I must say it’s surreal to think that we launched AdToll 6 months ago! Time really does fly, especially when you work so hard… and yes ok I’ll admit we have had some fun along the way.

It was only in September 2006 that we actually decided to build our own network. After years of using other similar services we became frustrated with the “lack of service” and the results. The concept behind AdToll was to build a platform with not only exceptional service, but one which could quickly adapt to market trends and provide our customers with a solid range of tools, reporting and performance they demanded.

Now, 6 months on, I can truly say we are very happy with the progress we have made. The online advertising industry is probably one of the hardest markets to crack with it being dominated by big players such as Google. On top of that, a lot of webmasters are weary of new services assuming they are scams or no good. Part of our marketing effort over the last 6 months has been educating would-be customers that we are trustworthy and we are serious about what we do.

I’d like to take the time to thank everyone who has supported us in any way. I have personally been surprised with the extremes some people go to like for example Nick who started a forum dedicated to AdToll. You can find it at www.adtollforums.com. That’s just one example; there has been many more, so thank you to everyone.

I’d like to look back over the last 6 months and point out some of the hi-lights:

Those would be the main standout events that we have experienced, not including our short period of downtime. Let’s face it, why would we want to mention it! In saying that though we did bounce back very well after that nightmare and landed on our feet very well. The most important thing though is that we were able to learn some valuable lessons from the experience.

Lets us take a look at the progress of AdToll from a traffic perspective using the very controversial Alexa rank! Below you will see the daily traffic rank trend for AdToll for the last 6 months exactly.

Yes I know a lot of people hate the Alexa rank… maybe it’s because they don’t have a good one, I don’t know (apart from the fact it is flawed). Lets face it though, love it or hate it, the Alexa rank is here to stay, it’s not going anywhere and as long as it is here people will continue to use it to evaluate the performance of a website.

Or put another way, the Alexa rank is like Paris Hilton… in public everyone hates it but behind closed doors we all love it, that’s the truth!

Now looking at the Alexa rank for AdToll.com over the last 6 months you can see it has had it’s usual troughs and peaks but over all the trend is upwards and that itself is a great sign. At the time of writing this blog entry our 3 month average was 24,069 and yesterdays Alexa rank was 12,687.

Let us now compare our Alexa rank to those of our bigger competitors, Adengage and Adbrite:

Now look I am not stupid nor unrealistic, but that graph is quite interesting. Perhaps it means nothing and maybe it’s just me… but do I see that when we launched, Adengage and Adbrite’s Alexa ranks both started falling? Like I said maybe it’s nothing and maybe I am reading more into it than what there is but deep down we like to think we had something to do with that! *wink* *wink*

Again I would like to thank everyone, but in particular our Publishers and Advertisers for giving us a go and for standing by us. We promise to continue our exceptional customer service, platform improvements and keep you doing the most important thing… making money!

So what plans do we have for the next 6 months? Well there’s lots in the pipeline let me tell you, so to keep up to date subscribe to our blog!

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