A TLA Rep has spoken: [Official News] AuctionAds Status

On Digital Point (http://forums.digitalpoint.com/) the member Text Link Ads Inc. (http://forums.digitalpoint.com/member.php?u=79846) post this thread:
[Official News] AuctionAds Status (http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=432273)

We, MediaWhiz Holdings Inc. (http://www.mediawhiz.com/), have acquired AuctionAds LLC (http://www.auctionads.com/) as our latest advertising channel.

We are indeed going through a transition period. But as we do, we are working day in and day out to get our hardware upgraded and everything moved over to our New York office development team. We are focusing on maintaining uptime and stability right now. Our next efforts will be put towards better development and faster release time for new features. We have some great plans ahead for AuctionAds, this is just the beginning.

For support, we are in the process of building the tools we need to better assist everyone with any reporting issues or tracking issues that may be occurring. Support does exist and will continue to be worked on to become more efficient and more responsive.

Support is and always will be available for AuctionAds.

If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to address them here.

If you have a DP account, then I guess go and ask there, if not, then maybe ask here and it can be relayed? Either way though, I have requested that they post something on their blog so that everyone can get the news...

I'm still not happy with how they have been handling things...but still, I have more time to give ;)

I hope this thread brings you a little hope for the future of your ads and AA in general!
Q
I am only a publisher of AA (just like you)
and am in no other way affiliated with them

I still havnt gotten payed from July, and me email to them has gone unanswered.

There were members on Digital Point talking about that too...but the thread got locked (maybe because of thread age though).

:throw:

As I have said before - I have been told they are in transition. Everything isnt completely in their hands and/or where it will be permanantly. They are working on things as they can.

Im confident things will improve. It may take a little time, but they'll improve.

I still havnt gotten payed from July, and me email to them has gone unanswered.


You have to put your SS number in to get paid. Thats why most of the people complaining havent been paid.

As I have said before - I have been told they are in transition. Everything isnt completely in their hands and/or where it will be permanantly. They are working on things as they can.

Im confident things will improve. It may take a little time, but they'll improve.

I don't get enough impressions to get the wrong impression ;)

I'm content with my mood swings, being upset in this post and happy to display the ads in the post after this one.

I'm sure they will get everything back in order eventually...I just hope (for their sake) the "next big thing" does not come in the mean time...as enough people are jumping ship. The place fear will crash if there is a rescue vessel in sight ;)

Luckily I can swim...so I'm just treading the water till I see what is up (or down) though I will pull the ads from my forums if they float off topic again. I have standards *smirk*

Media Whiz is for sale. 400 million and you can own Auctionads, but write about it on digital point and the thread will be closed. Write about it in your blog and a certain "person" will try and find a reason to ban you from digital point Going as far as to dig up a 9 day old thread. The good time have ended with auction ads. If you want a link to the story PM me. This Program is getting passed around like a joint. When it lands with an owner that will fix it. I will put their ads up again. Until then I'm out.

http://www.google.com/search?q=Media+Whiz+for+sale&sourceid=navclient-ff&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGGL,GGGL:2006-43,GGGL:en

I see a lot of speculation, but nothing seems too confirming...

http://news.isearchm.com/

lol - this is crazy...

You know, I've found it best to never trust anything that has 'whiz' as part of it's name. :eek:

Then again, I'm reluctant to give up the earning potential of Auction Ads. Why, I made all of $1.54 last week alone. :run:

I know, ya'll are jealous.

You're so crazy... :giggle:

Also posted

Right now, eBay is having reporting issues with CJ, their affiliate company, which is why are there are reporting delays. By nature of the product, those issues are out of our control and there is nothing we can do to force-update the reporting to show current data.

CJ is working to correct the issues with eBay and resume current reporting.

GOOD to know!

Also posted

If you check it out, ebays reporting issues were for the 9th & 10th (if I recall) and were not reported over the last several days/weeks that people have been reporting strange numbers.

I am under the impression we are getting less then the full story. Their near complete lack of communication opens up for speculation, and honestly, it does look like the entire thing is heading down hill.

I asked that they update their blog and it seems that...

Yeah, I tried to mention it to management, they didn't feel it apprioriate quite yet.

So as it stands, their publishers are secondary to whatever they have planned...

