So as you can see I am giving Spottt a try… Spottt is the new way to advertise for free on the internet.
The way it works is you place the HTML code for the 125x125 ad on your site. This spot displays other advertisements. The more page impressions the advertiser gets the more credits you earn. These credits are automatically used by Spottt to display your add on other sites. I say sites because it is not only for blogs but all kinds of websites including MySpace profiles as well. Anyhow, as I said, every time your webpage/blog features another user ad you gain one credit. It takes two credits show your spot on other members sites so I guess Spottt keeps 1 impression to make available for others?... to sell? I am not quite sure where that impression goes. Nevertheless they take 50% of your impressions.
The whole system works like a cross between Entrecard and Blogrush. There is the Entrecard 125x125 idea and the random display of ads that Blogrush was based on. You can see how it looks, it is the little box on the left side of my blog. The Spottt has just over 2000 members and growing. According to TechCrunch, spot was created by adbrite with the assistance of some guy the cofounder of Linkexchange. I don’t understand why someone would need assistance to create something like this…all they made is a hybrid of two other existing services out there. Anyhow, there are some benefits associated with using Spottt, especially for websites that get a lot of traffic. As the amount of traffic you get increases so will the amount for times your spot, your 125x125, will be displayed on other sites. However, most people that will be using Spottt have smaller blogs and websites so it kind of defeats the purpose no? If I have a booming website and join Spott, my 125x125 will be displayed the most times and since the amount of total members is fixed, I will be doing much better than any other site/blog member of the network. So if you have a small blog with only a little traffic, why waiste your time and potentially useful adspace just for a few cliks a month? Old Blogrush users might be able to relate to this better… I tried Blogrush for a month and I think I got a whopping total of 3 unique visitors. Mind you that my blog was getting 6 times less traffic then so my links where displayed 6 times less. So perhaps know, I have a better chance, we will see…
Just to be fair, aside from how Spottt could be beneficial for some established sites it does have one more interesting feature. A feature that I appreciate the most. It is called the `set it and forget it feature`. All you need to do is join Spottt, copy and paste the HTML code above the fold of your site and you are good to go. In theory traffic should start rolling in.
The bottom Line
I joined I few days ago but placed the ad on my blog earlier today. There where ads displayed on the widget right away. Some time had to pass before my ad got displayed on other sites but by looking at the stats now, at the end of the day, I noticed this:
In words…my ad was shown 190 times on other sites and I got 0 clicks! Not good at all. On a good day I can get anywhere between 1000 or 2000 page impressions, that would translate 500-1000 displays of my ad on other sites. I am curious about how many clicks I will get then. What I will do is let Spottt run for a total of 5,000 impressions. I don’t know how long that would take it depends on you, the visitors and readers, it might take a week or a day...
One more thing I don’t like is that I do not have any control of what is being displayed in the widget. In other words on certain occasions I could have an ad for some persons Myspace profile. I really don’t like that at all.
You can also try it out yourself and see if it works for you. Or, if you want to learn more, you can read the relative post on the Entrecard blog where there is a comprehensive comparison between Spottt and Entrecard.
I have been using Spottt for just over a week. Spottt is a relatively new advertising network. The idea behind Spottt is that you place the 125x125 widget on your site/blog or Myspace profile and upload a picture that is featured on other widgets, on other sites.
