What Do You Think About AdvertiserChallenge?
April 27, 2010 Posted by Tyler CruzI launched PublisherChallenge on February 7th, 2009. Five months later, its site members broke the $1,000,000 mark.
About a week ago, I was talking to a guy who owns a number of publisher and advertiser networks when the discussion once again turned to how we could work together. I kept saying how it was “too bad” that he couldn’t run his advertiser networks on PublisherChallenge. After a while though, I thought “why not?” and the idea for AdvertiserChallenge was born and has been at the back of my mind ever since.
My idea for AdvertiserChallenge is to make it exactly the same as PublisherChallenge, only it would be for advertisers who spend money to purchase advertising instead of publishers and affiliates who generate income from advertising and affiliate networks. It would therefore be a measurement of the amount of money spent as opposed to the amount of money generated.
The main criticism that some people had with PublisherChallenge was that they felt that they were limiting their offer increase potential since they would need to register through our referral link which pays out 5%. They didn’t like the thought of losing out on that 5% referral cut.
However, that criticism is unfounded in most cases since in our contests with PeerFly for example, they would still guarantee beating any other network’s payout, including any bumps they already received. Therefore, whether or not we receive a 5% commission is rather moot when you consider that they would still be receiving a higher payout than they would find anywhere else.
But in any case, with AdvertiserChallenge, since there would be no offers or payouts to worry about, the referral cut would have no influence on costs whether an advertiser signs up through a referral link or not. This is because it’s coming 100% out of the networks profits. For example, if you signed up to AdWords without a referral, you’re still paying the same ad prices as somebody who signed up through a referral link.
Extra Leverage
One of the great things AdvertiserChallenge would bring to the table would be allowing affiliate marketers to participate in both a PublisherChallenge competition and an AdvertiserChallenge competition at the same time.
For example, below is the winner list from the PeerFly competition of May 2009:
Let’s imagine that eMonetized spent $4,000 in advertising to make those $6,410.80, and used the traffic source from the AdvertiserChallenge contest that was held during the same time.
He ended up winning the Aluminum 13-inch MacBook in the PublisherChallenge contest which was a $1,300 value. Let’s assume that he placed 1st in the AdvertiserChallenge with $4,000 in ad spend and ended up winning a prize worth $1,500.
Let’s take a look at his overall profits:
Total profit without contests: $2,410
Total profit with PublisherChallenge: $3,710
Total profit with both PublisherChallenge and AdvertiserChallenge: $5,210
So in this case, he would have profited over twice as much by entering the contests as opposed to not, and by entering AdvertiserChallenge would have made $1,500 more.
This is of course assuming that he would be able to successfully transfer and keep the same (or better) quality and cost of traffic with the advertiser hosting the challenge, but you get the idea.
Prebuilt Infrastructure
The nice thing about AdvertiserChallenge is that most of the framework for the site is already done due to PublisherChallenge. I would need some programming done, but a lot of the infrastructure could be modelled directly after PublisherChallenge.
I could even use the same design, only changing some minor things such as the logo. I could then tie the two sites into one, so that members would only need one account (still optional), which would simplify things and reduce the need for many duplicate areas.
What do you guys think? As stated in my introduction, I already have the owner of a bunch of advertising and publisher networks very interested in running some challenges on AdvertiserChallenge, and he has a very big budget so would probably be putting up some very nice prizes on the line.
What’s nice too is that you wouldn’t need to be an affiliate marketer to partake in AdvertiserChallenge – as long as you buy traffic, you’re good to go.
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Eh, I think you’re better off spending some time on publisherchallenge.com – Go to the site now and you’re greeted by a big pile of nothing. A navbar and a black contents area. At the very least you could put a message that there are no running contests but to sign up to the newsletter (for example) to be notified when there are.
What advertising networks are you talking about anyway? The big few are probably out.
Yup, need to find the time to get some new contests on PublisherChallenge for sure.
And yes, the major advertising platforms are definitely out of the question, so the advertisers on AdvertiserChallenge would be mainly 3rd tier networks. However, they still offer a lot of traffic, more than 99% of advertisers can afford, so it shouldn’t be too much an issue in terms of volume.
