Earlier in the week the WidgetBucks launched (read our first impression review here) with a fair bit of fanfare around the blogosphere.
Since it was announced I’ve had a number of readers ask me why they are not seeing any income in their reports despite there being clicks on the ads (it is a pay per click ad system). I shot WidgetBucks an email on this and the response was as I’d expected – they have an auditing process in place that means there is a 48-72 hour delay in seeing the actual income figure reported.
Why does it take so long? – The reason given is that it takes time to get reports back from their advertisers .
This is the same problem that most similar advertising programs have in one way or another. Chitika only updates all figures once every 24 hours and then audits them at the end of a month (reducing the earnings), AuctionAds have a delayed system too (where you see clicks on ads immediately but it can be days to see what you’ve earned on a given day as a result of it being based upon Auctions that happen over time).
As a blogger I find this frustrating. We’ve become used to systems like AdSense which show us not only impressions and clicks very quickly after they happen – but also the income earned. Of course AdSense is run by Google who have some serious resources to throw at the problem.
As someone who has talked with a lot of these advertising networks personally I also understand the challenge that they have. They need to balance the needs with publishers and the relationships that they have with advertisers (and the systems that the advertisers need to work with). After all – if the advertisers don’t get looked after then the whole system falls down.
I’m not sure what the solution is – but hopefully WidgetBucks can shorten the waiting time in conjunction with their advertising partners – or develop a predictive system that gives publishers an indication of how much they’ve earned to speed up the process. Otherwise I suspect that some publishers will become frustrated with it and give up.
How is WidgetBucks Performing?
I’ve been testing WidgetBucks on one of my blogs and while I’m yet to see any earnings reports I’m pleased to see that their CTR is very similar than other ads in the same position. I’ve rotated it through a split test with Chitika and AdSense in the same position and see both Chitika and WidgetBucks outperforming AdSense on a CTR basis in that position. The real test will be to compare earnings figures. I suspect these results will vary considerably from blog to blog and even based upon ad positioning.
