which are trying to figure out how to make money, and online advertising networks, such as ValueClick, Tribal Fusion and countless others, where innovation is spotty.

WidgetBucks already provides a combination of built-in business model (shopping widgets now, more to come soon), proprietary technology (i.e. YieldSense, MerchSense, and mass distribution (3 billion impression mark is quickly approaching). And as a result, we're one of the fastest growing networks today.

Read the rest of the MediaWeek piece here.

WidgetBucks Updates International CPM Country List

2008-03-11T16:40:00.000-07:00

WidgetBucks Updates International CPM Country List

Over the past few weeks, WidgetBucks' international advertisers have been concerned about traffic originating in certain countries. Even with fraud-protection, advertisers can deem traffic from certain regions non-valuable. As such, when advertisers no longer wish to pay for traffic to certain regions, WidgetBucks has to adapt and no longer offer traffic monetization to those regions.

Effective immediately, WidgetBucks is shortening the list of countries that pay on a CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) basis, meaning only traffic from the list of countries below will earn CPM revenue. Site visitors originating from countries not on the list will result in zero payout. Revenue earned through visitors from countries no longer on the list will still be paid through today, March 7.

If a WidgetBucks ad widget is placed on a site that is visited by a user in a non-paying country, that user will not see any ad content. And this does not involve or impact the recent roll-out of the "hybrid" widgets, which include a CPM display ad for U.S. and Canada traffic.

List of countries whose traffic continues to pay on a CPM basis:

Australia (AU)
Austria (AT)
Belgium (BE)
Denmark (DK)
France (FR)
Germany (DE)
India (IN)
Ireland (IE)
Italy (IT)
Netherlands (NL)
New Zealand (NZ)
Portugal (PT)
Puerto Rico (PR)
Singapore (SG)
South Africa (ZA)
Spain (ES)
Switzerland (CH)
United Arab Emirates (AE)
United Kingdom (GB)

Over time, additional countries may return to the "approved" list, but only after ad partners become increasingly comfortable with the traffic trends and are willing to pay for ad content in those regions.

WidgetBucks Hybrid Widgets Now Live

2008-02-28T05:56:00.000-08:00

New Impulse-Buy Categories Added; Display Ads Now Live

WidgetBucks Hybrid Widgets Now Live

Before discussing the new categories, the short-duration display ads that were to begin this week, have now started. See all the details of this new roll-out on our blog post from Feb. 22. Initially, the display ad/shopping widget hybrid is appearing on 300 x 250 widgets, with additional sizes rolling out later this week.

WidgetBucks New Impulse Buy Categories

As we've made a concerted effort to get as site-category specific as possible -- which is what triggers higher payments by advertisers -- WidgetBucks has added 16 new categories from which to choose, and another six more coming online later in the week.

The premise behind the new categories is be attractive to users who may want to impulse buy. It's the same idea behind the quick buys one makes while in the grocery or department store line -- things you didn't intend to shop for but willing to buy because of the reasonable or low price point.

So we've created a variety of new types of categories, including software (tax preparation, PDA, Web publishing), event tickets, ink jet printer cartridges and accessories for HDTVs, GPS devices, PDAs, digital cameras and photography in general, as examples. We've also added sports attire categories for NASCAR, NCAA (the Tournament starts March 18), MLB (Opening Day is March 30) , NBA and the NFL.

To give some additional perspective on the additional categories, we have noticed that RPCs (revenue per click) have dropped significantly for high-price categories, such as HDTVs, desktop and laptop computers and high-end digital cameras. With the RPC that advertisers are willing to pay tied directly to CTS (conversion to sale) -- and therefore, very unreliable for high-ticket goods -- we've moved to provide these impulse-buy categories (items less than $200) with the intention of stabilizing RPCs.

articles by- Dean (WidgetBucks)

