But how does Entrecard make money??
Written on December 12th, 2007 by Graham
Ok, ok, the cat has been out of the bag for some time now. Entrecard doesn’t make any money. This is a problem, because we have hefty expenses like a dedicated server and a best-of-the-best developer 
. On top of that we’re growing quickly, and we want to implement a monetization strategy to start paying all our costs, and to make sure we can continue to develop great features.
So, I have been considering many options for how I am going to monetize Entrecard. My number one goal in successfully monetizing, is doing so in a way that we do not offend all of our members. I’ve tossed a lot of ideas around that I’d like to share with you, and get your feedback.
Option 1: Upgrade to “pro” account
One idea was to develop some features, like multiple blog support, enhanced statistics, alerts, and some other bells and whistles, and charge people to upgrade to a “pro” account. All the features you have now would still be free.
Option 2: Sitewide advertising via “Sponsored Inbox”
This would be implemented in conjunction with the “upgrade to pro account” strategy. The idea here is to clear up the right sidebar throughout the Entrecard site, and offer sitewide paid placement for a members card on a rolling basis. These cards would go into a “Sponsored Inbox” that would appear on the right sidebar, and all members would receive five credits for visiting the sponsor each day.
Option 3: Take a slice of the impressions
Our third idea is to sell a fraction of the impressions on the widgets. If we went this route, we would reserve 5% of the impressions served by our widgets and sell them to 3rd party advertisers. The nice thing about this approach is it could be used singularly, meaning we wouldn’t need to put ads on the rest of the site, and we wouldn’t need to charge people for all the fancy features that are in the works.
My question to you, our loyal Entrecard members, is whether or not you would be upset if we displayed independent advertisements 5% of the time on your widgets. The other 95% of the time, the usual “entrecard” would be displayed. The other option, as I mentioned above, is to have some ads throughout the site itself and having an upgrade necessary for some premium features.
What do you all think? I’d like as many opinions as possible, so chime in!
December 12th, 2007 at 11:46 pm
I think you should iron out all the “kinks” in the system (there some) and then sell credits so people could advertise on certain blogs (the blogger hosting the ads should be able to get paid in real money for these ads)
December 13th, 2007 at 12:10 am
We have thought about selling credits, but the only way that works is to buy them back from bloggers to want to unload them for cash, and take a commission of the sale. Definitely an interesting idea as well.
December 13th, 2007 at 1:01 am
I think the credits should be worth something and have a 5% paid advertising slot wouldn’t be so bad, but I do feel bloggers would be hesitant of this as they wouldn’t know what ads would be played – or would this be on an ‘accepted’ basis?
Couldn’t you do a split where to advertise on certain parts or sites would take some ’star’ or ‘gold’ credits (like vouchers that are bought by cash) and this would act as payment for bloggers and entrecard?
December 13th, 2007 at 6:10 am
I’m happy with option 2, maybe 3.
December 13th, 2007 at 8:52 am
I don’t mind the 3rd option, however I would then get rid of the smallest widget option and use the other two sizes to fill in the gray area for advertisers instead of not having the entrecard users biz cards visible.
If that can’t happen then users should pick a category where there blog falls in and the advertisers should do the same so the ad spots somewhat matches the bloggers content.
December 13th, 2007 at 9:04 am
How about an enhanced account that doesnt limit your daily card drops? That would be worth paying for …
December 13th, 2007 at 9:13 am
[...] it’s self, you can see their Alexa rank rising, and I’m sure they will start to introduce ads somewhere along the way. Since I read their post on how EntreCard credits work I’ve had an [...]
December 13th, 2007 at 10:37 am
If by any chance (or mistake) some of you got the time to go at MyWebsite (it`s not all about Blog) I`m considering making some sort of Network – Free Ads Marketplace – you`ll notice what I call a banner (it`s the first version).
).
It`s an alpha version and It will take about 4-6 months (I have a real job to take care and working on a mobile connection at 2000m altitude is not the best idea) for the Beta Release.
If by any chance you are going to Val di Fiemme (Dolomiti, Cavalese – Italy) please drop by and ask about Cristian (or ask for the Head Waiter – that`s me
The best idea on how to monetize this unfortunaly I`ll keep it for myself as I`ll need it in about 6 months.
