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March 6, 2007

Just Launched: AuctionAds Ebay Advertising Widget

Michael Arrington

54 comments »

Here’s another tool that launches today for bloggers and other website owners looking for different ways to monetize their site: AuctionAds. Like booBox and other services, website publishers create an account, add descriptive tags relevant to their content, and place an embed code on their site. The AuctionAds widget will then show eBay auctions relevant to the tags. See their demo page for more information.

AuctionAds says they’ll pass 100% of eBay affiliate fees (paid on new eBay user registrations and a percentage of sales) on to publishers for an interim period. Since eBay pays sliding fees based on the total business generated by the affiliate (which in this case is AuctionAds), eventually AuctionAds will be able to skim some fees off the top while still promising to pay sites at least as much as they’d earn as a direct affiliate. See this page for current eBay affiliate fees.

It’s a good idea, although it isn’t clear if site owners would be better off with AuctionAds v. using the screen real estate for Google ads or other advertisements. I’m sure some sites will be testing this and will publicize their results (we’re considering it for CrunchGear and MobileCrunch).

The service is majority owned by ShoeMoney Media, which recently waged a PR battle against MyBlogLog. MediaWhiz is also a partial owner (disclosure: TextLinkAds, which is owned by MediaWhiz, is a TechCrunch Sponsor).

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 6th, 2007 at 5:00 am and is filed under Company & Product Profiles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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Comments

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  1. simon

    March 6th, 2007 at 5:07 am

    OK. I must be missing something. Why is this preferable to signing up directly with eBay’s Commission Junction affiliate scheme?

  2. Colin Pape

    March 6th, 2007 at 5:18 am

    AuctionAds is definitely a great name for this type of service… My prediction is that they will do well with this project, just based on the name… Having SM involved won’t hurt either though… :)

  3. RqTect

    March 6th, 2007 at 5:59 am

    i will try it

  4. geomark

    March 6th, 2007 at 6:01 am

    I’m wondering the same thing as simon. Is this widget somehow superior to the ebay editor kit?

  5. Xerendipity nook

    March 6th, 2007 at 6:06 am

    Another way to monetize a site? Whew! Who knows? Got to try it!

    http://www.writinerary.com

  6. Francisco Gimenez

    March 6th, 2007 at 6:21 am

    Hi Michael,

    Google Adsense limits publishers to a maximum of 3 ad units per page. Techcrunch’s home page has 8 ad units. If you were a small publisher you would have used your max 3 ad sense units and fill up the other space with affiliate programs. I think this is one of the reasons why publishers still use affiliate programs.

    Jeremy Schoemaker is a very well known blogger in the affiliate world so he may be able to get the word out about his widget. I just don’t know if for publishers the additional functionallity of this offers is worth having to track your Ebay affiliate program outside of CJ or the network you use.

  7. Allen Stern

    March 6th, 2007 at 6:25 am

    I wonder what Jim from BlogKits thinks about this since his service has an eBay blog ad as well.

  8. Toszcze

    March 6th, 2007 at 6:39 am

    I’m wondering if it works with non-US eBay sites/auctions.
    Besides - Geomark have asked a good question.

  9. Vinod Ponmanadiyil

    March 6th, 2007 at 6:40 am

    I have opted in. Lets see the results in a few days!

  10. freshnews

    March 6th, 2007 at 6:43 am

    Now every site follows yahoo and google , creat simlar type of products , but i think google and ayhoo is allways batter then these

  11. rack pallet

    March 6th, 2007 at 6:43 am

    This is another middle man, it will only reach smaller bloggers who dont care about 100% monetization.

    - Basically anyone - who cares enough to fully monetize an affiliate program will ither have the knowledge to program the API of Ebay or hire a programmer to do it for them…

    - this will reach a medium set of people who - just flunked out of google ad words

  12. ddn

    March 6th, 2007 at 7:18 am

    simon/geomark/rack pallet,

    The advantage here is two-fold. 1) its much easier and more stream lined than the editor kit. 2) the payout is higher than you would be able to achieve on your own with a CJ/eBay relationship because of higher volume. Rather than a middle-man taking a cut, you’re actually making MORE.

    quote: “this will reach a medium set of people who - just flunked out of google ad words”

    I’m not sure how adwords fits in here. If you meant adsense, well, the reality is that adsense is only a stepping stone to better monetization.

