The Fall of AuctionAds?

Since the acquisition of AuctionAds to MediaWhiz, it seems like I now hear less and less about the company. It seems like their ads are still occasionally down, and I was going to write this article a couple hours ago, but was unable to access their site and check my latest stats. My network traffic is down a bit, as that’s what usually happens during the summer… but my AuctionAds earnings aren’t that great either. What used to generate over $1,000+ a month is now just a jumbled mess of stats.

Let’s take a look at this month’s reporting:
The first week of the month was fine on impressions and click tracking… but what happened to the rest of the month? The CTR falls from a .20% average to .01% every single day after. There is nothing consistent about earnings either. It seems like every other day is a dollar day, then pennies the next. My site traffic isn’t changing and I haven’t touched any coding in weeks…

As you can see, this month I have only earned $256.57 with AuctionAds, compared to my previous monthly earnings of $1.691.42 in June and $816.33 in July. Luckily the ad space that AuctionAds is filling it some extra area I have been testing the offer with, otherwise I would be quite concerned with this deep drop in commissions. Unless something updates on their end and shows better earnings, I will pull their ads this month… as almost anything else will pull these numbers or better with the type of volume I’m giving them.


AuctionAds was a BIG Earner during June, but continues to decline.

I’m sure they are still in a transitioning phase, but I was hoping for a much better month with the AuctionAds, now with MediaWhiz in control. AuctionAds is a really great concept and I’ve never had a problem with payment, but if everyone else on the network is seeing these same type of cuts in earnings and ridiculously bad tracking, I wouldn’t be surprised if they lose a good majority of affiliates. Is anyone else seeing these same tracking issues and a loss in earnings?

  • Posted in Affiliate Marketing
19 pieces of wisdom given by ye faithful
  1. casthompson said on August 21st, 2007 at 11:53 am

    Amazing Zac,

    I’m not a super affiliate like you (yet), but I too have noticed a decline. It’s true. I can’t say that it’s because of the acquisition but certainly around that time frame I have noticed a decrease. I don’t want to give up on them because it is a unique ad system but if I can’t see the $$$ I might be forced to replace their slots.

    Cas

    Reply
  2. Erik Karey said on August 21st, 2007 at 11:56 am

    I dumped AuctionAds awhile ago and since the sale it does seem like its been going downhill fast. I wonder if they have any improvements on the way.

    Reply
  3. edgar said on August 21st, 2007 at 1:41 pm

    Iam running AA to and its been slow..

    do you know if AA has a 30 day cookie

    Reply
  4. David said on August 21st, 2007 at 3:24 pm

    A new personalized service http://www.blogtions.com has just opened up. Unlike other affiliate programs they will personally tailor adds to your blog. They take a fee, but it’s definitely worth it considering they do all the work for you.

    Reply
  5. Joey said on August 21st, 2007 at 5:46 pm

    It has been a struggle with Auction Ads lately. I began replacing the ads with CJ/Ebay ads and I hate it. I don’t like the layout of the Ebay ads or the time it takes to create them. The last two days have been better with Auction Ads with them creeping back over CJ/Ebay in total commissions on less clicks.

    Reply
  6. Dave Starr --- ROI Guy said on August 21st, 2007 at 10:45 pm

    Sad to see this. I thought it was just my mediocre blog and low traffic that made my expereince with AA and absolute buts. Eeven at “penny per click” rates AdSense does much, much better.

    The AA server setup had acouple issue. I emailed Jermey ages ago, long before the sale, and pointed out what I know from inexperience was wrong … not even a “yeah thanks” message in reply. The server is down a huge proportion of the time .. as you are finding out … and the ads often fill/remder very slowly, hurting traffic and the overall user experience. If they don’t deal with this … and it’s fixable … the service is dead in the water. Sad, because the concept is great.

    Reply
  7. Click Input said on August 22nd, 2007 at 7:00 am

    I have seen exactly the same thing, I posted about it here - AuctionAds Taking a Big Turn for the Worse?

    I am curious, what are you replacing them with? I liked them because they made me money in a banner spot that previously made very little.

    Reply
  8. Paul said on August 22nd, 2007 at 9:52 am

    I figured that Auction Ads may start to really suffer as soon as Shoe sold his portion of the business.

    Reply
  9. Spud Oregon said on August 22nd, 2007 at 12:21 pm

    I have far smaller numbers but the same pattern:

    June: $16.83
    July: $7.82
    August: $0.97

    Very disappointing after a promising start.

    Reply
  10. Etienne Teo said on August 22nd, 2007 at 1:39 pm

    I got AuctionAds off my blog a while ago, when rumors came shoe is selling, i did not know that the drop was so huge~

    Reply
  11. Matt said on August 23rd, 2007 at 8:23 am

    We went from making $150 two months ago to $8.30 so far this entire month. That’s a huge drop and our traffic is still just as high. We’re scaling AA way back as it’s just taking up space at this point.

    Reply
  12. A User said on August 23rd, 2007 at 6:04 pm

    I’ll post my results, I hope that as the word gets out there they fix the problems. I like the network, I like the idea, I like everything about it except the unreliability and the widely fluctuating revenue.

    First full month

    June - $5529 - 61000 clicks - 5.2M impressions
    July - $2900 - 40000 clicks - 5.2M impressions
    August so far - $1700 - 23000 clicks - 3.4M impressions

    As you can see, things have definitely gotten worse.. even on the same traffic levels. I believe they are missing a lot of clicks and revenue in their reporting. You just can’t do that when you are dealing with peoples money.

    Reply
  13. KingJacob said on August 23rd, 2007 at 8:25 pm

    yes it does have a 30 day cookie

    Reply
  14. KingJacob said on August 23rd, 2007 at 8:31 pm

    I made some good money at the start but after july I didnt change a thing and even though I still get clicks not a cent, Im hopefully that mediawhiz will fix the problems

    Reply
  15. CFernandes said on August 24th, 2007 at 6:20 pm

    I have about the save average revenue per click (about) 4 cents. but earnings are down. There tracking sucks!

    I will give them a couple more weeks before I move back to CJ.

    Reply
  16. Ryan Maule said on September 11th, 2007 at 10:43 pm

    I am seeing the exact same since 8/7. CTR down to .02% and pretty much $0 earnings. I was doing around $100/mo before this.

    Reply
  17. [...] Johnson is decrying the fall of AuctionAds. I’ve been running AuctionAds on this blog for a little while and I have noticed a bit of a [...]

  18. [...] few days ago I wrote the post, "The Fall of Auction Ads?"… which received a unanimous response from unhappy AuctionAds affiliates. The post was a [...]

  19. [...] I read stuff like this from Zac Johnson, a personal friend of mine who I KNOW makes money hand over fist online, it really seems to [...]

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