WidgetBucks - Site Category Assignments to Improve CPMs

2008-02-28T05:39:00.000-08:00

WidgetBucks publishers looking for increased CPM earnings on non-US and Canada traffic now have the ability to assign their site(s) into one of 40 categories, such as technology, sports, gaming, health and business/finance. Assigning a category to a site where a WidgetBucks widget resides gives advertisers the ability to reach more targeted audience segments and, most importantly, a reason to pay higher rates to publishers. Because we just rolled out this change, it's difficult to estimate the exact increase in CPM but we will provide some trend insight on this over the next couple of weeks. Also, since the CPM platform is a “learning” system, expect fluctuations in CPM rates as it learns what ad content is performing best on your site (i.e. advertisers pay higher CPM rates for ad content that has a good CTR).

Since putting CPM ads in place mid-December, rates have been paid based on generalized country of site traffic -- not a specific type or topic of site and therefore rates have been at the low end of the scale. Making this update does not require any code changes to widgets and can be done through these steps:

Step 1. Within “My Settings,” assign a default site category from the pull-down menu. Any new widget created will carry this default as its site category value, however, existing widgets will not be assigned the default -- those will need to be assigned individually (see Step 2 below). The default site category can be manually overridden within a specific widget without impacting other widgets. For example, if the default site category is set to "Music" and a widget is subsequently placed on a health-related site, the "Health" category could be assigned to the new widget to yield higher CPM rates. Also, be sure to select PayPal as your payment method so you can receive payments more quickly.

Step 2. Within "MyWidgets," using the "edit" link for each existing widget, assign a site type (Step No. 6 within that page) that is most applicable to the site where the widget resides. While editing the widget, be sure to check your product choice to ensure those selected are the most appropriate/applicable. See the site category pull-down within a widget customization page.

In other news, WidgetBucks is making a change to its Terms of Service to cap at two (2) the number of WidgetBucks ad widgets that can be placed on any given page. The new program policy within Exhibit A now reads: “Widgets may not be placed on pages published specifically for the purpose of showing ads, whether or not the page content is relevant. No more than 1 to 2 ads per page are allowed.” We want to maintain a healthy and profitable network - a number of sites have WidgetBucks ad widgets plastered on their site – which negatively impacts CPM rates.

Articles - by : Dean (WidgetBucks)

Widgetbucks - 2008 - The Year of WidgetBucks

2008-02-28T05:27:00.000-08:00

WidgetBucks CEO, welcome drinks.....

Hi everyone. Matt, CEO of Mpire here. I haven't contributed to this blog lately so thought I'd swing by, say hello, thank everyone for your continued support of WidgetBucks, and share a few thoughts on what I see ahead in the wild world of widgets.

First, a quick snapshot of the business. We continue to see great adoption of WidgetBucks, impressions are increasing each month, and we should reach the 2 billion impression mark by Valentine's Day. We have all of you to thank for this success, and appreciate your patience through some of our growing pains. Early next week, we'll be making December earnings payments to publishers -- our third such cycle. Even with this success, we continue to innovate, test and communicate with publishers to help maintain our focus on optimizing our ad widget network.

With the online ad and widget industries both evolving at break-neck speeds, I find myself constantly reading to stay ahead. I came across this fantastic and timely piece on GigaOm -- and wanted to share it with you. I found it so compelling because it captures much of the buzz around widgets today. Recent media chatter, including the GigaOm piece, are beginning to make 2008 look like the Year of the Ad Widget (this, after Newsweek declared 2007 the Year of the Widget). Many suggest an increasing push toward monetizing the millions of consumer eyeballs using widgets today. Some feel the RockYous, Slides and Clearsprings of the world -- essentially all consumer-facing widget platforms -- will find this a formidable mountain to climb. Even the ad widget networks that are seeing success around money-making widgets (i.e. WidgetBucks) are facing challenges, such as making sure our widgets continue to engage consumers without falling victim to user "ad blindness." We're embracing this challenge by constantly evaluating new approaches, technology and strategies to stay a step ahead. In fact, this quarter, we'll be announcing additional products and features, such as widget skinning, the expansion of monetizable widget content, and wide availability of YieldSense, which automatically transforms itself into a PPC, CPM or CPA ad widget on the fly, depending on highest yield.

