WidgetBucks' RPCs Rebounding

Over the last 48 hours, many publishers have been seeing a steady increase in their RPC (revenue-per-click) rates, recovering from last week's drop. We have been able to make progress on pricing issues with partners much more quickly than first predicted, and as a result the RPC increases can be seen across most categories and climbing toward pre-drop levels. Thank you for your patience.

- Dean

WidgetBucks' February Payments Have Been Sent

Publishers should keep an eye on their inboxes or mailboxes as February payments have been distributed. Consistent with previous month's payments, PayPal funds were sent first, followed by snail-mail checks to both U.S. and non-U.S. publishers.

- Dean

CPC and CPM Rate Update from WidgetBucks

This post touches on a couple revenue updates, largely around recent shifts in CPC (cost-per-click) rates and the baseline CPM rate publishers are seeing for U.S. and Canadian traffic.

CPC
CPC rates have have dropped significantly since this past weekend (March 29-30). We are working through those issues with partners right now and anticipate these rates will rise again within the next seven days. Incidentally, this drop we are seeing is not unique to the WidgetBucks network when it comes to shopping CPC rates right now; nonetheless, we're working to get those CPC rates back to their week-ago levels.

CPMs within "Hybrids"
After launching our combination CPM/CPC "hybrid" ads nearly a month ago, we are seeing a baseline .$25 CPM across the board and anticipate this to hold steady or even rise over time. We are working with a number of large ad networks to provide top brands within the CPM rotation, and currently we're seeing ads that are contextual, and targeted by geography and category, and as a result, these are remaining competitive.

A number of our publishers have updated their code to take advantage of this extra and/or off-setting revenue. If you haven't done so, we encourage you to check out this post for instructions on how to update your site code.

- Dean

MediaWeek: Advertisers Embracing Widgets

MediaWeek's Digital Download reports on widget's bright future, which was heavily bandied about at this week's Media Summit in New York. Writer Mike Shields points out that "advertisers and media companies are beginning to embrace the power of widgets."

One source within Shields' piece predicts online ad networks will serve largely as widget distribution platforms. We feel this prediction has no merit...the future is already here! In the opinion of WidgetBucks, we're living it. Our ad widget network is firmly planted between innovative widget makers (i.e. RockYou, Slide), which are trying to figure out how to make money, and online advertising networks, such as ValueClick, Tribal Fusion and countless others, where innovation is spotty.

WidgetBucks already provides a combination of built-in business model (shopping widgets now, more to come soon), proprietary technology (i.e. YieldSense, MerchSense, and mass distribution (3 billion impression mark is quickly approaching). And as a result, we're one of the fastest growing networks today.

Read the rest of the MediaWeek piece here.

- Dean