Isn’t publisher challenge kinda dead? Last contest ended in December no? Maybe if publisher challenge was thriving advertiser challenge could be some sort of sub set or something…
Who is this guy who owns these network of sites? Unless he owns like 100 sites and has the potential to reach xx millions every month nobody will run with him.
and even if had the potential to reach a couple million a month that’s still to little to have a bunch of advertisers competing on a small advertising market.
It’s a bad idea overall.
He doesn’t own just a network of content websites, but actual publisher and advertiser networks which serve over 5 billion impressions a month.
Most are not able to reach millions, but there certainly are enough people seeing these blogs to get the word out and people do come to this site every day to gain useful knowledge. When he wrote this article I think he was playing devils advocate and to get a general public’s take on whether or not he should run a promotion like this.
Interesting concept, kinda weird to just award prizes to whoever spends the most. Doesnt really take skill to spend money, or am I not getting “it”?
No, it’s a fair concern. However, just like PublisherChallenge, there will be tiers in which you are guaranteed to win the prize, meaning you’re basically competing against yourself.
For example, if you spend $800 for the month you would qualify for the $500-$999 tier and win an iPod or something.
I think that advertiser challenge will be a big success.You will make more money on that then you do with publisher challenge.Good luck.
Don’t underestimate the power of advertising networks today. They are starting to consolidate and overtake traditional ad agencies power.
Bryan
I think I’m also another one who doesn’t get it. Yes it seems that the one spending the most would get the prize. But I’d like to learn more about this challenge.
I agree with Wesley and Social. I think you need to get things moving on PublisherChallenge again. You are just letting it die. There has to be a network out there that would be willing to run another challenge and you have a big group of publishers who want to try to win the prizes.
Advertiser Challenge does not pretty cool, but the only way it would work is if the advertiser had quality traffic that publishers could get to convert. By having this contest you’d be helping the publisher by giving them a little more room to work with. I’d be willing to put $10,000 into traffic with a single advertiser even if I was only seeing a small return if I knew in the end I might get an extra $1,500 from a prize.
Before you get knee deep in Advertiser Challenge though I definitely suggest you get to reviving Publisher Challenge before it’s too late.
Agreed. Stop creating new sites when all your others are struggling. Keep the ones alive that you already have. When they are all stable, then branch out.
Ditto what luke said : )
The problem is Tyler doesn’t know how to keep his sites running strong. No Offense Tyler but your horrible at staying focused and building up your sites. You had a lot of potential long term money making sites but you let them die out or you don’t know how to monitize them.
Before you skip from project to project I suggest you go back to the basics on how to make a website a long term success… You had a lot of chances to make your sites, especially pokerforums a big success. But you are very arrogant in thinking your sites will magically start growing by themselves. It doesn’t work like that… And no contests to get traffic to your sites is ever gonna work.
Spend your time working on your current sites before you realize it’s too late, because your luck as a noobie is quite surprising. I’m sure there are a lot of people who realize how lucky you’ve been. To bad your basically shooting yourself in the foot with all your opportunities. Take control over your income before your luck runs out.
Or sell them at their prime… that way you can move on to something else to satisfy your boredom but you’re also cashing in
I totally agree with Lenard, Tyler, you gotta get your ass up! Greetings from Germany
This is SPOT ON.
Tyler,
You have to start focusing on one project. I don’t know any of your successes so far. You don’t have a successful formula built into place. I’m not trying to bash you, but I really enjoy your blog.
Create something that works, rinse, and repeat. You know how it takes patience to make money on the net, but you’re dumping sites before they even reach their potential. Look at your movie site, poker forums, etc.
Focus on one thing and one thing only.
I definitely have a chronic problem of taking too many new projects on and not concentrating and focusing on my existing ones, that’s for sure.
This may be an excuse, but my thinking with AdvertiserChallenge is that it wouldn’t require nearly the amount of time and resources as a typical brand new site would, as most of the framework is already in place due to PublisherChallenge.
In fact, if I didn’t call it AdvertiserChallenge and just said I was adding a new feature to PublisherChallenge would I still get the (fair) criticism?
