Cormac Moylan

The lovely gents at Text-Link-Ads have invited me to participate in their sister company, Auction Ads.

So what does Auction Ads actually do? Well it’s a bit obvious really. They’re a portal for eBay auctions. You can see samples of the output within this blog post.

It works in pretty much the same way as Google Adsense. You create an account, setup a campaign, decide which format your ads should be displayed in (skyscraper, banner…all that), choose which type of auctions you want to display (keyword specific), edit up some colours to help blending, grab some JavaScript code and finally paste it into your site or blog. Easy!

Within the control panel there is a report section which tells you how many impressions you have made today and on previous days and weeks, as well as how much you have earned!

All pretty standard stuff…

There is one unique feature which stands out a bit. The URL Converter function. You can take a URL for an item which is being auctioned on eBay, run it thru the URL Converter and wham!, like magic it generates a referral link for that item. This feature allows you to maneuver past the auction items displayed on your site and pass on a link to a specific auction which you feel your readers might have an interest in…. Ohh look at this lovely 20GB iPod for only $99.99. Very neat stuff.

You can display as many auction items on your site as you wish. The terms allow you to run Auction Ads in conjunction with other PPC programs such as Adsense and Adbrite too. I’m not sure how successful this campaign will be on my blog but I’m willing to give it a shot.

They have a strange Affiliation system in place. Which is a bit of a nuisance to be honest. To receive a payout for encouraging a friend to sign up for Auction Ads, they must first click on a auction, it is at this point that their details (and yours) are stored in a cookie. If they sign up within 30 days of the cookie’s life then you will receive 2% of the total of their earnings for the first 6 months of their campaign. Obviously this is paid by Auction Ads and not out of the pocket of your friend!

Sounds a bit weird doesn’t it? I would still like to have a HTML based referral link to add to my blog links. Surely it makes sense for them to do this to raise awareness and improve their inbound links. What if they’re browsing in work and their PC deletes cookies automatically, and what if they have cookies disabled, and what if they use different computers….In saying that, 2% does sound nice.

So, what are you waiting for?

Update:
I’m not sure how I missed it, or even if it was there yesterday, but a HTML affilation link is available for Auction Ads.
Try AuctionAds

Thanks to smemon for pointing that one out.

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