  13. buscetta

    March 6th, 2007 at 7:33 am

    Tozcze:

    From the site faq:
    Does AuctionAds support international affiliates?

    AuctionAds currently supports traffic from all countries in which eBay has a presence. Ad units currently only display ads in English, but all click traffic is geotargeted to the visitors country.

  14. biddler

    March 6th, 2007 at 7:39 am

    This reminds me of gumshoo, who also has a snippet you can embed in your page (http://www.gumshoo.com/Affiliate/). The main differences are that gumshoo actually does something useful (filterout fraud and find misspelled auctions), but they don’t pay out affiliate revenue. I wonder if they’ll start doing that soon?

  15. Artest Arrest

    March 6th, 2007 at 7:51 am

    I’ve been testing this since SM set it up a while ago and it would be great for more flexibility in the ads such as changing the price from the bold/large font to the actual ITEM!! Other than that it’s a great addition to adsense

  16. webtech

    March 6th, 2007 at 7:55 am

    I agree with Francisco Gimenez. Small publishers depend on these affiliate programs to fill the void left by google’s 3 ad unit limit. In some cases revenues from google adsense is unpredictable so it is good to have more than one source of ad revenue.

  17. Mike

    March 6th, 2007 at 8:27 am

    Interesting idea…please do post about any feedback/results.

    Micah
    http://foodforethought.wordpress.com

  18. shoemoney

    March 6th, 2007 at 9:41 am

    buscetta -

    We do allow international affiliates.

    AuctionAds has relationships with every eBay country and the ads will automatically geotarget for you. This way you are not throwing away international traffic.

  19. Jessica

    March 6th, 2007 at 9:43 am

    This is good for people who don’t want to sign up directly with CJ. Or can’t. (Certain country, been kicked out, too lazy, dumb, etc.)

    People will buy / use anything. He will make some money off this with very little work.

  20. Daily Deals

    March 6th, 2007 at 10:02 am

    Looks like another promising way to monetize shopping traffic

  21. TuBigg

    March 6th, 2007 at 10:26 am

    as CJ Publisher, eBay always decline new Publisher who not US resident on auto approval system, including me.

  22. Vinod Ponmanadiyil

    March 6th, 2007 at 10:41 am

    There is something wrong with this. I have not explored the ebay apis before. So can’t be sure. The clicked ads links does not target or take you to the specific item listing. Is it just me?

  23. UsedVespas

    March 6th, 2007 at 10:53 am

    I think its a great idea, and I’m defiantly giving a shot. Why not take the higher paying tiers?

  24. Vinod Ponmanadiyil

    March 6th, 2007 at 11:02 am

    I guess my problem maybe because of the fact that the listed item does not list with ebay.in where it would resolve to naturally.

  25. ddn

    March 6th, 2007 at 11:08 am

    Vinod,

    That is correct. Your IP is being geotargeted to your local eBay. This generates the most revenue for you as a publisher, and the best experience for your visitor.

  26. Paul Edmondson

    March 6th, 2007 at 11:13 am

    How is this different than the eBay adcontext product?

    http://affiliates.ebay.com/ads/adcontext/

  27. Mike Panic

    March 6th, 2007 at 11:21 am

    The eBay affiliate has been one of the better programs I’ve used in the last year or so. It is extremely flexible and you can customize just about every aspect of it. To have a set of ads generated that look like adsense or ypn or even chitkia with a middle man between me and CJ.com does not interest me, at all. I’m going to pass on this for now.

  28. ddn

    March 6th, 2007 at 11:36 am

    Paul,

    AdContext: A: At this time we haven’t announced a launch date. Stay tuned to the eBay Affiliates Program Web site for more information. http://www.affiliates.ebay.com

    AdContext has been delayed many many times, and there is no indication of when it will be available.

