I’ve seen some interesting concepts over the years… good, bad and ugly! Something came across my desk today and just had to share it with you.

It’s called the “Money Magnet”

I heard about it through a mailing list I am subscribed to and for some reason it just caught my eye. It’s basically a 125×125 widget you buy and then display on your web site/blog. From there other people can buy them from you and you make a commission. That person then has one which they can use on their site and on sell the widget etc etc.. and so on it goes.

It sounds like a pyramid scheme maybe but it is only at a single level; so you only make a commission on the Money Magnets you sell directly through yours. The only way to get a Money Magnet is to buy one off someone else. So if you are interested you can buy one off us here at AdToll!

On the left hand side of the blog you will see our Money Magnet on top of the 125×125 AdToll ad group. It displays statistics which are real time and include my earnings, total network earnings and the last person who actually purchased a Money Magnet.

That’s all right? WRONG!! There are different value Money Magnets you can buy and depending on how much you spend will depend on the commissions you receive and what you can sell. I know that may sound confusing and at first I must admit I was too but just check it out for yourself and read the information provided!

You can buy your first Money Magnet from http://www.getmoneymagnet.com/

UPDATE: We sold a few Money Magnets pretty quick so I decided to invest some money into the $100 Money Magnet which you can now buy off me as well! The green $100 Money Magnet is also on the left hand side of the site under the $20 Money Magnet.

For a limited time we have a huge promotion running where new customers receive $20 worth of account credit absolutely FREE!

There’s no catches or fine print! Sign up to AdToll today and get $20 to spend on advertising!

To help market this great promotion we have a video which will be used on various blogs and forums.

It’s actually me in the video! Enjoy!

This promotion has officially ended. Thanks to everyone who helped spread the word about the promotion, we hope you get some referral sign ups!

Our new Peel Away ad format has been huge and Advertisers are really starting to get familiar with it.

We realize that not everyone will have the ad creative needed (500×500 banner) so we have Tara making them for $15! That’s right you heard me, $15 each! That’s damn cheap when compared to banner services who charge up to $50 for the same thing.

To order your new Peel Away Ad get in contact with us from http://www.adtoll.com/contact_us.php

Below are the latest Peel Away Ads Tara has created for Advertisers:

Impressed? Our Advertisers were and I’m sure you will be too! Order yours today!! Contact us now!

Not even 24 hours ago we released our new Peel Away Ad format and the take up has been huge with already over 60 Publishers using them. Advertisers have also been quick off the mark booking a range of Sponsored Ads on their favorite sites.

One common theme we did notice with ads is that the ad media is actually quite poor - some even going outside of the viewable area within the Peel Away. The viewable area is actually the top right hand corner of the 500×500 banner image. When the Peel Away folds down it stops about half way through the banner to only reveal that top right hand corner.

In the office we have been experimenting and Tara has actually come up with some great ads for a few of our Advertisers. Three of them are below:

These ads are actually currently being used by the Advertisers and they look incredible embedded in the Peel Away Ad. Notice the ad only occupies the top right hand corner of the image!

Tara’s success with these ads has sparked the creative bug in her and she would love to do more!

So for a limited time, for our Advertisers, she is willing to make them for $10 each.

Due to overwhelming demand we have had to raise the price on these to $15 each!

Yet again we have had to raise the price as we are just flooded with these and finding it hard to keep up. A peel away ad now costs $25 but is worth every cent!

If you are interested please get in contact with us at https://www.adtoll.com/contact_us.php

Time and time again we see Advertiser ad campaigns with low Click-Through-Rates (CTR) simply due to the poor quality of their banner ad. In some cases we have recommended them have a new banner made and when they do their CTR increases drastically.

The quality of your banner ad is extremely important and definitely plays a part in the ultimate success of your advertising campaign.

A lot of webmasters and business owners simply do not have the skills to create a quality, targeted banner ad and it’s a common myth that to get them made is expensive. In fact it’s quite the opposite!

At BannersWorld they focus on creating quality banners for you from $15.95 per banner. They even offer packages so you can save by buying a range of banner ads in different sizes.

If you are looking at having some professional banners made then we do recommend BannersWorld. They offer a professional, satisfaction guaranteed service.

Below are some examples of their work.

So visit BannersWorld today, you won’t be disappointed!

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!

The problem we have noticed amongst our Advertiser’s is that they simply do not have video ads. It’s not because they don’t want one, but more so they believe that creating or outsourcing the production of one is too hard and too expensive. This could not be further from the truth.

We released our Video Ads late October and already have a number of Publishers using them with some great success. These Publishers are literally waiting for YOU to book video ads! The supply is there and it’s very affordable.

We are now recommending a video production service that creates custom video ads at very affordable prices. We have tested their service and were extremely happy with the result, especially at the price!

The name of the service is LeadsByVideo.com and they only recently launched their video production service. Their basic package starts from $79, with their premium package starting from $159. That’s incredible considering similar services, such as PixelFish, start their pricing from $699 for a simple montage style video.

We recently had LeadsByVideo.com produce a new default ad for our Video Ad groups. Here it is:

This cost us $199 and it was an easy and painless process. It was as simple as providing some information and the team at LeadsByVideo.com did the research, put together a storyboard, organised the music/voice over and then put it all together.