I think any kind of challenge is going to be seen as a good competitive venture for everyone to take part in.
I like the sound of Advertiser better than publisher anyway.
Tyler, you should worry when the biggest proponents of your idea look like they are 8 and 11 from their photos.
What are you talking about? Bradley looks at least 23… 😉
http://www.bradleyiscool.com/about/
I suggest that you work on your current sites and focus on keeping them up to par. If you put your time into a new project, the others will just die out. You have started your game project, which is still in works. You should focus on current projects and get them running strong. Your forums need to be kept in good standing, they are great sites. I honestly do not want to see those sites die out.
I used to like competing in Publisher Challenge and won some cool prizes.
My understanding is that it’s dying because Affiliate Networks aren’t wanting to sponsor contests anymore because they aren’t a “profitable” venture for them anymore.
In my opinion, and this is just an opinion, affiliate networks are totally missing the boat. They are only measuring the contests based on ROI throughout the contest. The ROI might be negative during the contest, but the long term good will and word of mouth advertising generated from contests like these is huge.
For example, do you know why I joined the ML network originally? Not because they have the “highest payouts” or “Fedex payments” or any crap like that, since ALL the networks say that kind of stuff. I originally joined ML because they sent a “care package” to Zac Johnson when his dog passed away in March 2008.
To me, the “good will” generated with that got me to sign up and use their network when I first started affiliate marketing above all others. They have no way to measure that though… meaning, they don’t know how many people chose their network because of a gesture like that.
It’s the same thing with networks like Amped Media and Peerfly. I’m not doing a lot of AM at the moment, since all the Google AdWords account bans of Dec 2009, but I’m totally partial to those networks because they sponsor contests like these, but there is no real way to measure that directly.
I think the only way to get Publisher Challenge resurrected is for you to sell the networks on the contests as an advertising expense, not a direct ROI type investment. In some of the companies I worked in before spending $30k or $50k/year in just branding a name was nothing. The money was spent just to get the name known and to develop good will.
If I were you Tyler I would reach out to some networks again and try to sell them on running more contests. If one networks sees another running a contest, they’re more likely to get in. “Social Proof” will kick in.
You could also think of clever ways to run contests, not just based on earnings. Or you could sponsor some of the prizes with your portion of the 5% for now just to get things jump-started etc.
I actually haven’t contacted any networks about PublisherChallenge outside of 1 or 2… in fact some have contacted me, but they were brand new small networks which I didn’t feel comfortable endorsing and promoting.
I hope to spend a good few hours in the near future contacting a bunch of networks to get them on board.
Hi guys,
I think that the advertising challenge is a great idea. I never heard of anyone doing this. Just do it!!!
Kind regards,
Sam
X
Its actually a good idea because bloggers need a challenge. I think its worth signing for if your confident in yourself.
I didnt realise pubchallenge was treading water. Surely it couldnt be too hard to get a load of smaller prizes for entrants from cpa companies? Hell, if it came to up, Tyler you could pony up a good prize to relaunch it yourself 🙂
this is best information for everybody , with it we can know good network or not good .
“Therefore, whether or not we receive a 5% commission is rather moot when you consider that they would still be receiving a higher payout than they would find anywhere else.”
what? why would that make it moot? they’re still losing 5% that they wouldn’t lose otherwise, arent they? its only a moot point if Peerfly is giving a special rate through using this service that they dont offer outside of it. if thats not the case, then the above is either deliberately misleading, or a really bad, obvious lapse in logic
I didnt realise pubchallenge was treading water.
advertising can be a very powerfull tool, indeed
god, look at those last three comments. tyler really needs to moderate this crap a little. these are random comments that have nothing to do with the post and are just trying to get their link spread around. this blog is absolutely filled with this stuff
There are a ton of great feedback here in the comment section, I put my vote in as well in the poll, hope it helps.
I like this challange. you should start more of this.
I think this would be a profitable venture. Sometimes a challenge is all someone needs to motivate themselves!
I have been reading out many of your posts and i can claim pretty nice stuff. I will make sure to bookmark your site.
Isn’t publisher challenge kinda dead .S