WidgetBucks Addressing Network Quality and RPC

Maintaining network quality is our main goal at WidgetBucks, and from this comes competitive RPC (revenue-per-click), profitable publishers and satisfied merchants. However, we are currently experiencing an imbalance in our network stemming from an inordinate and unanticipated amount of accounts that violate our Terms of Use, as well as international traffic that is not converting to sale.

We continue to suspend many violating accounts, and naturally, many of those suspended publishers feel wronged, angered and frustrated. Along with our automated click fraud alert system, our account review team is dedicating significant time and energy to hand-reviewing these sites where WidgetBucks widgets are placed -- and taking swift action in removing these accounts from the network. If you have been suspended, we encourage you to refer to the subject line of the email you received for the reason behind your suspension, and read our Terms of Use (or have it translated for clarity).

The other key factor is non-converting clicks (to sale) by users geographically outside the U.S. and Canada. In essence, it is these non-converting clicks that are bringing down publishers' RPCs across the board. Many publishers on blogs and comment boards have raised this issue -- and we've definitely heard you.

We are now taking two steps to help rectify the situation, which we anticipate will help recover RPC levels over the next 7 to 10 days:

• Starting tomorrow (Nov. 15), clicks coming from outside the U.S. and Canada on WidgetBucks widgets will no longer be charged to merchants, and therefore, no publisher credit will be given for those clicks. This will positively impact publisher RPC levels, and the change does not affect earnings from October (just posted) or the first half of November.
  
  International site visitors will be redirected to mpire.com -- the online meta-shopping service and company that is behind WidgetBucks. By taking these visitors to Mpire -- which was among TIME magazine's 50 Best Sites for 2007 -- they will be able to access all the major shopping marketplaces, such as eBay, Amazon, Shopping.com, Wal-Mart, Target and thousands more.
  
  And to clarify, Mpire/WidgetBucks does not get credit for this traffic either -- undoubtedly skeptics will incorrectly assume this. We will definitely evaluate re-adding certain countries over time and evaluate their conversions -- but for the next few weeks, it's critical that we are diligent about click traffic in order to recover RPC numbers.
  
  If you are a publisher with a lot of non-US traffic, we suggest using a geo-based ad placement service to determine when to display a WidgetBucks ad widget versus an internationally applicable ad. Some examples include MaxMind, IP2Location, etc, and there are solutions available for OpenAds that do this as well.

• Second, early next week, WidgetBucks will become a "gated" ad network that will require approval to join. For current publishers, this does not change much for you. You are "grandfathered" into the network; however, we will continue to review sites for Terms violations. By raising the bar of entry, we anticipate this will help eliminate a number of issues we're facing.

As a young ad network -- and one that is growing daily -- we may have underestimated the impact these factors would have on and across the network. We are now taking short-term measures to ensure long-term success. We appreciate your patience as we address these issues, and look forward to your feedback as we continue to refine and improve the service.

- Dean

WidgetBucks October Earnings Now Posted

Publishers, bloggers and affiliates can now view their total October WidgetBucks earnings. The total figure, which includes widget PPC earnings, referral fees and the one-time $25 sign-up bonus, can be accessed within the MyBucks page on widgetbucks.com. As a reminder, the threshold for receiving payment is $50 (which includes the $25 sign-up bonus).

Incidentally, a number of publishers still need to specify their preferred payment method, found within their MySettings page. When payments are distributed in early December, one way to receive your money more quickly is to select PayPal rather than a printed/mailed check. PayPal does not charge a fee for domestic (U.S.) users with a U.S. bank account, but some charges do apply for merchant accounts and cross-border payments (click here for full list of PayPal fees, including those in Europe, Canada and other locations). Also, while we have a 45-day payment term, we plan to make best efforts to shorten this turnaround. Some of you have asked about additional methods of receiving payment -- at this time, PayPal and check are the two we are offering; however, we may consider expanding this list in the future.

The delay in posting earnings is due to the continued suspensions of accounts that fail to comply with our terms of use, for everything from click fraud to hosting ads on non-English language sites, ad-only pages, and pornographic sites. The vetting process for the click fraudsters took time (and still continues), so, thanks for your patience.

Also, early this week, two report-related features are coming to your MyWidgets page:

• "Referral Earnings" displays a breakdown of money made from each referral credited to a publisher's account
• "Show Deleted Widgets" lets publishers view earnings from widgets they may have deleted or that aren't currently active. Several have asked if deleting a widget removes those earnings from their account. The answer is no -- any widget you've placed on your site or blog that has earned PPC credit remains credited to your account, even if deleted.

Thanks again for your continued support of WidgetBucks.

- Dean

Single-Day Reporting Patch Deployed

On Sunday, we (along with a number of publishers) discovered a reporting bug. Within My Widgets, when selecting a single-day date range (i.e. Nov. 3 - Nov. 3) or the "Today" option, the page is displaying zero impressions and zero clicks. We have confirmed that this is a just a reporting bug and no data has been lost. We have been working on the issue and have since deployed a patch, which should have the reporting problem fixed by early Monday (in fact, some impression numbers and clicks have already started appearing this evening). In the meantime, if you want to see a particular day's earnings -- either audited or pending -- select a multiple-data range (i.e. Nov. 1 - Nov. 4) and those will appear. We apologize for the inconvenience.

- Dean

Widgetbucks' One-Month Report Card: 30k Publishers, 200 Million Impressions

WidgetBucks, the fastest growing ad network on the Internet, has just completed its first month -- and the numbers continue to exceed our expectations. Since launching Oct. 2 (a 30-day period), WidgetBucks has signed up a total of 30,000 publishers, bloggers and affiliates and registered over 200 million ad impressions. The total publisher and impression figures are nearly twice our SIX-month projections. (Click here to see the post from our first week)

While we've had a solid first month, be looking for continued updates and improvements to the service, such as more ad creative options, as well as additional categories for blogs focused on sports, fashion, teens and top brands. In fact, we just added some new categories: web publishing software, celebrity chef kitchen wares, cool gadgets & toys, women's shoes, and several pet categories. Two examples of these categories are running on this page.

In the coming weeks, a Knowledge Base system will help with your product questions.

When it comes to talking up advertising and technology, WidgetBucks will be one of the new kids at Ad:Tech in New York next week. A couple of folks from our team will be among the 10,000 people at that 4-day conference, which focuses on an interactive advertising and technology that connects all sides of today's brand marketing landscape.

Publishers, thanks again for your all feedback and support of WidgetBucks. Keep the comments coming.

- Dean