As a forum owner, I place my members first. As a business owner I would put the consumer first. In the case of AA, the publisher is, in many ways, the consumer. We are NOT first, in fact, we are not even seemingly second.

Where ever we have been tucked away in their priority list, it does seem that we are not important enough for the simplest of updates other then what seems like empty promises and announcements on forums completely unrelated to AA, Media Whiz, or any of it's actual affiliates. I mean, the post I refered too in the original post in this thread was not even listed in the Affilate Programs forums...it was in General Business. NICE PLACE for an "official announcement".

I dont think they consider publishers 'secondary' per se.

Here is what I think. You have a bunch of people unfamiliar with the AA system trying to learn it. MediaWhiz didnt have time to hire a bunch of new peope for this, which means the people currently working on AA probably have other responsibilities as well. For example, Patrick Gavin, the lead guy for MediaWhiz on AA, is still running Text Link Ads as well. SO you've got alot of transition going on as well as a learning curve with a whole new system. Keep in mind, Shoemoney and one other guy (dismark) were running this by themselves, not a team that could be trasnferred.

This is really a complicated situation for them. I know they are completely redesigning everything. The website, blog, creatives, programming, server setup, everything. In the meantime, they have to deal with eBay's programming and Commission Junction's Programming for reporting and tracking, as well as their own programming. That alone leaves alot of holes for troubles.

Also, many of the problems that have been talked about on forums are not really problems. For example, earlier T2C complained he hadnt been paid. On his behalf as a member of vBFAQ, I contacted Patrick Gavin about this. I got a quick answer. The answer was that T2C hadn't given a SS number or Tax ID number, and payment wouldnt be made until then. So the problem wasnt on the part of AuctionAds.

Now, could AA be more communicative? Yes. But, keep in mind... They have had AA for what, 2 weeks? Imagine how many emails they get every day. I wouldnt imagine they have a sytem in place yet for handling pubisher communications efficiently.

All im saying is that I know it's frustrating. I personally believe there are some issues with reporting or maybe cookie distribution/tracking. But for me, AA isnt really taking up any valuable real estate on any of my pages. Its not like I replaced my adsense spots with AA. So I am losing nothing. I might not be making what I should, in fact I am almost positive I am not making as much as I should be. But, something is better then nothing. (and believe it or not, im still beating Adsense with AA) I believe the problems will be corrected before long.

So, in my mind, patience is the way to go. Its frustrating, yes. But dont expect the impossible. 2 weeks or so isnt much time to get this all fixed and working properly. Give MediaWhiz some time to get their arms around it.

So, in my mind, patience is the way to go. Its frustrating, yes. But dont expect the impossible. 2 weeks or so isnt much time to get this all fixed and working properly. Give MediaWhiz some time to get their arms around it.

I don't expect them to have it all fixed, in fact, I don't expect perfection for a while... but then, it would likely cut down on a few of those emails by simply updating their blog.

I mean, a simple update saying what you said would only take a few moments.

They took the time to update Digital Point... it seems that telling the rest of us something would be a good business practice. They also took the time TWICE to update about how wonderful the project is and how to optimize and how others have optimized.

There simply is no defense against negligence.

I'm pissed, and it's partly my own fault, after the first two months of running AA on my sites the results were very encouraging, they were doing much better then Adsense and I figured with a 30 day cookie and clicks increasing daily that it could only get better.

So I went out and spent over 3k buying high traffic forums to place Auction Ads on.
Two days later, just enough time for me to think I had done the right thing as the number of clicks was significant, they did their maintanence on their servers.
Since then it came to a screaming stop, I have earned $14 in total since that day.

A week later Shoemoney sold out.

I can prove that there stats are totally wrong, one of my sites was hit with a server issue and has been down for a month, I had 10 Auction Ad channels running on that site .... every channel from that site still shows impressions every single day.

One thing that really gets to me though, I have a friend whose site receives over 100k unique visitors a day. He is making well over 1k a week from AA alone ..... and he hasn't noticed any difference in his AA stats, to him nothing has changed from the day he first placed AA on his site.
How is that some people now find Auction Ads a bloody disaster, but for others nothing has changed.

