Now that PerformancingAds has officially launched, I wanted to take some time to talk about my experience with it so far.
I was lucky enough to have early access to PerformancingAds as it was being developed, and a fair bit of my feedback and criticisms were dealt with early on and while I am sure I will always have more criticisms as the service develops, for all intents and purposes, PerformancingAds meets ninety percent of my advertising management needs.
Who Created It?
If you recognize the Performancing brand, then you already know who is behind the PerformancingAds service. For those of you that don’t know, Performancing is a blog with a similar audience to this one and has had writers who have always become very successful in making a living through online endeavours.
Performancing has always been home to some of the best content online, and some of the strongest secondary brands.
Ryan Caldwell has been spearheading this project, and as he has with other things he has built, he has put nothing less than his full heart and soul into making this project a success.
Why Another Ad Management Service?
One of my first questions to Ryan was always “why would you want to start another ad management service?” There are so many players in the space, and so much competition, and while I know Ryan as a success in everything he attempts, I wondered if he was taking on a niche that was just too heavily saturated.
Was there room for another advertising service in the blogosphere?
Features
Ryan didn’t want just another service promising the world and he worked hard to deliver something that would fulfill the needs of many bloggers currently trying to monetize their blogs. He would bring a bunch of great sites together in a directory, while also working hard to bring in companies willing to advertise.
Automate advertising inventory
PerformancingAds allows you to manage your 125×125 pixel advertisements on your WordPress blog. Not only making it easy to show the ads, and position them, but also adding your site to a marketplace where advertisers can easily find your site.
Take PayPal Payments
It allows you to take all forms of PayPal payment, even if your personal account doesn’t normally allow credit card payments.
Book on your own site
One of my favourite features is that PerformancingAds allows you to book ads on your own site for free, making it easy to control affiliate program ads or place ads outside of the normal payment system.
Advertising exchange system
PerformancingAds also has a traffic exchange system, where, like other banner exchange systems, you can have your ad placed for free on other sites, and in return, you allow banners to freely be placed in one of your advertising locations. Don’t worry, there is no dropping “cards” to game the system here.
Quick Payments
Also, unlike other systems, any balance in your account gets paid on the first of the month. No waiting thirty or sixty days to get your money.
Featured Sites Already Using PerformancingAds
There are many great blogs already using PerformancingAds, and some have already had some amazing success, including one publisher that has already sold ten ads during the short open beta period.
Links go to PerformancingAds advertising pages for listed sites
Affiliate Program
Here is the best part in my opinion. Even if you don’t want to manage your own ads on PerformancingAds, you can still make money using their affiliate program.
You’ll earn $10 per unique sign-up and 5% of the recurring revenue on all advertiser ad buys.
That could quickly add up to a fair bit of passive income if you get a few advertisers signed up through your affiliate link. If an advertiser spends $500 per month thanks to finding PerformancingAds through you, that means an extra $25 per month in your pocket. If you found ten people of similar ad buying habits, that could mean $250 per month in income, which is nothing to sneeze at.
The Catch
Didn’t think I was going to mention any negatives, did you? I believe in transparency, and despite the advertisements I have on this site, I won’t compromise my ethics. There are some downsides to PerformancingAds which I have already addressed to Ryan. Some he can do things about, and others, he can’t.
The first issue is that you need a WordPress plugin to power the advertising service on your blog. If he releases new versions of this plugin, because it isn’t in the WordPress plugin directory, I will only know about new versions from the PerformancingAds main site.
The next issue is related to the cut that PerformancingAds takes from ad sales. They take a fifty percent cut. This to me is frustrating, and could really limit their growth. Also, with the way they currently run the distribution of revenue, they take 50% of the rate that you set. So if you put up advertising spots for $20, you get $10 and they get the other $10. For the service that they are providing, as well as the marketplace, this might be worthwhile, but I think that the split should be done differently.
I have already made some suggestions regarding this, and I know Ryan and company will take them seriously.
The other small issue is that booking ads on your own site was not very refined last time I used it, and that could easily lead to some frustrations from publishers, but I haven’t tried it out since the launch announcement.
Conclusion
If Ryan and company puts the same level of passion behind making PerformancingAds a success as they’ve done on other sites, then I am sure it will be a success.
The biggest barriers right now in my opinion are the limited number of advertisers knowing about PerformancingAds, and the revenue split keeping away people that feel uncomfortable with a 50/50 split no matter the potential marketplace size or power.
Full Disclosure: I will be working for Ryan starting in August, and I have been a close friend of his for a while now. I have had access to the service from its infancy, and have information on new features coming down the pipe, but this hasn’t clouded my judgment, at least, not all that much.
UPDATE: The revenue split has changed, with 60% going to the blog owner, and 40% going to PerformancingAds, with a sliding scale based on some currently unknown criteria.
Originally posted on July 25, 2008 @ 4:50 pm