The InfoLinks Experiment at WWW Ramblings has been running for about a month and a half now. It’s time to have a look at the unscientific results that I’ve gathered. [NOTE: For some reason I didn’t publish this post right away — not sure what happened there folks]
The Numbers
During the period from November 2 to December 22 the stats are not very conclusive. The fact that we don’t get thousands of hits a day (or even a month 8=( makes it hard to say whether these numbers are typical.
The CTR is about 1.26% or 1.58%, depending on how you calculate it. Averaging the daily CTR over the 51 day period gives you the first number. This is also what the InfoLinks report uses. Calculating the CTR on the total provides the 2nd value. It isn’t a great number, but compared to the CTR for this site in AdSense it’s impressive.
The eCPM is about $0.66 or $0.99, again depending on the calculation method (the first number is that average of the daily calculations). This isn’t what I would hope for, but I can see it adding up if you had 100,000 visitors a day rather than just dozens.
The Gut Response
I’m still of mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, the CTR is greater for InfoLinks than it is for AdSense. I suspect that is due to the links being placed in the content rather than in the sidebars. I’ll have to experiment with using AdSense text ads within posts to see if that makes a difference.
The Earnings on each individual click is pretty disappointing though. Although InfoLinks is providing the industry’s highest revenue share, the payout is small (which means the ads must be pretty cheap). Even a poor payout on an AdSense click beats a great payout from InfoLinks. Whether that is just an anomaly or typical is something that I can’t say.
It does lead me to think that if someone was looking to do a PPC campaign then InfoLinks might be a less expensive way to start.
The final consideration for me was the affect that the in text ads with popups would have on readership. So far I haven’t seen a dramatic change in traffic or received any complaints. I still don’t really like the concept, but it does seem to grab some attention and generate more ad clicks than other forms of ads I’ve tried.
I still have some concerns about the relevance of the ads from time to time. There seems to be a lot of poorly targeted links when I view the pages.
The Decision
So, what does all this boil down to? The bottom line is that I can’t really say right now. I’ll need to continue running the experiment for a month or two longer and possibly expand it to one or two other sites to get a better feel for it.
If you’re looking for a recommendation from me at this point, then I’d honestly have to say “Give it a go — see how it works for you.” The only potential downside is that readers will be turned off by the ads and not come back. But if you’re in the blog as a business do you really need readers that are offended by ads?
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Tags: advertising, blog monetization, infolinks
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Hi, it’s been at least a month now, and I was wondering whether you decided to drop the Infolinks monetization program once and for all (unless something’s wrong with my browser and I’m not seeing the links…).
Sonny
I personally hate info links because most of my viewers are annoyed with the green hyperlinks whenever they read my post.
Hi Sonny and Paul
I did finally post a couple followups but for some reason the first one got set to Draft status and I didn’t notice that for a while (I’ve been really focused on my latest project — news on that coming soon).
I did find that there was some action on the links, but I didn’t think it was a good enough fit for this site. Most of the hits seem to come from my pages about the Rogers Rocket Hub (which is also where most of my Google AdSense income comes from).
So I think it needs to be in a very product oriented site for it to work well.
As for the hyperlinks being annoying, I think most people get used to them if they’re appropriate links. Once again, this is more likely with a product oriented site.
I agree to the use of this service on the sites, but at times is really annoying move the mouse around the screen and difficult to read.
There is a trade off between user satisfaction and having a source of income from your work.
You need to decide whether it works for you and your visitors. It will vary from site to site. Some people will avoid a site just because they use this type of ad (or any ad) but do you really care about those visitors? The answer to that question depends on the purpose of your blog.
Info links are always annoying. I am so much allergic of info links that I am habitual of closing window immediately if I see any info link on page 🙂
Regards,
Margarate
Is InfoLinks still online? I’d love to try it if it is – how good is it in the long run?
I actually lost business when I installed it. Links appearing put some people off according to the feedback, something no one wants
It seems to be something that works only in certain niches and situations. I know that I didn’t like it. It did seem to bring in a bit of revenue, but not enough to make it worth while for me.