[ANN] a-ads.com: Bitcoin advertising network. Advertise now!

[arsenische]

How long does it take the health to go from 0% to 100%?  Just switched from CoinURL and losing out on clicks

It may take quite a while, sorry about it. It may take days to have health ~5% and weeks to have it ~100%, that's a shame and we'll optimize it.

But please note that health doesn't have direct impact on your income and AnonymousAds doesn't pay per click. It just distributes advertisers' money with respect to publishers' globally unique traffic. And it also allows advertisers to reward ad units for reaching their goals (e. g. generating sales) thus setting the positive feedback loop.

So your income depends mainly on the volume on your unique traffic, its quality and advertisers' behavior. And it may fluctuate significantly, so I would suggest to embed ad unit on your site and see if it generates enough income during several months.

Thanks for your question and for trying out AnonymousAds!

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[conspirosphere.tk]

FYI (since I receive many micro-payments from a-ads):
WARNING! Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=196138.0

edit: Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs (less than 54.3 uBTC):
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2577#issuecomment-17138223

[arsenische]

FYI (since I receive many micro-payments from a-ads):
WARNING! Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=196138.0

edit: Bitcoin will soon block small transaction outputs (less than 54.3 uBTC):
https://github.com/bitcoin/bitcoin/pull/2577#issuecomment-17138223

Ok, we will set a minimum withdrawal threshold. Thanks you!

[BTCLuke]

Thanks for this truly innovative solution. I'm enjoying it already.

I'm a publisher with hundreds of domains to try AAds on, on every niche ever imagined, but first I've got 2 questions for you before I do any kind of large roll-out.

I've read your faqs and this thread, and neither of these two have been answers anywhere before:

1: About ad relevancy, let's assume I find a category that has some ads in it, such as Health->fitness. I generate an ad indicating that category, and the ad matches my fitness site well... But then the advertiser placing that ad stops running his ad for whatever reason, and you've got no more relevant inventory. I assume the generic ad for AAds will take its place... If so, do I get paid the same rate (PPV) for displaying that ad at least?

Or does using a category other than "bitcoin" always require major risk of not getting paid at all for my pageviews?  

If so, is there a way to have a backup category like "bitcoin" always display whenever relevant content can't be matched?


2. About payments, I'm planning to send you thousands of eyeballs a day... But not many a day from the same domain. So if I am reading your FAQs correctly, it would appear that each ad a generates its' own separate campaign that has it's own threshold that must be met for payment to take place. (Ex: If I have 100 domains with 100 different ads, then I'll only get paid when ONE of those 100 ads have displayed enough to meet the payout threshold... Even if I've sent you 9,999 Imps already.)

Some ad positions on some sites are going to collect Imps at a rate of 1 every month... Taking decades to pay me the threshold on them!

I know I could make all 728x90 banners across all domains a single ad, but then I wouldn't get any relevancy targeting for each domain, nor any meaningful stats for it either.

So I guess what I need here is a way to combine the payment threshold pool from all my ads. Or am I missing something?

Thanks!
Luke

[arsenische]

1. When you put your ad unit in category, you get advertisers that select that category or any upper level category (including the root category). Advertisers compete with their money for the share of impressions, some of them concentrate on particular ad units or subcategories, but most of them don't.

Regarding earnings...

Publishers' earnings are just money paid by advertisers. Advertisers pay to ad units either explicitly via Goal Tracking, or indirectly via Daily Budget, and only after that they possibly receive impressions. Publishers embed their ad code and only after that they possibly get advertisers. Nothing is guaranteed and you can see that traffic and earnings fluctuate.

AnonymousAds distributes money to ad units in small fractions with respect to their unique traffic. Thus it needs some time to get statistics and it doesn't send money to ad units that don't generate globally unique traffic every day (unless advertisers reward those ad units via Goal Tracking API). In the long term quality & targeting of traffic can affect earnings since some advertisers do reward for sales.

2. Yes, you can either use 1 ad unit (easy, frequent payouts), or you can create 1 ad unit per domain (better targeting & income, but payouts are tiny and less frequent). Unfortunately AnonymousAds doesn't combine payments currently, but I know it should be implemented.

[BTCLuke]

some of them concentrate on particular ad units or subcategories, but most of them don't.

