In July of 2009, my blog was coming up on its first anniversary. At the time, I was posting periodically and struggling to get any kind of regular traffic coming to my site. During that first year, I probably average 300-400 visitors per month. In a very good month, I might crack 1000 visitors.
During those early days of blogging, I started to notice that some of the other blogs that I had discovered were advertising and displaying ads from various blogging communities. One of the first ones that I signed up for was Entrecard, primarily because it was free.
I tried Entrecard for a while, but quickly grew tired of the results I was getting from them. It was in July of 2009 that I started to notice some display widgets for another network called Adgitize. Adgitize billed itself as "World Class Advertising on a Blogger's Budget."
I started to check out Adgitize to see what it was all about. There were a couple of different options available with them. You could sign up to be an publisher only and display their ads, you could be an advertiser and buy an ad for $14 per month, or you could do both.
One of the things that I liked about them was that they had a sort of revenue sharing platform. You could earn points by performing various activities such as visiting other blogs, publishing posts on your own blog, points for traffic, and points for being an advertiser. The more points you earned, the more cash you could receive.
Now, one who participated in the Adgitize network would not be able to quit their day job and just Adgitize, but a little reward was nice. I started off as a publisher only in early July of 2009. In those early days, I was probably earning a couple pennies each day. I realized that it would take a long time to hit their payout threshold of $10.
So, after a couple of weeks, I decided to take the plunge and bought my first ad with them for $14. I noticed two things almost immediately after placing my first ad; first the traffic to my blog increased tremendously to the point where I was receiving at least triple the visitors prior to advertising.
The other thing that I noticed was that my total points and therefore the amount I was earning also increased significantly. On days that I did not write a blog post, I went from earning a couple pennies to earning $.15-$.20 per day. When I published a post, my earnings went up to $.50-$.60 per day.
It didn't take me long to figure out that if I participated in the various activities in the network and published a blog post most days that my $14 advertising fee could perpetuate itself in revenue from the network. Most months, I would earn enough from my points to pay for the next month's ad. I have been an advertiser with them ever since.
That is, until now. Like a great many of us bloggers who have faithfully been a part of the Adgitize network and know full well the awesome benefits that being a part of their network, I was saddened to receive an email from Ken Brown, who started and runs Adgitize, informing us that Adgitize will be closed for business when the year ends.
Like any business, Adgitize needs revenue in order to survive. For a while, it looked like Ken and crew had a winning formula. The number of advertisers was growing pretty steady for several months. Eventually, it peaked and came down a bit. Unfortunately, over the last few months there has been a steady decline in the number of advertisers until it reached the point where the business could not be sustained.
Judging from some of the comments on the Adgitize blog from my fellow bloggers that are part of Adgitize, we all hold Ken Brown in high regard and are saddened to see Adgitize close. Ken did a tremendous job of creating a community on Adgitize where we could share blogging tips and get to know one another.
In a day where customer service is somewhat lacking, Ken was very attentive in addressing concerns that any of us had. Ken and his service will definitely be missed by those of us who have interacted with him over the last three years. I wish him much success in all his future endeavors and hope to be able to work with him again.
