Make Money Online with WidgetBucks
written by John Chow
WidgetBucks is a new advertising network that features a widget that displays shopping ads. When a reader clicks on the widget and visits the advertiser, you make money. WidgetBucks runs on a CPC model - you get paid when readers clicks on the ads - they do not have to make a purchase from the advertiser. WidgetBucks claims $3 to $6 eCPM in early test results.
WidgetBucks integrates with Blogger, TypePad, WordPress, Movable Type, and other large blogging platforms to make it extremely easy to install. However, the customization options are a bit limited right now. There are only five widget sizes and 117 color choices to choose from. I’m sure more will be added in the future. The ads can be pulled with a MerchSense crawl of your page to finds relevant products to include in the widget. Alternatively, you can choose the categories and products yourself if you think you can do a better job than the crawler.
What The Widgets Look Like
Above and to the right of this post, you can see a 468×60 widget and a 300×250 widget. Other widget sizes include a 160×600 skyscraper, 728×90 leaderboard and an odd sized 660×330 half page widget. I don’t see too many bloggers using that one.
WidgetBucks is ideal for technology and shopping related sites and blogs. However, WidgetBucks is opening their widgets to everyone. There are no minimum requirements to join and the minimum payout is $50. Well, the first payout will be done at $25 because of a special grand opening promotion.
$25 Bonus Just For Signing Up
Sign up for WidgetBucks now and they will deposit $25 into your account. Now all you have to do is earn another $25 and you’ll meet the $50 payout. Sounds like a good deal to me.
The low entry barrier and $50 minimum payout should make WidgetBucks a nice alternative or supplement to Google AdSense. Depending on how it does on your blog, you can use it to replace Google, or use it as the AdSense default. More advertising options are always good.
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I just had to laugh as I was writing an email to my subscribers about this I checked Problogger and John Chow at the same time and as midnight ticked over you both had articles up about it. It’s a race!
And many will follow suit and having the race of their own…
Is this a multi-tier program? If so it’ll explain the number of posts - they all want you to be their referrals
Or, they both received a reviewme order on the same time.
Anyway it sounds good for electronics site, I was waiting to raise traffic on one of my sites and apply with TTZ Media, but this changes all the plans.
One thing it bothers me tho is that, in spots where the widget won’t show up…it shows up a damn linkback to their site. It would be more honest to have a linkback at the bottom of each ad (and with users affiliate link) instead of like this. Hope they can fix this lame move near soon.
Usually JC says when something is a ReviewMe review, but he doesn’t for this one - does that mean we can assume it’s a multi-tier affiliate program or is he just not telling us what he’s being paid to blog now? ;D
Yeah you are right about that…he did not mention that it is a review.
Also John, congrats for the 9k RSS readers
That reminds me what ever happened to your ttz ad thing?
It’s coming up very shortly! We’re finalizing the code and design.
Ok, also jeff the scrolling into the header on your blog makes it almost impossible to read.
same here .. i find the scrolling kinda ‘disorientating’
You beat me to it again John. I was just writing about this myself.
also different time zone doesnt helps. by the time i wake up, yer all ahead of some in other parts of the globe
The widgets are pretty decent looking. I’m on my way to sign up.
It loads quite fast as well, even with Javascript implemented.
Reminds me of Chitika, which I do quite well with. So will give this a shot for sure!
best suited for product site i reckon
does this widget against Google Adsense Regulation? Can user both tools at the same time?
Yes, both can be used at the same time.
That is cool. Goin to add extra income to my community website. I guess my members like those nice photo in the widget. kekekek
Looks great. Another thing to add to the blog revenue arsenal. Thanks for the heads up!
I beat you to it Mr. Chow…..
but you’ll still have more sign ups than me obviously
The only way you could have beat me to it is if you broke the NDA rule by posting it before midnight eastern time. I honor the rules.
Sounds like a good network, I’m gonna test it out on my blog!
As far as I can tell, nobody broke the rules. It’s all good.
Well then he must have beat me by 3 seconds because my post went live 3 seconds after midnight.
How did you hear about WidgetBucks, John?
I got an e-mail about it from a friend this afternoon, but nothing official. Just wondering.
You “big”guys should start conferring with each other about content. I read three blogs in a row this morning, all about the same new widget. The internet may be without boundries but it’s still a small world.
Oh … that’s so true
“affiliates can earn a 10 percent referral fee based on the commissions earned by the people they refer”
Just as I thought
Explains all the posts!
The ads themselves look nice, you’ve just got another sign-up.
John you evil thing
….you monetized my comment…now there’s a thought.
I noticed that - I wasn’t sure if it was deliberate of something like Kontera that just did the whole page. Sneaky (and a little spammy!)
I have been trying quite a few adsense replaces, but nothing ever worked. I will try this one out, but it will be the last time
Signing up now …. looks like a winner to me. Will use it to replace AuctionAds which has gone south very fast.
Totally forgot about replacing AA with this! Thanks for the idea!
AuctionAds gone bad ? This is news to me. They are doing pretty well on one of my websites
I think the blog owner would be pissed off at you if you tried.
I think your right! People just don’t have a sense of humor these days.
Thanks for answering the question John.
Or quietly edit your links to have *their* IDs in
Cool, I’ve signed up!
Thanks.
Looks like a nice program. I signed up for it right away
I just found this info at problogger..
Hope it is useful..
Your post is really interesting! Maybe I can try this on my blog.
We’ve been listening to your feedback as WidgetBucks takes off and have decided to respond rapidly by improving our Referral Program. Mpire will now pay a 10% Referral Fee on commissions for a year. If someone you refer earns $100, you get $10. The new details are going up on our site now.
Thanks for the suggestions.
Sean
VP Product Marketing, Mpire
Good idea, I have to try on my blog!
Delia’s corner…
Deja vu!
Ok, I’ll answer that. I think not? I can’t put my code on John’s site. But if I could post all my comments in a monetized format….it would be too evil!
You can’t put your own code, but you can put links as your uri
However I suspect you’d be banned from posting for a long time if you try it!
The stats are not realtime? That sucks.
I just got a blog up and running about a month ago and have been looking for a good PPC ad unit to have on the page aside from AdSense (which a lot of the times I find to be kinda ugly). I like Chitika but I was rejected from their program since I don’t have enough traffic. So this little ad program is a godsend. Aesthetically pleasing, easily integrated, and best of all…PPC. If it performs half as good as it looks then I should be making money in no time. Thanks, John!
What do you mean by AdSense being kinda ugly ? Do you really take this into account when selecting a PPC ? Plus they are contextual … you don’t have to like them all
Yeah, I do, actually. Some of AdSense’s ads integrate quite seemlessly and are rather invisible, but others (blocks of text in the middle of a post) just always come off as spammy to me. I think there’s so many better looking ad units and advertisers out there, things that contribute to a blog’s look, as opposed to subtracting from it. Simply put, I just feel ads should be invisible. The reader should see it, want to click it, but not realize it’s something that’s making the webmaster or blogger money.
I’d agree. If you’ve got ugly-ass banners all over the place your visitors will think you’re only there to make money. Look at some of the small blogs on blogspot and they’re a mess with ads. Check out a more popular site and you’ll see the ads are more discrete and fit in with the site