e-ignite

So I decided it was time to widen the scope of this blog a little. While it’s still primarily the Privacy and Security blog, I thought it was time to add a bit of info about other website related matters, so I’ve added the Website Category.

So what’s with the Blues? Well, I’ve got the advertising blues. Deciding relatively recently that adding some form of revenue generation on my site was a good idea, I looked into several options - Bidvertiser came up as sounding like a good idea. They offered payments via PayPal every $10 and this seemed pretty achievable. I’m a realist: I know that my site is a bit of a niche market, and I know that my stats aren’t jaw-dropping, so I thought that I may make a little money, cover any costs that I’ve accrued setting up the site (although the hosting is free thanks to Frihost, I’ve had a few things to pay for). Bidvertiser therefore seemed like a good idea. However, the advertising performance was so bad and so far below any averages I could find on the web, I removed it myself after a month.

Because of Bidvertiser’s terms and conditions, I’m not entirely sure just how much detail I can go into. However I have had my account terminated at my own request, so I guess they don’t apply anymore. I’ll be brief and to the point. I had Bidvertiser installed for about a month. My impressions were reasonable (some days better than others, of course) and I managed to get just less than ten of clicks in the first three days. That made a pretty good start (actually better than I was expecting) and made me think that it may only take around a month or so to make my first $10 payment. I was happy.

But this is where the blues begin.

After the first three days of my account being open, zero clicks were credited to my account. After two weeks of nothing, I emailed the support team and explained that I was a bit disappointed and could they check that everything was working ok. I got a fairly curt reply saying that it was fine and that only “valid clicks” were counted. To my knowledge, there were no “invalid clicks” on the account - I certainly didn’t click on them myself as I’m aware that this is nothing short of fraud. After three weeks of nothing, I was browsing around my site, just checking it over for errors etc as you do, and I found that the ads weren’t displaying. I had nice big empty spaces where the ads should be. “Ah!” I though, “this must be why no clicks are registering.” So I emailed Bidvertiser again (and to their credit, they do respond to support requests promptly) and explained the problem. Their reply was that again, there was “nothing wrong with the account” and “the error must have been caused by a temporary connection issue between your computer and our servers.” I was skeptical.

After another week (actually a very good week in terms of impressions), there were no clicks at all registered on the account. I decided that enough was enough and had the account terminated at my request. There are a few odd items in the Bidvertiser Terms and Conditions which only seem relevant given my personal experience. But here are a few of them:

Payment shall be calculated solely based on records and BidVertiser Data maintained by BidVertiser.
No other measurements or statistics of any kind shall be accepted by BidVertiser or have any effect under this Agreement.

Basically, if you can prove that your page views are higher than Bidvertiser say they are, they don’t care.

You agree not to disclose BidVertiser Confidential Information without BidVertiser’s prior written consent. “BidVertiser Confidential Information” includes without limitation: … (b) click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program provided to You by BidVertiser

I wonder why…? Based on my experience, this clause seems a bit sinister.

Finally: BidVertiser makes no guarantee regarding the level of impressions of or clicks on any Ad, the timing of delivery of such impressions and/or clicks, or the amount of any payment to be made to You under this Agreement.

In other words, they’ll pay you whatever they want to. Not what you’ve actually earned.

As I said, my experience was not a good one, and I’m not the only person I know who has had similar problems with the company. However for fairness sake, I should point out that there is at least one person that I know of who has had a very good experience with them and has made a decent amount of money from them.

And on that note, I’ll end my rant and rave. Hopefully in my next Website category topic, it’ll be something a little more positive.

Questions? Comments? Similar experiences? Better experiences? You know where the comments field is!