"Those focused on a more ad-centric model are going ahead with their plans to use the widget as a more interactive billboard, but companies like Slide and RockYou may find that strategy more difficult." -- GigaOm, "Widget Me This," 1/26/08

Regardless of the various challenges and approaches -- consumer-centric or ad-centric widgets -- it remains to be seen if the two can meet in the middle and help the Year of the Ad Widget live up to its name. We certainly hope this happens -- it will be good for all of us in the industry. We are confident in our approach of creating an ad widget network first followed by a good consumer experience, and continue to work on refining that balance.

Where do you think widgets are headed this year?

Cheers,

Matt

====================

Matt Hulett
CEO, Mpire Corporation (the creators of WidgetBucks)
matt@mpire.com

WidgetBucks Referral Tools Pages

2008-02-27T08:15:00.000-08:00

WidgetBucks Referral Tools Pages

Click Pictures To View WidgetBucks Referral Tools Pages

Adding referral tools to your site or blog is a snap with the code snippets below. There's no need to add your affiliate code — it's already built in.

With WidgetBucks' Referral program, affiliates can earn a 5 percent referral fee based on the commissions earned by the people they refer. Affiliates receive this 5 percent for the full 12 months after the new member joins. Payouts to affiliates are monthly, along with their commission checks.

(88 x 31)

(125 x 125)

(125 x 21)

(160 x 27)

(250 x 42)

(125 x 125)

(120 x 600)

(160 x 600)

(125 x 125)

(728 x 90)

(486 x 60)

Earn $$ with WidgetBucks! (Text link)

WidgetBucks - My Settings Page

2008-02-27T08:09:00.000-08:00

WidgetBucks - My Settings Page

Click picture to view WidgetBucks - My Settings Page

WidgetBucks - My widget pages

2008-02-27T08:00:00.000-08:00

WidgetBucks - My widget pages

Click pictures to view WidgetBucks - My widget pages

WidgetBucks - MyBucks Pages

2008-02-27T07:46:00.000-08:00

WidgetBucks - MyBucks Pages

Click pictures to view big WidgetBucks MyBucks Pages

WidgetBucks - Frequently Asked Questions

2008-02-27T07:39:00.000-08:00

WidgetBucks Frequently Asked Questions

How do I make money from WidgetBucks?

There are three ways to make money from WidgetBucks:

PPC, or Pay-Per-Click ads. Each time a user from the U.S. or Canada clicks on a WidgetBucks ad widget on your site, you get paid.
CPM, or Cost-Per-Thousand Impressions. When a user from outside the U.S. and Canada views one of your pages that contains a CPM ad from one of WidgetBucks' ad partners, you earn revenue.
Referrals. When you refer a new WidgetBucks user, you will receive a 5 percent referral fee based on the commissions earned by the people you refer. You'll receive this 5 percent for the full 12 months after the new member joins.

How much do I make?

How much you earn for PPC (Pay-Per-Click) ads depends largely on your site's traffic and content. For international CPM ads, the CPM rate varies by region from around the world.

How do I get started?

Getting started with WidgetBucks is a simple 1-2-3 process. First, sign-up. Second, configure your widgets with our easy publishing system. Third, paste the code into your blog or Web page, or use our integration with popular blog platforms such as TypePad, Blogger and WordPress. If you want to change or update your WidgetBucks widgets in the future, simply sign in and go to My Widgets. As of November 28, 2007, WidgetBucks requires approval of new accounts in order to maintain network quality and a competitive revenue-per-click for publishers.

Does WidgetBucks require approval to join?

Yes. As of November 28, WidgetBucks is a "gated" ad network that require approval to join. Publishers who joined prior to that date were "grandfathered" into the network. New publishers are now required to submit more information upon sign-up, including domain information, site types, as well as additional location and contact information. The support team will review the publisher's information and site(s) and then approve/enable the account or deny (along with a reason).

