AuctionAds - A bit like eBay version of AdSense, great for monetising sites
In March of this year, well know Blogger and Internet Marketeer, Jeremy ”Shoemoney” Schoemaker launched AuctionAds. Its gone down very well in the USA and has 17,000 affiliates already and is reportedly paying out more than $500,000 a month in affiliate commissions. So with that in mind I thought I’d investigate it a bit and see if it was any use for us affiliates in the UK.
OK, so first of all ,what is AuctionAds?
Well the best way to describe it is like a kind of “eBay AdSense”. In that you simply cut and paste a bit of code into your website/blog and it will generate some ads relevant to the content of your site. The difference is that the ads will be of live auctions happening on eBay. OK, quite cool but not the most fantastic thing in the world.
Or am I dismissing it too quickly? I spent quite a lot of time over the weekend researching AuctionAds, and here is what I found:
1. Its is EASY to use. I actually timed (hey it was a quiet Sunday afternoon) and from signing up to getting an ad live took about 1 minute 20 seconds. Yes, I had an account and an ad live in less than a minute than a half. People may say this isn’t a big deal but one of the biggest reasons why I don’t sign up to every affiliate program I see is because of lengthy sign up and approval processes.
2. It is very customisable. Like AdSense you can choose the size of your ad and text colour etc. However, unlike AdSense you input the keyword that is most relevant to your site. A really simple idea that gives you 100% control of your ads.
3. 100% Commission. Yes you heard me, AuctionAds gives you, the affiliate 100% of the commission earned from eBay. They don’t take an over-rider. Awesome. Another great reason to promote eBay via AuctionAds is because they offer commission on 3 types of actions, a Winning Bid, a Buy-it-Now or a confirmed user registration. For full details of the commission structure see here.
4. Payment. No messing here, you are paid via PayPal the first of every month for commissions earned the previous month. It really is that easy, no more waiting 60 and 90 days with these guys.
5. Geotargetting. AuctionAds has relationships with all 15 eBay countries so your visitors will be sent to the relevant eBay country when they click on the ads.
6. Massive inventory. The sheer volume and depth of items for sale on eBay mean that even the most tiniest of niches will be catered for. So yes your cuckoo clock blog (see below) will show relevant ads!
7. Referral program. If a visitor clicks on one of your AuctionAds and then decides to sign up to the program then you earn 2% of that revenue generated by the user for 6 months. Again, cool.
8. Run it with Adsense or other ads. There are no silly Terms of Services to agree to saying that you can only display AuctionAds on your site and nobody else’s ads. Run it next to Adsense, its all good!
So, there are my top 8 reason why I think AuctionAds is really cool and will work on almost any site or blog in the UK. Here’s an example of it being put to really good use on a blog about USB gadgets. And here is a testimonial from the blog author.
There is also an official AuctionAds Blog and here is the Signup page. Please note that I was not paid, coerced, blackmailed or bribed to write this post. I just think its a really cool product for affiliates and that it deserves some exposure in the UK. That being said, all of my AuctionAds links are my affiliate links, if you would rather use a direct link then just type AuctionAds.com into your browser.
If anybody already runs AuctionAds on their site then please leave a comment below, I’d be really keen to hear your experiences.
What I’m listening to right now: Keyisha Cole feat Missy Elliot & Lil Kim - “Let It Go”
Monday, June 11th, 2007 at 10:01 pm and is filed under Affiliate Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Welcome to my blog. My name is Kieron Donoghue and I run UK Offer Media Ltd. I thought it would be fun to post a daily (well hopefully daily) blog, writing about my experiences in Internet Marketing and more specifically Affiliate Marketing. I'll include some personal stuff too, probably about my other passions, music and cars. Please feel free to post your comments and thoughts too.
June 11th, 2007 at 10:39 pm
Kieron - Thanks for putting a link to my USB gadgets blog. I thought to visit and say ‘hello’ to everyone and let the world know AuctionAds is a slick service. From the moment I started using their code the rewards have been great! Sometimes people get just the right combination of tools, layout and execution for an amazing product and AuctionAds is a great example.
If you haven’t checked out AuctionAds you should. What you wrote Kieron is very true.
Blog On - Gmo
June 12th, 2007 at 1:02 am
[...] the original here: Kieron Filed in [...]