They'll get it all hammered out and working before long, and you'll start seeing that revenue. Good Job though, Im thinking about the same thing. I hope you signed up under my afilliate id.. :D

They'll get it all hammered out and working before long, and you'll start seeing that revenue. Good Job though, Im thinking about the same thing. I hope you signed up under my afilliate id.. :D


If I'm not mistaken I did... though, heh... I'm not making enough to notice any commission *sigh*

If I'm not mistaken I did... though, heh... I'm not making enough to notice any commission *sigh*


You will in time :)

im still hangin in there, TLA is a great company and they have a great site, CS, and rep. So hopefully they will whip AA into shape :)

I'm hangin' in too. Got called a puppydog yesterday on another site for trusting Joey on this, but hey, lol... he hasn't steered me wrong yet. So I'm hangin'

HA - Well - for those who like to ramble, I ask one question.

What do you have to lose?

exactly.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=432273&page=4

I am sad to announce that the Q & A thread after over a week of having no real answers has been closed. I have no real clue as to why it was closed, but *shrug* we are kind of kept in the dark over a lot of things.

that's odd...

I just read through the entire thread on DP ..... a lot of shuffling around by the AA spoksman but no questions were answered. He would make a good politician.

This bit did stop and make me think though,
It's just stunning how a select few publishers, who also are vocal defenders of AA, seem to always have an inside communication channel, the rest of us are not privileged enough to enjoy.

And it is terribly disappointing that AuctionAds/MediaWhiz don't provide a consistent level of service and support to their publishers.and I'm sorry mate but I have to include you as one of the chosen ones as well Joey.

The rest of us are being treated like sh1t. It's just not good enough.

On a more upbeat note for the past two days a couple of my sites have been showing clicks with numbers I agree with, back up around the 7% mark as opposed to the .20% I have been experiencing for the last six weeks.
Yesterday one site was credited with 6559 Impressions and 762 Clicks. Thats about what I used to get and what I expect. No revenue yet, well apart from .76 cents last week lol.

to be quite honest, as a publisher, I wouldn't expect to receive the same exact level of info about the internal goings on of AA, as others such as Joey and a few others, who have been asked to help and advise, in getting things turned around and moving, at AA.

to be quite honest, as a publisher, I wouldn't expect to receive the same exact level of info about the internal goings on of AA, as others such as Joey and a few others, who have been asked to help and advise, in getting things turned around and moving, at AA.

I think that the problem many publishers are having is that while there are likely a million things behind the scenes that are happening we are not being kept up to date on any of them (not including the recent blog post). Had they posted more on their blog, or had they gotten the word out via other avenues then maybe there would not be all this animosity pointed their way.

I've not bothered to submit a ticket, as my impressions are low anyway (as in I don't have much room to complain about MY numbers). The only beef I have and have ever had was the complete lack of customer service on their part. And recently I have noticed that a few of the other rumors are at least partly true...

I have posted two comments in their blog, and both are readily seen by me....however, you'd not be able to see them. There is also a high probability that if you have left a comment the only people that will see it are them and you. I've discussed this privately with another AA publisher that has left comments. He thought up till then that his comment was posted... he sent me a screen shot and that was the first I saw it.

With that, the only communication between them and us is the few emails they have replied too and their selective nature of comment selection.

The ads are still on my pages, the ads fit for what I want... but honestly, the negatives keep piling up on other negatives and eventually there will be sooooooo many I'll no longer see the benefits. It should be obvious that this is already happening to other publishers, as I am certainly seeing more bad things then good, and the few good things I have seen recently have been mostly from "new members". Were it not for Joey posting positive things, I am unsure if I would still be posting here...

So thanks Joey, I hope they REALLY appreciate you!

In my other life I have been involved with some very large franchise networks, I know for a fact that the Franchisors always have a select few franchisees "they leak information to" the kind of information that the franchisees want to hear, especially when things aren't going as they should, it's done as the old buddy buddy thing, and the franchisor knows full that that "inside" information will be passed around but they can't be held to it.

Not saying thats the case here but from what's been said and what's actually happened over the last two months it sure has a familiar ring to it.

In my other life I have been involved with some very large franchise networks, I know for a fact that the Franchisors always have a select few franchisees "they leak information to" the kind of information that the franchisees want to hear, especially when things aren't going as they should, it's done as the old buddy buddy thing, and the franchisor knows full that that "inside" information will be passed around but they can't be held to it.

