AuctionAds Tips by Joeychgo

First let me say that for some forums, AuctionAds can be a great ad program. The income derived from AuctionAds is incremental to that of Adsense and depending on your forum, topics and traffic, this program can add significantly to your website revenue.

I have a few tips I want to share. Now I myself and still experimenting with AuctionAds, so I expect to have future tips to share as well. But I have made more then $400 in the last week of June, so I wanted to pass along some of my ideas.

In particular, for vBulletin forums, AuctionAds can be used in a great manner. I strongley urge you to install the Rewrite eBay To AuctionAds (http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8828) hack available here. What this hack does is make it so whenever a user on your forum posts a link to ebay, it rewrites the link to YOUR AuctionAds account. So, if that item sells, you get the commission. What is great about this is that it takes up NO advertising banner space. It's like free money.

Second. As I got into this program, I realized that choosing the right keywords is crucial to success. One problem I came across was that I have forums with slightly different topics. For example, on LincolnvsCadillac.com I have forums for various models of Cadillac and Lincoln automobiles. I thought it would be better to be able to show Lincoln Town car ads in the Lincoln Town Car forum and Cadillac CTS ads in that forum. In addition, I have several forums which are offtopic, such as our politics forum. Clearly, someone who owns a Lincoln Town car could care less about Cadillac CTS ads, so those ads were being wasted.

So, to deal with the range of topics on my forums, I commissioned Sniper to write a hack for us to solve this problem. Available here for free download is the Forum Keywords for AuctionAds (http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9114) hack. What this hack does is give you your list of forums and allows you to choose a different keyword for each individual forum. So, now, my Lincoln Town car people only see Lincoln Town Car ads when they are reading threads in that forum.


Now, some of you have forums that the obvious keywords draw alot of lot dollar ads. You can now set a minimum ad price along with your keywords so as to show higher priced ads and get your commission level up. To do this, you can include a “minprice:10″ in your AuctionAds javascript and ads lower then $10 wont appear.

Same goes for maximum price option. Lets say you have a site about Playstation 3. Now, your site attracts a lot of traffic, but you already know about 95% of your visitors already own that coveted PS3. So it makes more sense to show ads related to PS3 games, accessories and add-ons, rather than the PS3 console. So rather than try using various keyword variations to try and trigger ads for related PS3 items, while not the console itself, you can include a “maxprice:100″ in your AuctionAds javascript, and it will only show items with a bid price of $100 or less. (You can set min and max prices to any price level you like)

So if you user either of these, your keyword will be playstation maxprice:100 -- or playstation minprice:100

So think your keywords through a bit. Come up with a strategy. Experiment with your forum. What do your members like? Maybe you choose things like T-Shirts for some of your forums or something else of interest.

Here is another idea I have been considering which I will share with you. Run an eBay contest on your site. Offer some prize for the most wacky eBay auction your members can find. Why? Because when they click an AuctionAds link on your site (you have to be using the Rewrite hack I mentioned earlier for this to work) they get a 30 day cookie and anything they buy in 30 days, you get commission for. SO you get your members all worked up in a frenzy over this contest, and they are all posting links to auctions and clicking the links others have posted -- in the end, you make some commissions!

SO thats my first set of tips. More will be coming. I know Jeremy over at AuctionAds is working on some other keyword related things that will help us out even more, so look for more tips from me as AuctionAds improves and I come up with more strategies.

VERY good tips - thanks for sharing them with us Joey.

where do I put this auctionads referral code?

edit: forget it I see, in the link....duh!

How much of that 400 is from your referrals you keeping pushing for in the last 3 or 4 newletters...

How much of that 400 is from your referrals you keeping pushing for in the last 3 or 4 newletters...

I haven't seen him "pushing" for any referrals. What I have seen is him offering new and very useful information to help people make the most monetary use of their sites. Something he doesn't have to do - he could keep it to himself.

If you don't want the info, delete the newsletter.

I saw the referral link 4 newsletters ago as SIGN UP TODAY with his referral link...which has been in all the last newsletters. But that's not the point here, I was just wondering how much of the 400 was from referrals...b/c if 90% of it, then I won't waste my time with it. If majority isn't, I'll be glad to sign up with his referral link so he can earn more money per month.

He has a nice site going on here...telling people how to increase revenue on their sites while he's increasing his exponentially because of it due to all his referral links. I wish I would have done that :P

ah ok - the sign up today is just a way to make it easy for people to sign up. If he's taking the time to do that, then sure, he should use his referral link. ;)

However, if I understand him correctly, most of the 400 has been made directly from his various sites that he has AuctionAds on.

I, myself, have made more on my one site than I ever thought I would - MUCH more than I've ever made from Adsense.

I recommend you try it out. You've nothing to lose and everything to gain :D

Thanks Peg! I'll definitely take a look at it. Can I ask what type of site you have the ads ran on?

The one in her signature ;) Themes by Design

Dat be da one! It's a vBulletin designs site

How much of that 400 is from your referrals you keeping pushing for in the last 3 or 4 newletters...


Since the refferer only gets 2% -- not much.. :)

Thanks for these tips. 1 question. So in order to set this minimum or maximum price to I need to install that hack. or is this something that will work if I just add it to the existing auction ads code.

Thanks!



Now, some of you have forums that the obvious keywords draw alot of lot dollar ads. You can now set a minimum ad price along with your keywords so as to show higher priced ads and get your commission level up. To do this, you can include a “minprice:10″ in your AuctionAds javascript and ads lower then $10 wont appear.

No, you can use that in the auctionads keyword whether you use our hack or not.

To use the “minprice:___” or the “maxprice:___” feature, simply include it as a keyword in your AuctionAds keyword tag, being sure to change the ___ to the USD bid price.

SO - your keyword would look like this:

KEYWORD maxprice:1000

Thanks Joeychgo. Final question. If I install this hack to rewrite the urls and say one of my users copies the URL and posts it on another forum. Or sends the link to a friend via email (for example)

Would my account still get the credit if the item was purchased or if that person were to click on the link and buy something on Ebay with in the next 30 days?


In particular, for vBulletin forums, AuctionAds can be used in a great manner. I strongley urge you to install the Rewrite eBay To AuctionAds (http://www.vbulletin-faq.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8828) hack available here. What this hack does is make it so whenever a user on your forum posts a link to ebay, it rewrites the link to YOUR AuctionAds account. So, if that item sells, you get the commission. What is great about this is that it takes up NO advertising banner space. It's like free money.

I (http://ads.auctionads.com/pagead/link___http://www.ebay.com) believe so, yes.

your success with auctionads ultimately depends on the products your audience will be potentially buying. If your audience buys larger ticket items such as computers & stereos, you will earn more money than if your audience buys fishing tackle gear or dog leashes. In the end though, auctionads , from my experience, will add to your bottomline revenue in addition to the revenue that adsense may be bring you.

Also - as Joey has pointed out several times, it's potentially incremental revenue. If all of a sudden someone sells a limited edition gold plated, titanium tipped fishing rod, and wins it from a link on your site - they hey presto! You made some more dosh!!

That's one of the beauty's of AuctionAds, promote it on your site unlike you can do for Google Ads and encourage members to post their stuff with links to the ebay sale on your site. It all helps at the end of the day...

Thanks for all the info here. We are giving this program a try.

wow, thanks! I'm going to give it a try :)