Another Testament to Entrecard Advertising

Allen Stern of Center Networks posted a more in-depth look at Entrecard advertising, with a test $25 campaign, and the results are again quite the same as other people have seen and similar to other smaller advertising networks.

The campaign resulted in zero total orders - I can use this metric because my startup charges a fee and isn't based on pageviews like a blog might be. The interesting part that's not computed at this point is how many of the 550 visitors have I at least opened the door to -- meaning they will come back and order at a later date or share my service with someone else who will.

Although he was using his paid service in the campaign, this might be a bad sign for bloggers and people who want to advertise a service. It signifies that people clicking ads through the Entrecard widget aren't looking to purchase anything, and that the return rate isn't that good, especially compared to larger networks, like Google AdWords, which distributes ads through their Google AdSense program.

Even though he didn't make any initial sales, if one person that found the site through Entrecard has bookmarked or shared the service, the ad campaign might have worked. However, if it doesn't garner any sales, it truly indicates further problems for Entrecard down the road – More than 10,000 people, potential advertisers, could have seen the post, and taken appropriate action based on their findings.

Another sign may be the fact that less and less is being "dumped" into the system each day – originally at nearly $300/day, now the amount to members is down to nearly $100 per day. If this rate continues, with the "expected" cash out still in place (1 million deleted daily), they will have to sell credits for well under $0.15 per thousand.