So to be clear, does this mean that It is fine, or likely optimal to place my ad in a generic category (or completely uncategorized?) when I want to spread it over several domains?

it needs some time to get statistics and it doesn't send money to ad units that don't generate globally unique traffic every day (unless advertisers reward those ad units via Goal Tracking API). In the long term quality & targeting of traffic can affect earnings since some advertisers do reward for sales.

Due to the payout issue below, it sounds like I need to forego the niche targeting for now and just have 4 ads in total then; one for each of the four sizes of banners that are on most every site.

If I do this, which is the best general category for them all to go in? (For maximum earnings)

A single category like "Lifestyle," the three most relevant categories, or just leave it uncategorized?

2. Yes, you can either use 1 ad unit (easy, frequent payouts), or you can create 1 ad unit per domain (better targeting & income, but payouts are tiny and less frequent). Unfortunately AnonymousAds doesn't combine payments currently, but I know it should be implemented.

Guess I'm forced to just use the four ads for now... But when you've got that implemented I'll be happy to put unique ads on every site to give your advertisers much more targeted placements.

Thanks again

[BTCLuke]

Oh Jeez... I didn't see that each ad had to be restricted to a single domain.

Is there no way around that?

[farlack]

I was going to dump some money here til I saw this:

 AnonymousAds takes fee of 20% from each deposit, 80% goes to Campaign #339

No thanks, you should be taking profit from publishers, not advertisers.

[arsenische]

So to be clear, does this mean that It is fine, or likely optimal to place my ad in a generic category (or completely uncategorized?) when I want to spread it over several domains?
Due to the payout issue below, it sounds like I need to forego the niche targeting for now and just have 4 ads in total then; one for each of the four sizes of banners that are on most every site. If I do this, which is the best general category for them all to go in? (For maximum earnings). A single category like "Lifestyle," the three most relevant categories, or just leave it uncategorized?

Just choose 3 categories that better describe your audience. The reason to select categories is to have a better match of your ad places with advertisers' ads (thus potentially increasing your income). The most paying categories currently are Bitcoin/Gamblers and Bitcoin/Miners. Many advertisers compete for them. But if miners & gamblers don't visit your sites, then efficiency of your ad units will be low and you won't earn rewards from advertisers.

I didn't see that each ad had to be restricted to a single domain.

They are not actually, we use that URL just to show advertisers that ad unit is really embedded somewhere. You have few options:
1) register ad unit of type "Other" (and explain in description that it will be use in various sites), then no need to specify URL
2) register ad unit for 1 URL, but embed them in all domains (also you can create a special page that lists all your domains and claims that this ad unit will be shown there).

AnonymousAds takes fee of 20% from each deposit, 80% goes to Campaign #339. No thanks, you should be taking profit from publishers, not advertisers.

What's the difference? Please note that advertisers don't pay per click or per impression. They just send their money to publishers via AnonymousAds, and get a proportional share of their impressions (no matter what the absolute amount of clicks/impressions are).

But you are right, fees are quite noticeable, 10-36% depending on the specific use case. Normally AnonymousAds takes 20% from deposits (half of them goes to referrers thus encouraging efficient publishers) and 20% from daily budget (though you can set daily budget to 0 and use Goal Tracking API to distribute campaign's balance between efficient publishers without a fee).

Thanks for your questions and for interest in AnonymousAds!

[farlack]

AnonymousAds takes fee of 20% from each deposit, 80% goes to Campaign #339. No thanks, you should be taking profit from publishers, not advertisers.

What's the difference? Please note that advertisers don't pay per click or per impression. They just send their money to publishers via AnonymousAds, and get a proportional share of their impressions (no matter what the absolute amount of clicks/impressions are).

But you are right, fees are quite noticeable, 10-36% depending on the specific use case. Normally AnonymousAds takes 20% from deposits (half of them goes to referrers thus encouraging efficient publishers) and 20% from daily budget (though you can set daily budget to 0 and use Goal Tracking API to distribute campaign's balance between efficient publishers without a fee).

Thanks for your questions and for interest in AnonymousAds!
[/quote]

Please explain further, I don't see anywhere on site where it explains how it works, I'm just seeing cost per click, and cost per thousand views.
Charging 20% to deposit, now I'm reading 20% to spend also? That's crazy..

You need to be taking a cut of publishers profits, not advertisers.

Dropping $10,000 and a-ads taking $4000 id rather just use adwords..

[arsenische]

You need to be taking a cut of publishers profits, not advertisers.