How often do I get paid? What are methods of payment?

We make payments 45 days after the end of each month, if the account has a balance of at least $50. PayPal payments typically are made first, followed by checks. The $25 Sign-Up Bonus [received by publishers who signed up prior to Jan. 15] counts towards this $50 minimum for payment and is shown on your MyBucks page on www.widgetbucks.com. As an example, if you signed up for WidgetBucks in October, you would receive your first commission payment within 45 days of Oct. 31, approximately mid December, however we make best efforts to get money sent out earlier.

Does WidgetBucks pay in U.S. dollars or local currency?

We pay in U.S. dollars. Payments are by check or through PayPal. Payments are sent anywhere in the world. Checks will be mailed to your physical mailing address. PayPal payments will be deposited into your PayPal account, which is associated with a specific e-mail address (this e-mail address can be different from the one you use to sign up for WidgetBucks). Please visit the My Settings page at: https://www.widgetbucks.com/mySettings.page and indicate how you would like to be paid.

How frequently do my Impressions, Clicks, and Revenue statistics update?

All reporting data on WidgetBucks is updated daily and displays by Noon Pacific Time for the previous days activity.

Do you have a bonus program?

Not any longer. WidgetBucks' $25 bonus program was discontinued on January 15, 2008.

Do you have a referral program? How much does it pay?

Yes. When you refer a new WidgetBucks user, you will receive a 5 percent referral fee based on the commissions earned by the people you refer. You'll receive this 5 percent for the full 12 months after the new member joins. Your referral fees will be credited to your account and paid monthly, along with your commission payout. So, if you refer someone, and they make $100 in commissions, we pay you $5; if they make $1,000, we pay you $50. This continues for a whole year on all the commissions they earn. The Referral page has details on the Referral Program. When you are logged-in, go to the Referral Tools page to grab referral ads. You will soon see a "Grab this Widget" link on all widgets for viral distribution, which includes your referral information. Note that the cookie used to identify those you refer lasts for 30 days after they click on a referral link.

What is MerchSense?

MerchSense™ is Mpire's patent-pending contextual algorithm engine. It detects and analyzes the content of your website or blog to determine what product offers are most relevant to your audience. If you choose the MerchSense option when creating a new widget, simply place the code on your site and let MerchSense automatically provide the most appropriate ad content. MerchSense evaluates your editorial information daily, so, as your content changes, WidgetBucks will dynamically offer the highest-yielding products.

Can I place more than one WidgetBucks ad on my site?

Yes, there is no limit to how many you can place on your site.

Can I run WidgetBucks with Google AdSense?

Yes, WidgetBucks is compatible with all other ad systems.

Can I post a widget to my blog or publishing platform?

In many cases, a blogging/publishing platform will not allow the user to directly edit/enter HTML directly and/or there are restrictions on including javascript within a post. In these cases, you will not be able to place a widget in a post, but you may be able to add the widget to the sidebar. Sidebars are provided by nearly all blogging/publishing platforms, and they typically support HTML/Javascript. For example, WordPress does not allow certain types of accounts to add Javascript. Blogspot and Typepad are examples of platforms that allow you to place the widget code directly in a blog post and/or in the sidebar. Widgetbucks currently has direct integration with Blogger and Typepad to add the widget directly to a sidebar. You can also copy/paste the HTML code directly into a blog post on these platforms. Wordpress is also a very popular blogging platform, but has some specific WordPress steps that must be followed to support Javascript within your post. As a rule, if your platform allows you to directly edit HTML, you should be able to post a widget.

Can I put WidgetBucks on my site if I'm not based in the US?

