TylerCruz.com: An Internet Entrepreneur's JourneyThe journal of a web entrepreneur on his journey to wealth.

PublisherSpot Updates

It’s PublisherSpot time! I’m still gung ho and excited about this project, and it’s a great chance at a case study of a site from it’s genesis.

I’ve documented every step of the site from choosing it’s domain name, having it programmed and designed to where we are today. It’s a great chance for readers to see how a site is developed through the various stages. Soon I will start marketing it and we’ll see how it goes from there.

With that said, here’s what’s new with the ad network review site:

First, we’ve added reviews of AGLOCO, Burst Media, and Text Link Ads. That gives us a total of 9 reviews so far, and now the site is finally growing to become the useful resource it’s supposed to be. We expect to average 1 review per week.

In addition, a new feature was added. I had thought of this feature about a 10 days ago, and it’s really the most basic thing in the world. Basically the feature attaches additional information to reviews which allows them to both disclose more information and greatly enhance the site’s search engine.

Currently there are three new fields per review: Ads Allowed on Forums, PayPal Payment Option, and Referral Program. Each field has three possible answers: Yes, No, and Unknown, with the latter being set when that information hasn’t been researched yet.

I’ve seen MANY threads on forums with people asking the questions “What ad networks allow forums” or “Networks that pay via PayPal”. They’d usually receive a few responses with people mentioning 2-3 different networks. This new feature on PublisherSpot will finally provide a solution for such questions. All a user needs to do is select what additional features they want from an ad network on our search page and they’ll receive all the corresponding networks.

Again, it’s a simple idea and feature, but it’s also extremely useful. Since it was just added, and created after the reviews on the site, we’re going to have to go through the past 9 reviews and research them to change all the fields from the default “unknown”. Also, there’s a CSS issue that my programmer is trying to fix which overlaps the additional features at the bottom of the reviews.

So that’s what’s new development-wise with PublisherSpot. Next, I plan to continue adding more reviews and will very soon start to advertise and market the site.

Referrals

I’ve decided that I will update and revisit the actual income from PublisherSpot once a month. I’d do it more often but as the number of reviews grow, so will the amount of time it will take to check the stats of each one.

As a result, I’m also going to stop posting screenshots of the income and will instead just post the actual numbers here. Here then, is my income for April so far:

AuctionAds:

Payout: 2% for 6 months
Referrals: 8
Revenue: $7.03

CasaleMedia:

Payout: 5% for life
Referrals: 5
Revenue: $1.15

ValueClickMedia:

Payout: 5% for 12 months
Referrals: 2
Revenue: $0.92

AGLOCO:

Payout: Share worth currently unknown
Direct Referrals: 1
Indirect Referrals: 0
Total: 1

Total: 16 referrals, $9.10

So, 10 days after my $0.17 post with only 1 referrer, I’m now at $9.10 and 16 referrals!

While I’m extremely pleased with the early success thus far, I will admit, however, that I am a bit disheartened by the time limits on most networks. Casale, so far, is the only network that pays for life. ValueClickMedia pays 5% for 12 months, and AuctionAds pays only 2% for 6 months!

I’ve contacted both Jeremy (Shoemoney) and Patrick Gavin (ReviewMe, TLA, AuctionAds) about this and so far only Shoemoney responded, who basically just gave me a song and dance 😉

Simple math shows that my referred members have already made $351.50 in less than a week from AuctionAds. Awarding 2% to referrals is one thing, but then limiting that 2% to only 6-months is rubbing salt in the wound. In my opinion, in the least they should offer 5% for 6-months (like ValueClick) or else 2% for 12 months. When I have the choice of promoting Casale where I get 5% for life and AuctionAds where I get 2% for only 6 months, the choice is easy.

That being said, assuming my income from AuctionAds stays the same from these people for 6 months, that’s over $250 I’ll have made from 8 referrals. It’s not the most inspiring statistic in the world. Bah, I hate limits. I wish they were all for life 😉 I guess I’ve just been spoiled from the poker industry where they’re all for life, and most pay at LEAST 5%.

My referrals on CasaleMedia and ValueClick are making peanuts, so I’ll have to hope I sign up more valuable prospects in the future.

In other news, I finally got a hold of Patrick Gavin from TLA, and they’ve agreed to lower my TLA ads on my blog here from $50 to $20. So now you guys can buy a link here on the left side there at $20 a month. I believe that’s a fair price.

That’s all for now. Hope you guys enjoyed the post, because I did.