Review Of WidgetBucks

 

I would be very surprised if you haven’t already heard about Widget Bucks. But have you actually started to incorporate the widgets on your sites? 

For those of you who haven’t come across Widget Bucks before or for those of you that took a quick look but decided to pass, this review is well worth 2 minutes of your time:

What Is Widget Bucks?

It is an interactive ad unit (similar to the popular Amazon ad units) that displays several different purchasing options for readers for different products.

It takes physical products from thousands of online stores and marketplaces like eBay, Amazon, Shopping.com, Target, WalMart and Gap and displays the best prices using an animated banner that you can display on your website or blog using their widget code.

They have their own algorithm engine called MerchSense for displaying products that are relevant to your websites content, it even adapts to new content that you write so it's great for blogs.

Here’s how one of their ad units looks:

The widgets come in a range of sizes and can be customized to fit in with the color scheme of your site.

At the time of writing, you are limited to 16 different categories (with each category having a seperate sub categories).

They are currently serving the following niche:

1. Video Games
2. Sports and Outdoors
3. Musical Instruments
4. Media
5. Kids and Family
6. Jewelry and Watches
7. Home and Garden
8. Health and Beauty
9. Camera and Photo
10. Electronics
11. Computers
12. Clothing and Accessories
13. Cars
14. Green Living
15. Special Interest
16. Miscellaneous

How Do You Make Money?

Just like Google Adsense you make money when someone clicks on one of the ad units on a ‘per click’ (CPC) basis and WidgetBucks claim that those who’ve tested them are getting $3-$6 CPM which is very good!

I personally haven’t seen figures that high, but I am seeing steady returns on the 3 sites I have the widget installed.

Payment is via PayPal or Check after 45 days of the month end, but you need to hit $50 before you trigger your first payment.

$25 SignUp Bonus

Widget Bucks is paying people $25.00 just for registering. As soon as you earn another $25 you will get your $50 payment.

They also have a referral system where you get paid 10% of the earnings of the people you have referred to them through your referral link.

WidgetBucks will allow you to run as many ads on a page as you like and you can use this system with AdSense according to their FAQ.

You can also track your sales and stats from your reports page on a per Widget basis. This helps you track which widgets are performing better. 

Pros

• The ad units are very sleek and great at attracting your readers eyes.
• There is a good range of colors and ad unit sizes to choose from to help incorporate them into your sites.
• The fact that the banners rotate in and out featuring different products will help to catch your readers attention.
• Stats reporting is simple and clear.
• Reported CPM is pretty good considering you can run multiple ad units and other ad systems on your page.
• If your site is focused on products widget bucks can give you a great click through rate. 
• Good referal system that pays 10% of the earnings of the people you have refered to them.

Cons

• If you are not in one of the above mentioned niche, you may not get that very high click thru rate. The thing here is your readers need to be interested in those products. If your blog or website is not specific your readers will not be interested in the products.
• The ad units are quite animated and could be rather annoying for some blog readers or website visitors.
• The widget will not fit seamlessly into your content like Adsense.  

Conclusion

Placing Widget Bucks ad units on your website or blog really is a judgement call on your behalf.

The main criteria to take away is whether your site is geared towards displaying ads for physical products within the current 14 categories.

If it does, I would certainly recommend you sign up with Widget Bucks and expect a good CPM.

If your site isn’t focussed on physical products or related content then displaying these ads may even degrade the quality of your site and put off many potential new readers.

If in doubt – test. As a result of testing my own ads, I have left the ad units on 2 of my own sites and taken them off a third. You really don’t know until you test.

The other angle you might like to explore is the affiliate system that pays 10% of the earnings for referring new members.

You may not have a relevant website or blog yourself, but there are millions of relevant, untapped website owners that would welcome the Widget Bucks ads.

Relevant forums would be a particularly good place to sign up potential affiliates.  

If you want to join this new advertising network, you can create an account and be displaying your ads within 3 mins.

Click here to display WidgetBucks ads on your site  

If you already have any experiences with WidgetBucks, please let us know your thoughts and opinions. 

Peter