Not saying thats the case here but from what's been said and what's actually happened over the last two months it sure has a familiar ring to it.

If the leaked information was found to be faulty too many times that could lead to a "shoot the messenger" type mentality...which would be just fine for the leaker, but pretty bad for the leakee...especially if AA started claiming "I never said that".

In the future, I'll be sure to keep any of my correspondence confidential ;)
Q

and I'm sorry mate but I have to include you as one of the chosen ones as well Joey.


Well, its not unusual whatsoever. Adsense does the same kind of thing. So does YPN and so do most other ad programs I know of. Take a look at Jensense.com. She knows alot before the masses. Many bigger publishers get included in beta testing and what not as well as get advance information from Adsense. Ive done some beta testing for Adsense as well.

Im honored people trust me enough to speak with me on such a level. Its an honor to be considered as a professional and important in my field to be sought out for such advice and consultation. I get no special treatment from AA as far as earnings or anything. The only tangible benefit I receive is the ability to try to help you guys when I can.

AA is working on the problems. In fact, they think they have the biggest parts of the problem resolved, but are still working on fixing other things. My stats appear to reflect this. So you can assume that within a week or so, things should be back to the way they should be.

Folks- give them a little break. They just got their hands on this a short time ago. It takes time to get the ball rolling and in this case, they walked in while things were broken. Firstr order of business is to get things diagnosed and repaired, which is what they are doing. I know they are also working on a complete site redesign and new ad sizes and ad creatives. MediaWhiz isnt sitting around doing nothing on this one.

I dont disagree with them not posting much on forums. Its a minefield for them to do it. Hell, I bet they could hire a full time person just to post on forums. Thats not cost effective. Forum conversations can get quite ugly as well.

vBFAQ is the only forum of any importance to even have a subforum dedicated to AuctionAds. I think its important as I believe it is a great revenue source for vB owners. Believe me, if I thought it wasnt, I wouldnt be yapping about it much. I really hope the problems are coming to a close soon and we can move on to finding ways to make this new income stream more beneficial to vB owners.

Folks- give them a little break. They just got their hands on this a short time ago. It takes time to get the ball rolling and in this case, they walked in while things were broken. Firstr order of business is to get things diagnosed and repaired, which is what they are doing. I know they are also working on a complete site redesign and new ad sizes and ad creatives. MediaWhiz isnt sitting around doing nothing on this one.

Many of the ones complaining ARE giving them a break, our issue is with the lack of communication, skirting the issues, and damn near lying. They have a broken and breraking system without a single peep about it to ANYONE but you and some guy with 15 posts on Digital Point. Maybe is WE got a break?

It's not about the place being broken...it's about their HORRIBLE communication skills.

They have known about their reporting issues for how long? And they only just posted in their blog about? How many publishers do you think they lost due to their unwillingness to admit anything was wrong for so long?

Personally I don't want new things, I want the old things fixed...and if they can not fix (or even acknowledge) that there are problems how am I not to believe that these new things are just empty promises?

I dont disagree with them not posting much on forums. Its a minefield for them to do it. Hell, I bet they could hire a full time person just to post on forums. Thats not cost effective. Forum conversations can get quite ugly as well.

They would not have needed to post on a forum if they'd have been kind enough to post in thier own 'official news' source. Though, they chose the time and place, and then they did not follow through with it. Maybe they stepped on a mine? Does not matter though, what's done is done, and in the eyes of the many they did it wrong.

I have No Idea what "problems" they are having but after I pulled the ads I'm still well over 150 this month. So the 30 day cookie must work. I'll run them again when they are fixed and the Idiot who acts like "tricky Dick Nixson" toward the end is no longer with them.

and the Idiot who acts like "tricky Dick Nixson" toward the end is no longer with them.


Huh? Who are you talking about?

shoemoney the dude is paranoid just like Nixon, and he is not even "involved" with them anymore. He ruined his own reputation and is now attempting to cover it up by banning people on digital point without reason tons of bans, closed threads the guy is a fool.

Im not sure whats going on with that myself.