I feel like there is some misunderstanding here. What is publishers' profits, where do they come from? Publishers don't deposit anything, it is advertisers' money anyway.

Dropping $10,000 and a-ads taking $4000 id rather just use adwords..

We know our fee is high, but it is not 40%. As I said, it is 10-36% depending on the particular use case.

We take a deposit fee of 20%, half of it is a reward for publisher that attracted advertiser.

Then we distribute remaining 80% to ad units that satisfy advertiser's criteria (with respect to Daily Budget set by advertiser) and take 20% fee from it. In return advertiser receives proportional share of impressions of those ad units.

But advertiser can set Daily Budget to 0 and spend campaign's balance via Goal Tracking API without that 20% fee.

So the principle is simple: money gets distributed from advertisers to publishers (either we distribute it according to some simple internal algorithm for a 20% fee, or advertisers distribute them via Goal Tracking API without a fee). In return advertisers get proportional share of impressions from ad units they pay to. No absolute numbers of clicks/impressions are guaranteed though, CPC and CPI are just rough estimates.

Also if advertiser is at the same time a publisher, then instead of depositing money s/he can redirect his earnings to campaign with only a 10% fee.

Thus minimum fees we take from advertiser is 10%, maximum is 36% and our fee model encourages advertisers to reward ad units that work best for them thus minimizing incentive for fake traffic. But we might consider to change it.

Thanks for your feedback!

[BTCLuke]

The most paying categories currently are Bitcoin/Gamblers and Bitcoin/Miners. Many advertisers compete for them. But if miners & gamblers don't visit your sites, then efficiency of your ad units will be low and you won't earn rewards from advertisers.

I see now... But this begs the question: Would I still get paid the current PPV average for Imps that aren't targeted enough/singled out by advertisers yet? (Not from bitcoin/gamblers in that case?) Or are those Imps totally wasted?

I didn't see that each ad had to be restricted to a single domain.

They are not actually, we use that URL just to show advertisers that ad unit is really embedded somewhere. You have few options:
1) register ad unit of type "Other" (and explain in description that it will be use in various sites), then no need to specify URL
2) register ad unit for 1 URL, but embed them in all domains (also you can create a special page that lists all your domains and claims that this ad unit will be shown there).

Alright, I think I see now. It sounds like what I should do is group my sites into relevant niche categories now, so all of the health & fitness sites share one ad. Then, when I go to make that ad, I enter a single domain at the top to represent the whole niche.

If, for instance, I make 10 niche groupings, and on each site there are 3 ad spots, then I'll be making 30 ads. Does this sound about right?

[arsenische]

I see now... But this begs the question: Would I still get paid the current PPV average for Imps that aren't targeted enough? (Not from bitcoin/gamblers in that case?) Or are those Imps totally wasted?

We don't pay per impression, we just redistribute advertisers' money, so your income depends on how that money are distributed. So either advertisers decide to reward you for some reason (e.g. your visitors bought from them), or you fit their targeting parameters and generate unique traffic. According to stats page, only ~4% of earnings come from goals (i. e. rewards) currently. So looks like currently quality of traffic is not as important as its category/language/volume. I hope it changes though.

Alright, I think I see now. It sounds like what I should do is group my sites into relevant niche categories now, so all of the health & fitness sites share one ad. Then, when I go to make that ad, I enter a single domain at the top to represent the whole niche.
If, for instance, I make 10 groupings, and on each site there are 3 ad spots, then I'll be making 30 ads. Does this sound about right?

Yes, sounds right, each grouping could belong to 3 categories.

[farlack]

You need to be taking a cut of publishers profits, not advertisers.

I feel like there is some misunderstanding here. What is publishers' profits, where do they come from? Publishers don't deposit anything, it is advertisers' money anyway.

Dropping $10,000 and a-ads taking $4000 id rather just use adwords..

We know our fee is high, but it is not 40%. As I said, it is 10-36% depending on the particular use case.

We take a deposit fee of 20%, half of it is a reward for publisher that attracted advertiser.

Then we distribute remaining 80% to ad units that satisfy advertiser's criteria (with respect to Daily Budget set by advertiser) and take 20% fee from it. In return advertiser receives proportional share of impressions of those ad units.

But advertiser can set Daily Budget to 0 and spend campaign's balance via Goal Tracking API without that 20% fee.