Tip: It`s all about the credits (and don`t forget Graham – make your members happy and they will do the same for you).
my2cents
December 13th, 2007 at 10:55 am
Personally, I’d prefer the sponsored inbox, but I’d take the third option if that’s what you decide on. Have to say though, the paid accounts option would send me packing. I’ve been waiting since I started at Entrecard for the option to add another blog to my account, but I can’t afford to pay for it.
What about an option to buy credits? Or maybe even add a small text link to the bottom of each of the widgets? That way you’d still have the blog advertisement, but you could also be pulling in some change from each impression.
December 13th, 2007 at 11:01 am
I would say selling extra credits to bloggers who want more advertising. It could be like $1 for 25 credits or something. Or the pro account sounds good. Also another one would be bloggers paying in cash for advertising on entrecard. Or a combination of these.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:20 pm
Make the points worth something. Make them purchasable. Imagine people wanting to advertise on John Chow’s site, but not having the credits. Well, they can buy them.
With bought credits, you can offer many other things that require credit purchase. Such as the advanced features could require a certain number of credits. So people can pay for them if they want or work for them if they don’t. As an example, check out the features over at writing.com. Their entire income is based off the purchase of “gift points.” Those gift points are even spent on advertising throughout the site.
And as for the widget, I like the idea of using the gray space for advertising. However, don’t get rid of the small one. Instead, make it taller to accommodate the ad. Most people choose widgets based on the width of their side bars.
December 13th, 2007 at 12:27 pm
i’m opting for nr. 3
and perhaps give the 5% that gets an ad shown 1 point for showing it, and 5 points if it were actually clicked, carrots feeds the wabitts
December 13th, 2007 at 2:43 pm
I understand the need to monetize. You gotta pay for this stuff somehow. Entrecard rocks btw.
I would not like ads on my site that I don’t approve of unless I get paid. Adsense puts ads I don’t approve but I get the money for it. So, my preference is that Entecard put the ads ONLY on the Entrecard.com site.
-Caveman
December 13th, 2007 at 2:55 pm
This is all great feedback! I must say, its impossible to predict how people would react to one option over another. But by asking everyone, I can get a much clearer picture of all the angles involved here, which will ultimately lead to us choosing the method of monetizing that is best for our members while still supporting the site.
December 13th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
I’m for option 1 and 2. If you combine this with the possibility to buy credits then I think you are pretty covered. One nice feature for PRO members could be that they can enter the queue for advertisement even when the normal 10 slots are already used. I’m not saying they should be able to skip the queue but just get added at the end. Requirement for this could be PRO membership and 50 credits on top.
Just an idea.
I don’t like option 3 really, as right now we are in control of what is been shown on our sites; with option 3 we would loose that option. But if this is what it takes to make Entrecard run, then so be it.
December 13th, 2007 at 3:35 pm
I like the idea of buying credits. This will allow people who join up later on to still gain credits fast enough to buy advertising on larger blogs. Though, I was thinking you could do something like a “skip the line” payment that would allow you to show an advertisement on a blog sooner. Maybe even split the revenue with the blogger.
For example, if I’d like to get on Caveman’s blog sooner than the first available spot, then I could pay $5 to have my avatar placed on the blog during the next open slot versus the last open slot. Entrecard could keep $3 and give the Caveman $2.
December 13th, 2007 at 4:36 pm
I like #3 with the ability to choose a “niche” – e.g. make the ads that appear in the widget apply to the blog’s chosen niche.
#2 would be a fine chois, too – and could be combined with any of the other options.
#1 would be okay, but I think having multiple blog support should not be a “paid” function… the more blogs running the widget, the better, no matter HOW entrecard monetizes itself.
In fact, All the option could be implemented and combined in some way. Perhaps the “free” blogs have 5% of their time used to advertise for entrecard, but “paid” members do not have that 5% taken away from them. And ads within the entrecard site wouldn’t bother me, as long as they aren’t in the way of working the site and seeing your stats.
My favorite is #3, though, with the above caveats and points given for the time taken (and for clicks brought in!)
Namaste,
A. Caleb
December 13th, 2007 at 5:08 pm
I think anything that equates credits with money should be totally avoided. You’ve got your hands full now, people are going to be coming up with all kinds of creative ways to game the system. In one sense, its good for you, but its bad for newcomers and for some of the less aggressive general membership.
So far so good, though.