After 7 days they delivered our video complete, there was no need for rework! That in itself is a testament to the quality of their work.

To top that off, LeadsByVideo.com also give you 200 guaranteed views on their own site PLUS they submit your video to the Top 10 video sharing web sites FOR FREE!!

Nowhere else have we been able to find a video production service that even comes close to the offer at LeadsByVideo.com.

If you don’t have a video ad then this is the time to get one! Video ads are growing in popularity and are tipped to dominate the online advertising market in the near future.

We have just released our new Affiliate Program!

Thanks to anyone who provided feedback, we took it all on board and have put together what we believe to be an attractive and more importantly a competitive affiliate program structure.

What changes can you expect?

Changes in Commission Structure

Affiliates now receive commission for referring Advertisers and Publishers to AdToll.

• 20% commission on profit made from Advertisers (90 day period); and

• 10% commission on profit made from Publishers (365 day period).

Enhanced Reporting

From your account area you have access to enhanced affiliate reporting where you can see details of each referral including their country, the referring URL they came from and if they came through one of your Ad Groups.

To top this off you can see a visual representation of this data for the last 30 days in the form of charts.

We believe these new improvements put our Affiliate Program up there with the best and are looking forward to seeing the results. We wish our affiliates the best of luck with the new program and hope it works for you!

As part of a new promotional campaign we had John Chow review AdToll on his very popular blog JohnChow.com. The review gave us exposure to thousands of webmasters and internet marketers which helped create a “buzz” for AdToll.

The campaign has been a complete success and we were able to increase our Publisher base which in turn lifted our network ad views. This also attracted Advertisers to our network and gave our existing Advertisers more opportunity.

What a lot of people (in particular webmasters) are interested in, are the effects of such a high profile review. I saw this pop up in a forum once so I thought I would borrow the phrase; The “John Chow Effect”.

In essence the “John Chow Effect” is an indication of the “buzz” a review on JohnChow.com created. The results speak for themselves and on the first day of the review we had a daily Alexa rank of 7,985 and since then our Alexa has hovered around the 10-20k range.

Alexa Daily Traffic Rank Trend

FireFox Alexa Extension

This drop in Alexa was obviously brought about by the traffic generated by the review. You can also see the FireFox Alexa Extension above which shows an updated Alexa Rank (3 month average) after the review as well as the 4 month trend graph.

On the right hand side of the graph you can see the graph skyrocket and marked with a blue dot on the upper edge. I can only assume this means it goes off the chart! I did try and find if there was any real significance with the blue dot but I wasn’t able to find anything on Google after searching for a couple of minutes.

If you do know exactly what the blue dot refers to I would love to know, please get in contact with me!

By now you are probably saying to youself “Who cares we all know Alexa is flawed!“. This is common knowledge in this industy however we also know that the Alexa ranking is heavily skewed towards websites which have a large webmaster/tech audience. What that means is that we are able to compare our own Alexa rank with other sites attracting the same industry audience and it provides a best-fit basis for comparison.

I realise a lot of webmasters despise Alexa and they have their reasons. I personally like Alexa and I do know it has limitations and is flawed but when used as a tool it can be very useful. I am getting a little off topic so I think I’ll leave discussion on Alexa for another blog entry!

John Chow has what I believe to be almost a cult following and internet marketers and bloggers look up to him for advice, direction and recommendation. This authority induced a “dominoe effect”; other blog owners are publishing articles about AdToll! That means free, quality back links from related sites, which we all know Google absolutely love.

Overall we are very happy with the review and encourage anyone looking to create some “buzz” for their site to consider the service offered by John Chow. That really is all I have to say about our “John Chow Effect” at AdToll. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I enjoy writing these blog entries for you.

We have had a lot of feedback from affiliates and interested parties on our current Affiliate Program.

We were given praise for having an Affiliate Program however the main concern was the fact that our Affiliate Program rewarded for signing up Advertisers, which is not the norm for an ad network. Most reward for signing up Publishers, which affiliates seem to love.

Due to this feedback and demand from our affiliates we are in the process of restructuring our Affiliate Program which we plan to release in the coming week.

I hear you saying “So what changes can we expect?”

To begin with you will see a change in the structure whereby affiliates will now earn:

1) 20% commission on profit brought in by Advertisers (for 90 days); and

2) 10% commission on profit brought in by Publishers (for 365 days).

That’s a huge improvement and means our Affiliates have greater earning potential!

Affiliates in general gave us similarly themed feedback, one of course regarding commissions and the other about reporting. Most ad networks offering an Affiliate Program have very poor reporting, most of the time no reporting. We plan to rectify this here at AdToll and our Affiliates will have access to very powerful reporting.

…. and again I here you saying “What information will be reported?”

Well, we have designed our reporting to be useful to our Affiliates. The reporting will provide information on every customer they sign up including their country, referring URL and even the ad group the sign up came through (if any).

We will be topping this off with a few graphs providing visual aid, summarising the last 30 days activities.

We do expect our reporting to evolve over time as we gather feedback however we do feel it is a great start to what we hope will be yet another point of difference for our platform. We believe our Affiliates will take on board the new structure with open arms which will in turn bring in more customers to AdToll helping growth and success.

We plan on releasing the new Affiliate Program in the next week so keep a close eye on the site and this blog.