I know he is your friend or whatever, but screw the guy. The way I see it he still owes 20k publishers the $5.00 promised when they signed up. Bring it up on digital point and he will ban you though. I really feel for the new owners though. they bought a broken ad company and probably were just shown the numbers. Not that it was broken and people signed up for 5.00 never that was never delivered. So in reality they bought a company with 25k publishers and right now probably about 6k are showing ads. The rest have a bitter taste in their mouths over the whole thing and the reputation of auctionads as shady can be summed up in the actions of that clown. Who I post after post claims he has nothing to do with it. Yet will ban anyone who says its messed up. Just go look at the still open auctionads threads on that site and notice all the red baned names. The dude ruined his whole reputation over nothing he should have been involved with since he no longer owns the company. Am I right?

As I said I will run auctionads in a awhile when they fix it and he is no longer in the picture. His reputation is falling right now even the usual leg humpers over there are going against him. I hope he made enough to live on for the rest of his life off that sale because he will never be trusted again, at least by most people. The dude is scum.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=446042&highlight=Auctionads

Another AA thread on DP is locked.

Though, I'm not sure it's Shoemoney. TLA is now jerking people around: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=449630

With them removinging all the referral links like that makes one wonder if they are in this just for money, and I don't mean just money, I mean our money.

Non-reporting clicks for AA, non-converting referrals for TLA *shrug*

But I have been rummaging through the threads on the subject and while I am seeing a few locked for no apparent reason, I am not seeing a bunch of random people banned. I am seeing people banned, but then on DP that's pretty normal...but the people with the biggest voices are still green, so I don't think that is a valid conspiracy.

Somewhere in Shoemoneys blog I saw where he was bragging about banning people on DP .... he wasn't refering to Auction Ads though, I didn't take much notice as I was searching for something else.
I have noticed a lot of people have been banned there recently ... Shoemoney on a mission LOL.

There are a lot of threads over at Myspacepros about Auction Ads, in fact Shoemoney posted there when things were running well.
There are a lot of people with very large sites (over 100k Uniques a day and the right demographic) over there who are/were running Auction Ads. Well the sh1t has really hit the fan as the ads weren't showing on a lot of their sites this week and they are all pulling out. As Sapper said, there won't be many publishers left soon and when they pull the ads off their sites they won't go back.

One thing I don't understand, all the blame is pointed at Shoemoney (although I have never really liked the guy) and the reason being put out by the new owners about why the problems aren't being resolved is that they just bought the company and have to find there way around it.
Well I was under the impression that they already owned half of the company from day one. And even then it's doubtful anyone would buy the company without having Shoemoney stay on for the first few weeks to ensure a smooth transition.
So laying all the blame on Shoemoney is nothing but a convienent excuse.
And when you get down to it, it's just a script, theres nothing that involved about it. Ask Noppid, I'm sure he would agree.

I'm thinking maybe the problems stem from hassles with ebay, has anyone seen the new Adsense ads that have just been introduced, it's a long shot but maybe this has some bearing on it all.
They are in the 728x90 format as shown below. this ones pretty horrible looking lol.

http://i116.photobucket.com/albums/o38/cyclopsx2007/newad.jpg

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=450254#post4262206

I'm the kind of person that likes to stir the pot... heh, like some of you have noticed. Though I do try my best to stay within the laws and guidelines of where ever I have my stirring stick.

Now I almost fear for my account on Digital Point, at AA, and possibly here...

They seemingly are no longer playing by the rules (or that guy was lying).

I'm taking bets if shoe clown sees it he wont ban you but the go mark guy who actually wote what he did pump and dump. But the thread will get closed and we wont know.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=450254#post4262206

I'm the kind of person that likes to stir the pot... heh, like some of you have noticed. Though I do try my best to stay within the laws and guidelines of where ever I have my stirring stick.

Now I almost fear for my account on Digital Point, at AA, and possibly here...

They seemingly are no longer playing by the rules (or that guy was lying).
There's no need to fear for your account here. You're in good hands :yes:

Now I almost fear for my account on Digital Point, at AA, and possibly here...




Dont fear for your account here. We rarely close threads or ban people except for spamming.

There's no need to fear for your account here. You're in good hands :yes:

Dont fear for your account here. We rarely close threads or ban people except for spamming.


YAY spouts off some more...

