Sunday, October 11, 2009

To Leave or Not To Leave?


These past few days, I have been seriously debating with myself whether or not to remove my Entrecard widget on both my blogs and delete my Entrecard account altogether. I will not deny the fact that Entrecard has brought my blogs a lot of traffic when I was still starting given that Entrecard and Adgitize were the first 2 blog advertising programs that I joined but while I am still happy and satisfied with Adgitize, I am having second-thoughts about Entrecard.

My concerns:

1. I have somehow "established" my blog,
2. I find CMF Ads more promising and less time consuming,
3. Speaking of time consuming, I feel that I waste a lot of time dropping to everyone who dropped by my blogs (to return the favor) instead of paying attention to those who actually find my blog interesting enough to stay for a few minutes and read and leave me comments,
4. And while at that, focus also to those blogs that I like and bookmarked,
5. After dropping more than 100 EC's a day, I only get 50% back and it's not much. Believe me.
6. No more cashouts.
7. And most importantly, I just don't feel like "dropping and leaving" anymore. There are still a whole lot of new blogs out there to discover and those that I found through Entrecard and became my friends will forever stay on my Bookmark.
8. Oops! I almost forgot, another thing is that I feel like I already have too many widgets on my blog with Adgitize and now, CMF Ads. Both are earning me a few on the side unlike Entrecard.

Now that I stated my concerns on why I want to leave Entrecard, it just strengthened the feeling that I really want to and that I should already but... what am I going to do with my credits? I have already lessened and limited my drops to those that have Adgitize on their blogs and to those that I regularly visit (friends).
My Giveaway is still on-going and I might just increase the EC credits prize or something.

Hmm.

Okay, final question:

Remove the EC widget on my blog or just leave it there and/or move it to a less popular spot? Why?

Right now, deleting is winning over me because what's the use of leaving my EC widget anyway if I won't be as active anymore? My advertisers wouldn't get their desired results too and it would be a waste of their time and credit as well.

But I'm still deciding and will let you know soon whatever decision I'll have. Promise.

10 comments on "To Leave or Not To Leave?"

cornyman on October 12, 2009 at 3:28 AM said...

Let the EntreCard-Widget on your blog Mara!

Put the ad approval on Auto-Pilot (Dashboard -> Advert settings) and just forget about dropping back if you don't feel like it.

Look for the blogs you like to read, give them a "hug" (drop) and move on.

As long as Adgitize members drop on your blog, the EC-Card will be used. Perhaps little bit less when you stop dropping back but that only lowers your ad price and popularity.

I guess it's always a risk to buy an advertisement with more than 5 days to wait. I had several ads who suXXed for an high price because they stopped suddenly dropping but also luck with some who dropped like crazy after i bought an ad.

After one week it will be in a range between 16 to 64 EC and that's fine for an Adgitize visited blog.

What can you do with the left ECs?

Sponsor them for some of the actual contests.
Therefore you get several backlinks which can help improve your Google PageRank. Would be the cheapest way instead of investing Money.

Traffic means always more money in Adsense and in Adgitize (page/ad views) no matter how short they stay on your page. With the removal you might lower your points by 10 or 20 daily, which could result in 50 cents less per month in Adgitize.

Just my thoughts... by the way, wrote you a message in CMF Ads :)

Grampy on October 12, 2009 at 5:13 AM said...

Make sure you let us know please.I do about 100 drops a day using Adgitize.I like both of them.

bingkee on October 12, 2009 at 8:38 AM said...

I feel the same way as you do esp. at no. 3. Entrecard is too consuming. And just like you, I'd like to visit and drop on those blogs that really take time to read and comment on my blog. As of my recent post (Sunday Blahs), you could see how I feel abt Entrecard. I also just drop as just "dropping back" to blogs who dropped, even though they don't read my blog.
I'm contemplating on leaving too but I don't know when coz I might stop blogging too. I'm tired of blogging.

bambie on October 12, 2009 at 4:51 PM said...

i think cornyman is right, mara. if you already have significant traffic to your blog/s, there's no reason for you to drop as many ECs on a single day. return the favor and drop only to those who show love on your blog/s. if you think a dropper just drops for the credits and not because he or she is genuinely interested in your blog/s, skip them. it's your call, ultimately. but then traffic coming from EC droppers, whether or not they stay to read your blog/s is still traffic.

Mariuca on October 12, 2009 at 6:25 PM said...

Good luck with ur decision sweetie, I find myself more inclined to visit Adgi blogs that also have EC on them, cause I can drop EC and click Adgi at the same time. :)

Evan's Mom on October 12, 2009 at 11:09 PM said...

I tend to agree with Cornyman, just leave the widget and drop back whenever you feel like it.

In my case, Entrecard still give contribution to my Adgitize earning. During my off-dropping-ec when I was in the hospital, I lost 20 points of daily ad/page view. Now that I start dropping back, the points come back.

Good luck with whatever your decision is :)

Auntie E on October 13, 2009 at 12:43 AM said...

I would leave it. Consider it as advertisement. I have put my Widget approval on auto and I drop on those that drop on me and then if I an surfing and find one I drop. You can still advertise on blogs of your liking, because you will collect EC from your advertisers. Hey It's traffic.

Maria @ Conversations with Moms on October 13, 2009 at 4:04 AM said...

I understand that it can be very time consuming to do drops every day. I use to worry about dropping 300 per day but now I focus on the quality blogs.

I drop on those who've dropped on me and stay to visit those whose visited me. It's hard to leave because of all the great bloggers I've found with them. I do owe them a lot.

Mom on October 13, 2009 at 10:09 PM said...

You will continue to get residual traffic even if you do not participate as actively.

You can always set your account to not accept new advertisements if you worry about the advertiser's results.

Of course, if the advertiser knows that your widget is near the bottom and still chooses to place an ad, then they do this because they feel there is value in doing so.

Also - even if you remove your widget - your account could sit there and remain active for months before being removed. We were told to stop deleting outdated and inactive blogs some time ago by the new owner. Apparently the higher number of blogs within the system will raise the price of those paid ads - regardless of whether those blogs are active or have the widget. Nobody is auditing the blogs anymore. (I'm sure not... and that was 'my job,' so to speak.)

--Shaunalynn

anya on October 15, 2009 at 12:58 AM said...

hello Mara! just wanna let you know, in case no one has bring it to your attention yet, when i click on your widget in adgitize and entrecard, i was diverted to another site, asklot.com, I think. It took me 4 tries before I finally landed on your page. just a head's up.

 

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