June 12th, 2007 at 9:11 am
Kieron
I’m an avid reader of your blog being fairly new to the world of affiliate marketing. Interesting post, I stumbled upon Auction Ads a few weeks ago and use it on a few of my UK-based niche sites with a wee bit of success. You’re right to say it’s dead easy to use (similar to Adsense in design) and there is a huge range of product auctions. I find it makes a useful addition with very little effort to set up.
June 14th, 2007 at 12:17 am
You use Auction Ads on UK based sites? Isn’t it only based on auctions in the United States right now?
June 14th, 2007 at 1:38 pm
Hi Brian, as per point 5:
AuctionAds has relationships with all 15 eBay countries so your visitors will be sent to the relevant eBay country when they click on the ads.
So yes, AuctionAds works in the UK, click on the ad after point 7 to see it in action.
June 16th, 2007 at 3:31 am
[...] Original post by Kieron [...]
June 18th, 2007 at 8:17 am
Am I missing the point here? Your auction ads are displaying adverts for the nintendo wii - but when you click on them you get cuckoo clocks? Maybe these auction ads a not quite as good as you thought..
June 24th, 2007 at 9:24 pm
Hi Kieron,
Good post, just added to my GTD site at DidIGetThingsDone.com so lets see. Sure does look slick though. I have tons of readers, so I really need to start monetizing now!
Thanks!
June 26th, 2007 at 9:05 am
I am a bog fan of AuctionAds but there are still a few tweaks required for UK sellers.
At the moment although the ad displays individual items you go through to a generic search page, which whilst not bad may confuse some site visitors.
But one thing I really like is that all users of the service are in effect one affiliate, so the volume incentives that eBay offers are shared around.
On your own you’d struggle to hit the targets, as a group it is much easier.
All the best, Craig
June 26th, 2007 at 9:05 am
I suppose that should have said “big fan”
June 26th, 2007 at 3:07 pm
I get US auctions when I click on your link. How can you display results from ebay.co.uk?
June 26th, 2007 at 3:11 pm
From the FAQ from Auction Ads
“To clarify: at this time no ads are displayed from other countries’ eBay sites. When a non-US visitor clicks an ad, they are taken to a search page of items from the same keywords. As ad impression volume builds from specific countries, we will consider adding local ad display. Our statistics and testing shows that this converts extremely well for international users.”
This is sorta useless. Properly displaying a product that matches the users’s click converts far better.
June 26th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Where do you live Brian? I live in the UK and when I click on these ads I get ebay UK listings.
I hear what you are saying but Jeremy at AuctionAds told me that the listing convert better.
Try it for yourself would be my advice.
June 26th, 2007 at 3:43 pm
“I hear what you are saying but Jeremy at AuctionAds told me that the listing convert better.”
Really? Has Jeremy run an A/B split on it? Jeremy has a vested interest in getting people to adapt his service. He often does things that are very sketchy (like the hack he did on mybloglog.com). I might include it in my bestbuyszone.co.uk when it actually displays the product that users are clicking on. If it actually converted better - everyone would be doing it. What’s your conversion rate to sale with Jeremy’s Auction Ads?
June 26th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
Just so you know where I display the product that users are actually clicking I get a 13% conversion rate to sale. I doubt going to a search page is going to convert as well. I think Auction Ads is a great product. I just wish that UK ads worked the same as my US sites.
June 26th, 2007 at 7:59 pm
Brian, all I know is that Jeremy told me that the listings actually convert better. Maybe its because the users are presented with more than one buying choice? It certainly makes sense.
June 26th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
Actually this contravenes almost everything we know about direct response advertising on the web. If it converts better, why do the US ads behave differently? Wouldn’t it make sense to change the US ads if “it converts better?”
You have hit the nail on the head though - “Jeremy told me.” I guess it probably does convert better than not actually running the ad but it doesn’t convert better than actually directing the user to the product pictured. After the whole mybloglog incident I take everything Jeremy Shoemaker with a huge grain of salt. If he tells you that directing someone to a search page instead of the actual product page, I would call bullshit on that. The proof is in the behavior of US ads - those ads go to the product page, not the search page.
July 29th, 2007 at 4:59 pm
[...] blogged about AuctionAds a while ago and now Jeremy “Shoemoney” Schoemaker has sold his company [...]