Merry Christmas – Adgitize Rolls Back Ad Prices to $14

Posted by kexbrown on December 21, 2009

Merry Christmas from All of us at Adgitize. We have decided to roll back all our ad prices to the prices they were set at in September 2009.

Why? A couple of reasons. Many of you read Eli’s suggestion last week to have a one day Ad price moratorium for Christmas Day only where we would charge only $14 for new ads. This sparked a loud debate at Adgitize. My initial reaction was “no the prices are what the prices are and we will not have a one day gift price.”

But, the debate wasn’t settled. My associates began to question why I had a logo that said, “World Class Advertising on a Blogger’s Budget” when no bloggers could really afford the new prices? Why indeed. We talked, we yelled, we cajoled, we questioned and then we looked at the numbers and the old ad prices.

No matter my intent, Adgitize has costs each and every month. That was why I had raised the prices in the first place to cover the increased costs when Adgitize went to dedicated servers. But, then I was communicating with an Adgitize member named Jen and she mentioned that Adgitize was an ad Traffic Exchange. She didn’t really say that in so many words, but she was right. With the new prices, Adgitize had pushed bloggers out of our marketplace and the only ones still participating were members that were hoping to recoup their entire ad costs each month in publisher fees.

Previously, the ad prices allowed any blogger to place their blog logo or brand image on the Adgitize Ad Network and never have to worry about publishing ads to recover their ad price. Adgitize ads were reasonable. Many advertisers weren’t even publishers. Their only intent was to get brand recognition and more traffic. They weren’t interested in clicking ads. We encouraged all our members to visit our advertisers and we made our publisher fees at a rate that would entice our publishers to be both advertisers and publishers.

But, a year and a half ago I had an intent to create a Publisher / Advertiser model in the vein of Google and Yahoo. Advertisers would come to Adgitize to create traffic to their blog with no intent or expectation of being both an advertiser and a publisher. Publishers would place the Adgitize Ad Groups on their blogs with the hope of recovering blog costs and maybe earning a little more for fun things throughout the year.

But, I screwed up. I made the publisher fees such that it encouraged a marketplace of publisher / advertiser members. I made a big point of how each advertiser could earn enough each month to cover their ads on Adgitize. This was good and encouraged many to become advertisers. But, that model was also flawed in the fact that to make it work the publisher fees had to be high.

The new higher prices would work and could help sustain the business. But, we lost many good, honest, hard working bloggers in the process. Many bloggers work part time, enjoy writing and want to make a couple bucks and get some traffic. They aren’t a Target, Kohl’s, JCPenny or a Home Depot advertising with millions of dollars in their budget. They just want some traffic, some comments and a little recognition of the hard work they put in to make their blog. I forgot that point. I raised the prices too high for these bloggers. I blew it. I am sorry.

So, as my Christmas gift to all bloggers in the world, Adgitize is rolling back our prices to the September 2009 level where you could get a one month ad for $14.

What does this mean for publisher fees? Well, Adgitize still has costs that must be handled each month. If we don’t then …. The only way to make it work is to go back to the concept of the publisher/advertiser model and move away from the Traffic Exchange model. Nothing will change except the publisher percentage will go down. Many of the top earners will see a reduction of anywhere from $2 to $4 each month from where they were in September. Many of the top earners will still earn enough to cover the cost of the monthly ad. But, the number of points to reach that level will be higher than it was in September.

When do the new lower prices begin? Immediately. If you go to the Advertise button right now you will get the new prices.

My hope is that we will have many more new advertisers and publisher / affiliates can earn additional money with the advertiser bonuses. If you have an ad in the system today at the higher rates then we will extend that ad for 22 days for $24 ad / 10 days for $18 ad / 5 days for $12 ad. Adgitize will pick up the cost during those extra days and you won’t see a reduction in publisher payouts with the extended ads. All ad bonuses will be paid at the level of the ad price. As we progress through January 2010 you will see earnings begin to drop each day as new ads enter the marketplace at the new prices. This will be a gradual process.

We rushed through these changes over this weekend and we hope you can join us in cheering the holidays with lower advertising costs now and throughout 2010. If you want to blame any one for being stupid with ad prices you can blame me. I make mistakes. The higher ad prices were a mistake and I hope you can forgive me for that decision. I wish you all the best during the holiday season and a very special New Year!