EntreBashing: The New Pricing System
Although there have been quite a few posts in the blogosphere about this already, I thought it was time to chime in with my own point of view. Let the Entrebashing commence:
The Problem
The new credit calculation system for Entrecard is the problem. Although this was implemented to stabilize prices, it in fact has turned the semi manageable system, into a nightmare.
How It Works
If you can’t read it, it says “the price calculation is simple, for every spot there are a number of adverts waiting to show. We take a base price of 2 credits, then for each of the adverts waiting, we double the price. The following table shows how it all plays out.
Why They Did It
The reason why this was done was to try to make the prices more “fair”. The major complaint before was that blogs like ProBlogger were having an ad spot on them go for 200 credits a slot while smaller blogs had Entrecard ads going for 400-700 credits a day because the “power droppers” had mastered the system.
The logic behind this was that ads would be bought up to a maximum price someone would be willing to pay. As a result, the ad price would usually be one higher than that price if their ad que was full.
What Happened?
As you can see from the above screenshot, this got a little out of hand. Seriously, who has that many credits, no one is the answer. In my time on EC I have had just over 4000 cards dropped on me. So, maybe in a year or two I could buy one ad spot on those blogs, to an average user as myself, this is ludicrous.
What Entrecard is Doing
Nothing, they are waiting for the prices to “settle down”, as they feel this is the best course of action. As a results users are leaving Entrecard and people are upset. It still stands to see if prices are going to go back down, but if I was Entrecard, I wouldn’t even wait. I would revert back to the old system and try to come up with a new system (like the one I will outline below).
The Solution(s)
Revert Back to the Old System
As stated before, reverting back to the old system would appease the older users and allow the newer ones to be able to get into the swing of Entrecard. It would also allow Phirate and Graham to come up with a new system to replace it, effectively buying them precious time to get back on track.
My Idea
My idea is a combination price system. You want to have your prices reflect the “worth” of your website. Advertisers want bang for their buck, they don’t want to spend 700 EC on a website with 20 subscribers, is really not worth it.
The factors I’d base my pricing system on:
- Cards dropped on you: 1 credit per 10 cards dropped on you per day
- Alexa Rank: 500,000+ (5 credits/day)
499,000-300,000 (10 credits/day)
299,999-200,000 (15 credits/day)
199,999-100,000 (20 credits/day)
99,999- 50,000 (25 credits/day)
49,999 – 25,000 (30 credits/day)
24,999- 1 (35 credits/day)
- Google PageRank: 10 credits multiplied by the Pagerank of your websites homepage
- RSS readers: 1 credit per day per 50 subscribers
*Please note the Alexa Rank is underweighted due to the fact that EntreCard drastically increases your Alexa Rank so this statistic can easily be skewed*
As you can see combining these factors is using a system like many text link sellers or paid review sellers use. By combining a number of factors you get a more accurate ranking rather than one that depends on just one statistic (in this case, number of ads in queue, or before, number of drops received per day).
*There will always be people whose cards are over valued, but I feel this system will help to cut down on the number of over valued cards*
-End EntreBashing-
Liked this post? Get your daily dose, subscribe to our RSS feed!
RSS Subscriber Feed Count and Google Page Rank means little to advertisers.
Advertisers want to advertise on sites that has good traffic. RSS Subscriber Feed Count and Google Page Rank fails to accomplish that.
Alexa is an adequate indication of a site’s traffic rating but it is far from perfect.
It would be much better for them to adopt a Project Wonderful highest bidder gets the ad box type system.
I dislike the new Entre Card System but dose have a good point will take some getting used too
Actually Deimos, advertisers are looking for strong pages, which include quality content, readership and traffic. RSS is some indication of traffic as repeat readers usually come to the site to comment.
That being said, I do agree with your logic about ProjectWonderful type stats and a bidding system. It would allow prices to stabalize where they should be, and then EC won’t have to worry about powerdroppers having inflated prices.
Nick, exactly, I could be wrong, but we’ll have to wait for a little while longer and see what happens to the prices.