So the principle is simple: money gets distributed from advertisers to publishers (either we distribute it according to some simple internal algorithm for a 20% fee, or advertisers distribute them via Goal Tracking API without a fee). In return advertisers get proportional share of impressions from ad units they pay to. No absolute numbers of clicks/impressions are guaranteed though, CPC and CPI are just rough estimates.

Also if advertiser is at the same time a publisher, then instead of depositing money s/he can redirect his earnings to campaign with only a 10% fee.

Thus minimum fees we take from advertiser is 10%, maximum is 36% and our fee model encourages advertisers to reward ad units that work best for them thus minimizing incentive for fake traffic. But we might consider to change it.

Thanks for your feedback!

Money for referrals should come from your profit, not advertisers expenses. Why should it cost me money, to make you more money? I think that's the worst setup I've ever seen, why would you even join an affiliate link if its costing you more money to advertise?

You need to be taking a cut of publisher profits, not advertiser profits. Meaning if I spend $1, to get 1000 views, you don't take 30 cents, and leave me with 700 views. You need to give 1000 views, and pay the publisher 70 cents an keep the other 30 cents.

Taking 20% to deposit, then 20% to spend is robbery, and losing you money. Having $64 left to advertise with out of every $100 spent, I cant see how anyone signed up.. It already lost you $1000 sales from a single person (me..) and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

[arsenische]

Money for referrals should come from your profit, not advertisers expenses. Why should it cost me money, to make you more money? I think that's the worst setup I've ever seen, why would you even join an affiliate link if its costing you more money to advertise? You need to be taking a cut of publisher profits, not advertiser profits.

Well, it does come from our profit, and our profit comes from advertisers' expenses. Or you can say that our profit comes from publishers' income, and publisher's income comes from advertisers' expenses. Isn't it the same?

Meaning if I spend $1, to get 1000 views, you don't take 30 cents, and leave me with 700 views. You need to give 1000 views, and pay the publisher 70 cents an keep the other 30 cents.

We don't sell impressions, we just redirect advertisers' money to publishers for a fee. And advertisers receive proportional share of impressions from publishers they pay to.

Taking 20% to deposit, then 20% to spend is robbery, and losing you money. Having $64 left to advertise with out of every $100 spent, I cant see how anyone signed up.. It already lost you $1000 sales from a single person (me..) and I'm sure I'm not the only one.

I regret that our fees repel advertisers. I do appreciate your sincere feedback though, there is something to think about. You identified 2 major problems:

1) fees for default use case are high

2) people don't understand how it works.

Possible solutions: decrease the fees, redesign the system and/or improve documentation.

But please understand why those problems came up. They are related to "anonymous" nature of our service. We don't want to spy on our visitors, to identify/ban our publishers and to filter out their traffic.

We want to encourage advertisers to use non-default use case thus reducing their fees and improving quality of traffic.

If we just redistribute money without any feedback from advertisers, we'll end up with 100% botnet generated traffic. So we need advertisers to reward publishers for conversions. And that is why we charge ridiculous fees on the ones that don't.

But please note, that unless many advertisers reward for sales, all advertisers are in equal position. So it is not advertisers who suffer from high fees, it is the publishers who earn less.

Advertiser will suffer from high fees only if s/he don't use goal tracking (i. e. pays additional 20% fee) and competes with advertisers who do use it (i. e. save on fees and receive higher quality traffic). But currently rewards for goals are less than 10%, so even default use case shouldn't be that bad.

[sal002]

Looks like server is down.

[arsenische]

We have some technical issues with our main site. Shouldn't affect ad rotation though. Sorry for inconvenience.

[xchrix]

We have some technical issues with our main site. Shouldn't affect ad rotation though. Sorry for inconvenience.

good to see that ad delivery is still working!

[ruletheworld]

I've had mixed results using Anonymous Ads, honestly. I use it on two of my blogs now. The first has done quite well, and I reached the payout of BTC0.01 in about a week on traffic of about 70-80/day. However, on the second site, the payment seems to be extremely low. My stats show that for 109 impressions, I have earned 412 satoshi. At this rate, it will take me forever to reach payout. I don't even know why there is such a huge difference in any case.

Also, I assume that when an ad is unavailable, it doesn't count towards the impressions? Because the second site I mentioned has fewer ad impressions than page impressions.

[ruletheworld]

I got rid of my Anonymous Ad unit. The rates seem insanely low for publishers. I was averaging 4satoshi/impression. That's a ten thousand times less than the market rate!

Here are my real stats. Just publishing this for everyone's reference.