Yes, as long as the site meets the terms of service. Please be aware that our terms of service does not allow non-english sites, ad-only sites, sites containing pornography or violent images, sites with invalid domains, and of course, click fraud. Widgetbucks can be placed on any site that has traffic; however, our mostly U.S.-based merchants/advertisers have indicated that they see an extremely low conversion to sale from international clicks, that is, those users from outside the U.S. and Canada. As a result, WidgetBucks offers the CPM (cost-per-thousand impressions) ads for publishers' international traffic, and the PPC (pay-per-click) model for U.S. and Canada traffic.

Why has WidgetBucks suspended my account?

If your account has been suspended, it has violated one of our terms of service, including click fraud. Additionally, invalid domains and non-English language sites are not allowed, as well as ad-only, pornographic and/or violent sites. Upon suspension or warning, an mail is sent to the publisher who had an account suspended with the specific reason as to why.

What do I have to do to make the PPC or CPM ads work at the right time?

Nothing. WidgetBucks handles this automatically. At the time a user visits a page containing the widget, we will sense the geographic location of the visitor. If they are in the U.S. and/or Canada, the user will see the normal WidgetBucks widget. If the user is outside those two countries, then our system will determine a country-specific CPM ad to display. We are currently working with advertisers covering 100 countries and offering thousands of creatives to ensure that most site visitors will be monetized for your benefit. All ads are restricted against adult or other suggestive themes.

If you are an existing publishers running widgets, you will need to replace existing code with new WidgetBucks ad code on their sites in order to begin earning international CPM revenue. To update your widget(s), simply click "Copy HTML" within the "Customize Your Widget" page for that widget and re-paste/replace the code block into your site. The updated code can also be replaced directly into the Blogger, TypePad or WordPress blogging platforms.

Will WidgetBucks ever offer PPC widgets for global merchants?

We are looking into additional solutions, including pay-per-click links to global merchants. Most of these longer-term solutions will require additional time to implement so we appreciate your patience as we work toward those.

What can I do about click fraud on my site?

To guard against outside people committing click fraud on a site and widget ads, several of our large publishers have installed scripts that sense when someone at a particular IP address is clicking too fast and too often. The script then blocks that IP address and prevents them from clicking. Thus, their widgets do not show a high number of invalid clicks, and their accounts are not suspended. Publishers who don't have this protection may want to consider installing such a script on their sites.

Does it matter what type of site I have to use Widgetbucks?

As long as the site meets the terms of service, you can use ads on any kind of site or pages you are looking to monetize. We've seen our shopping widgets be effective on specific product blogs, entertainment sites, or even local search engines. Try out a few different widgets and see what works best for your customers, but regardless, you'll be making money! We have noticed that well-placed, contextual WidgetBucks ads can yield over very high eCPM, in many cases over $6 eCPM. Location of the ad is important for U.S. and Canada traffic as they are PPC ads, so it needs to be "above the fold" and if you are selecting a specific content category, be sure it applies to your site content. Otherwise, use the MerchSense option and it will snap content to your page automatically based on page content and demographics. Sites that are pornographic in nature, non-english sites, and/or ad-only sites are examples of sites that are not allowed by the Terms of Service.

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WidgetBucks - Frequently Asked Questions

WidgetBucks Frequently Asked Questions

How do I make money from WidgetBucks?

How much do I make?

How do I get started?

Does WidgetBucks require approval to join?

How often do I get paid? What are methods of payment?

Does WidgetBucks pay in U.S. dollars or local currency?

How frequently do my Impressions, Clicks, and Revenue statistics update?

Do you have a bonus program?

Do you have a referral program? How much does it pay?

What is MerchSense?

Can I place more than one WidgetBucks ad on my site?

Can I run WidgetBucks with Google AdSense?

Can I post a widget to my blog or publishing platform?

Can I put WidgetBucks on my site if I'm not based in the US?

Why has WidgetBucks suspended my account?

What do I have to do to make the PPC or CPM ads work at the right time?

Will WidgetBucks ever offer PPC widgets for global merchants?

What can I do about click fraud on my site?

Does it matter what type of site I have to use Widgetbucks?