I think a combo of the new and old should work. The new system increases too rapidly. I don’t think it should double. Those at the bottom get nothing. Those at the top are outrageous. Yes the market does determine the price, but when the next price is double the last that is very extreme. It would nice to base it off of things like Alexa but that would require a lot of overhead for the server to gather all the data for 7000 some sites at regular intervals.
If they want to wait and see, then I’m all for the free market process. If it’s a bad choice, then somebody else will step up with a better program.
@ Stephan - true about the Alexa thing. in terms of the price, I agree doubling is to drastic. Maybe the combination does work. X credits/ad spot waiting + number of drops on the widget per day times X credits/drop.
Prehaps that would be better?
@Scott - the problem isn’t that its a good or bad idea. The problem for them is that they are loosing users as they wait due to this new pricing system (I know quite a few users who have quit or are seriously considering quitting entrecard). It’s all about damage control, do they want to keep this up, and hope for the best, or limit their losses and maybe tempt back some of those old users with a new pricing system revamp.
I wonder why they did it - I don’t think that it was all about making prices fairer, because if it was, it wouldn’t have been such a rash decision (doubling each time is rash in my opinion).
Investor comes in, talk of the credit market has already begun, and suddenly there is a complete turn around in pricing structure. It certainly looks like a move intended to make the buying of credits a better prospect - especially since it doesn’t look like they really consulted any users beforehand(?) - but at the risk of losing their core fanbase.
All speculation, but that’s what makes this interesting, right?
Speculation is key, would be interested to see what Graham or Phirate has to say in response to your comment.
i think it blows personally… now i am unable to decipher who has a decent blog and who doesn’t before the change i could easily tell who has a good blog that was worth the visit or even the card drop… (this was determined by the EC price in my eyes) now it’s like everyone gobbled up every site they could…. i’ll be glad when they figure out what in the world is going on EC wise..
See, you’re the type of disgruntled user that will stay away from EC with the system getting sorted out.
This is why they should refine it more before launch and communicate with the community better as well.
Couldn’t agree with your idea more. I always felt it should be based on PR and Alexa rank. I got to the top by dropping big time and networking. I still had poor traffic though, so I don’t think my site was all that great for advertising on.
[RSS is some indication of traffic as repeat readers usually come to the site to comment.]
RSS never was an indication of traffic, and never will be.
It is just a statistical figure of how many people who subscribed to that blog’s RSS Feed via email or RSS readers.
Plus it is too easily gamed.
You want quality content? Check out the blog’s content and the comments.
Then determine for yourself if that site has quality content.
A blog that has quality content does not exactly have lots of traffic. Advertisers wants usually want exposure, want traffic.
Curt - I wouldn’t say its a advertising bust, but I would say many felt their sites were overvalued due to their dropping habits. for example, I could raise my price by 100-200 credits per day if I reciprocal dropped on every user I could find. Hence why the old system didn’t work so well.
Deimos - Exactly, but that determining takes time, time that some don’t have. I actually really like your bidding idea like project wonderful. I think that should be the solution then implement now. Would allow prices not to be so drastic in increases and fall where people really value them to be.
If it was a PW type system, it should be modified so that an ad is still shown for 24 hours, rather than it always chopping and changing when a new bid is made.
Everyone bids on the next day’s coverage, and the highest gets it for that 24 hours, then it starts again.
Hum, yeah, I was considering that last night. I agree, full day, bidding stops at 12 EST the day before and the highest bidder gets it.
Since I’m more in this for the theoretical “best outcome” (don’t use EC myself), I guess the question I’d want to ask is - does a modified PW system leave much room for the old ethos of the harder you work, the more you get out of it.
I understand that the old system perhaps relied on that ethos a little too much, but it did at least give users some kind of EC status, as opposed to status from elsewhere.
If people are bidding for spots, they might well base a lot of it off “real” traffic stats, but does that leave the little guy with enough exposure (which was what differentiated it from the competition up to now)?
Well, I guess if you work harder you get more credits… Also, if that was done entrecard would become more of an advertising platform slash social network instead of its current form.