Actually I don't have any complaints today. I think I got most of that out of the system last week ;)

Ads are up, they match the keywords, loaded fast, and are giving clicks... not sure if they are giving enough clicks, but *shrug* I'm still content. Staytuned for tomorrow where I may go right off again *smirk*

So is it all over for Auction Ads, there hasn't been much discussion about them here for awhile.
Nothing seems to have been fixed.
I still have them on my sites but it's getting lonely lol.
Reporting is still rubbish, income is at $3.22 for this month dispite well over 1 million impressions.
I still receive impressions and even clicks from a site that doesn't even exist anymore, it hasn't for over two months :D
My CTR is set in stone at 0.05 .... no matter what the impressions/clicks state.

Heres the latest comments from another Forum where the members got into Auction Ads. (not DP)
All these guys own very high traffic sites.
They may say their tracking is fixed; however, I believe otherwise. I used to average a solid .40% click rate for well over a month, now I can't even get to .02%. Something doesn't add up to me there.

I don't think its fixed. I keep getting revenue but my CTR is only .01%

i just removed them from my site because it's showing practically no clicks and my earnings have dropped from making anywhere from $10 - $100/day which i got for the first 2 months to $0 a day which i've gotten over the past month.

I went from making XXXX.XX per month to $2.98 so far this month so they are GONE.

yeah auctions ads payouts are WAYYYYYYYYYY down this month ... something very dodgy going on...

I made over $800 the first month I had auction ads (July 07) and then suddenly (I can pinpoint the exact day) the CTR dropped down to a fraction of the daily average I had up to that point and now I'm making about $20/month. Nothing changed with my site other than steady increase in traffic. I've asked them what the deal was, and all they responded with is that they are "fixing the problem". They didn't mention what the problem was. Needless to say, I'm pulling their ads.

I think a lot of people are doing the same these days. I just removed them from my sites


I gave them many chances even when they weren't working. But lately the ads will not even show up. My earnings are also way down. They're off my sites and this time forever.

Here is an avatar to help promote them...

I figure if you get enough referrals eventually someone will make some money that may (or seemingly may not) trickle through.

*shrug*

It seems they have launched a new program as well now. Its called shoppingads.com or something like that. Wonder how good this will be, I believe this program pays per click and not per sale.

I am beta testing shoppingads.com.

It is not pay per click, it is per sale. It works similar to auctionads except it uses various other affiliates. SO lets say you use the KW automotive, you'll get ads from various automotive affiliate companies such as autoanything.com.

So far, its not working very well for my niches - but auctionads is doing June numbers this month for me.

I am beta testing shoppingads.com.

It is not pay per click, it is per sale. It works similar to auctionads except it uses various other affiliates. SO lets say you use the KW automotive, you'll get ads from various automotive affiliate companies such as autoanything.com.


On the 9th I started removing AA ads, I got around 85% if them removed now. I removed them because my numbers were still not up, and in fact, while they were never that high, the prospects of ever reaching that $25 looked slim. Regardless though, it was 45 days since I have had a click that converted, and it was over a week from the last click. Again, my numbers are normally low, but this is even low for me, at least compared to before the issues.

Now I see, that we have all been neglected in favor of them making even more money. Well, the way I see it, is that they can simply kiss my ass. And honestly, that is something you should all be saying. Think about it, throughout all these issues, rather then correcting them, they have been off working on something else.

That something else is still in Beta...what are the chances they will make it back round to us any time soon, and we are supposedly full version *boggle*

Monday, the rest of my ads are coming down.


So far, its not working very well for my niches - but auctionads is doing June numbers this month for me.

Did your numbers seem to turn around on the 9th? It seems that the week I added most of my pages the numbers went to hell. Now it seems the week I took them off the number sky rocket! Seriously, with them off of 85% if of my ages, my impressions are still the same. Till I saw people saying their numbers were up, I just thought that they it was another reporting issue.

my stats for this month show (i dont think this is right)

5403 impressions
408 clicks
.66 cents made.....lol

that aint right

Auction ads were great for two months - In June & July we made about $130 each month, August started similar and then crashed, and in the end reached about $50, September dropped to $35. I dumped all the ads on Oct 1st. Despite that I'm still on $14 this month.

I got the beta offer for shoppingads - but given their previous performance, ignored it.