  29. ...some Drifter

    March 6th, 2007 at 11:44 am

    i kind of like the model.

    it’s catchy, to say the least.

    auctions are fun, it illicits excitement.
    think about it, if you’re in the market for say a sportscar in the next 3 months - and you see a standard ad vs this auction ad…what would you be more interested to click on? for me, the auction, i want to see the action.

    but for the bottom line real world, i’d say adsense is still more profittable. atleast the user doesn’t have to actually buy anything - just click your ad for you to get revenue

  30. Kristen Nicole

    March 6th, 2007 at 12:14 pm

    I’ll wait for one of you guys to tell me how customizable it is

  31. will

    March 6th, 2007 at 12:23 pm

    http://affiliat…/ads/adcontext/

    Paul is right, when adContext get out of beta, this program is toast . . .

  32. jon

    March 6th, 2007 at 12:48 pm

    Sounds a lot like what http://www.adsymphony.com already has for action based ads. I use it and will stay with what they have.

  33. Raj

    March 6th, 2007 at 1:30 pm

    Thank you for posting this. I am already on with the ad unit and so far this had been the most easy to setup ad program I have ever come across. The ad unit shows up pretty clean and I like it. I am not sure how better this would be when compared to AdSense but will have to wait and watch for CPC numbers! It’s always good to try new programs, you never know when things start working for ya!

  34. Jessica

    March 6th, 2007 at 3:14 pm

    Assuming SM can lay about 60-70k clicks a day on those ebay ads, he could stand to make $1 to 1.5k a day. People like Raj (above poster) are the reason this widget will take off.

  35. Andy Beard

    March 6th, 2007 at 3:24 pm

    There are huge benefits to using this widget over Ebay direct if you are an international affiliate, or are sensible and like to keep your cashflow working.
    Also Geo-targetting will make more of your adverts worthwhile.

    I have gone into this in depth in my review

  36. CVOS

    March 6th, 2007 at 4:05 pm

    I like the fact that these ads incorporate product photos and I will be signing up. It would be nice to be able to test with and without photos to see which generates more clicks.

    From the AuctionAds homepage:
    Easy implementation and the leverage of AuctionAds’ creative delivery of eBay’s auctions and our ability to achieve the higher performance incentive tiers with the aggregate volume of traffic to make more money than they could with their own affiliate relationship.

    Suggestion: This corporate speak could make visitors’ eyes glaze over. Who are they selling to, IBM? A simple CJ comparison with screenshots would communicate the benefits much more effectively.

  37. Ajay

    March 7th, 2007 at 5:16 am

    Please take a look at my post on making AuctionAds contextual using UTW.

  38. Rev

    March 7th, 2007 at 9:29 am

    How are those companies going to pay international users? I think the key will be the ease of access to the money earned thought the service.

  39. Jessica

    March 7th, 2007 at 9:48 am

    Rev,

    Shoe is the Ebay aff. They pay him, and in turn he pays you.

  40. Sell Motorcycle

    March 13th, 2007 at 9:05 pm

    Always interesting to watch yet-another-player come on the scene for PPC/revenue sharing ads. I suspect at this point PPC is like the iPod–there’s still room for one or two others, but the standard (Google) has been set and knocking the standard from its perch is getting harder and harder as each day passes.

  41. LeeTK.com

    March 13th, 2007 at 9:38 pm

    Wow.. is a great stream.. but then the user need to buy the product then we only get pay?

  42. Anuj Seth

    March 14th, 2007 at 1:30 am

    I’ve just written a blog entry on AuctionAds on my website. The link is http://onlinepresence.blogsail.....uctionads/

    I’ve basically incorporated the AuctionAds ad on the blog as a trial and to be honest it was quite easy to use. Read more about it on my site.

  43. BabyGotMac.com

    March 14th, 2007 at 8:23 am

    I kinda wish there was a bigger ad unit for pages. As is though, this is not bad:
    http://babygotmac.com/auctions

    Pretty handy eBay aggregate if nothing else.
    :)

  44. LiewCF

    March 15th, 2007 at 11:25 am

    I am not sure if this helps. I reviewed and shared a few AuctionAds tips on my blog.

  45. Steven

    March 17th, 2007 at 11:10 pm

    OK. I must be missing something. Why is this preferable to signing up directly with eBay’s Commission

    Junction affiliate scheme?http://www.datconverter.net

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