Sam
December 13th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
I don`t think I care anymore.. do the worst you can Graham because it was a BIG disapoint to see that my criticism lead you to erase the topic.
Feedback is for BUGs and not for asking people on what`s the best method for you to get theyr ideas (have you ever heard of Intelectual property?)
my2cents
P.S.: You should accept bad or good feedback and not chose what ever You like or not.
December 13th, 2007 at 5:49 pm
I’d be willing to pay for an upgraded membership if the benefits were equal to the cost. But each member would have a differing opinion on just what that ratio should be.
Why not make this site attractive to Yahoo or Google, eat the cost now, and sell to one of them later?
AL
December 13th, 2007 at 7:04 pm
definitely any of these options are worthy of consideration.
I might be interested in having a sponsored thing for my card depending on the price
December 13th, 2007 at 7:44 pm
I think charging for credits is a really bad idea, John Chows blog is currently 250 ish for one day, in 2 months I imagine it would be 1000 credits for 1 day. Even if you charge $1 per 100 that would be $10 for 1 day. Which would work out to $300 for 1 month to advertise below the crease, when he charges $500 for a real one at the top.
It would always be cheaper to go directly to the blog to buy advertising that to buy credits.
I think the site is all fun and games when the credits aren’t worth real money, when you charge for them people will see it’s not worth it :/
I also hate the idea of 5% worth of adverts :/
I love the idea of having sponsored ads where you people earn more for clicking on them though!
Or charging for an “advanced account” … I’d pay to be able to have unlimited card drops … to be able to advertise when the queue is full … to have multiple sites under one account.
Thats just me though …
Toni x
December 13th, 2007 at 8:01 pm
I would go for the paid for premium service with the removal of card drop limits, better navigation/campaigning and customized features, ad rotation on the sidebars etc.. maybe even 3 levels, free, silver and gold memberships.
December 13th, 2007 at 8:47 pm
Options 1 and 2 are OK for me but I cannot let anybody advertise on my site without my authorization. However a possibility would be to give us several alternatives to choose from.
For instance let’s say a big news network bought some ads from you. I would not have a problem only if I authorise it and I choose (let’s say between CNN, BBC, or FOX).
P.
December 13th, 2007 at 9:02 pm
Well, one thing is certain. We are not going to “force” anything upon anyone, and members will always have complete control.
I think we know just how we’re going to do this now. Thanks everyone for your feedback, and I’m very glad you made all your concerns and opinions known. It was a terrific help.
Be on the lookout for us to start rolling out some monetization strategies over the coming month.
December 13th, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Graham, I’m a bit confused as to how Option 3 would work. Could you explain it a bit more, or give an example?
December 13th, 2007 at 10:11 pm
All options are feasible with slight tweaks. Option 1 would be okay if it was reasonable, for example I could see spending up to $20 a year for extra features. Option 2 is okay until it gets cluttered but I am not sure what advertisers would want the traffic that they may get from enticed viewers. I mean they would have to know that those people were there just to check the block. Option 3 is feasible only as long as we can have choices of ads to chose from before they run. Maybe give us 5 options in our genre and we have to chose 1.
December 14th, 2007 at 1:09 am
I feel the 300 drop limit per day is too generous.
Maybe reduce it to 100 per day and then allow users to upgrade so they can drop more. Plus users who do upgrade get a special listing.
Oh and EC, please enable a feature that allows users to change their own email addresses!!
December 14th, 2007 at 5:19 am
Come on, Graham. Abuse everyone or they’ll resent you. You’ll be causing them to go through withdrawal and they’ll have to find their abuse elsewhere.
NOW, DISCHARGE YOUR DUTY!
December 14th, 2007 at 8:25 am
Congrats Graham, you can’t have a real community until you have a flame war which you seem to have started a little one
As far as the monetization options I think you are on the right track, but maybe with some tweaks. I think any options should work not to limit the growth of the community. Even if those options mean you do not earn as much in the short term, choosing the right model will help you a lot mroe in the long term.
Number one is a great option as long as its not too expensive. A lot of the smaller bloggers make little if no revenue from their blogs so if it was too expensive I doubt you would see a critcal mass participating.
Number two is a fine idea as is. I would say you could probably benefit more by utilizing this area for your own advertising revenue. I’m sure there are companies( hosting, blog design, etc..) that would line up to get their adverts infront of this many bloggers.
number 3– This one I’m not sure about. I would not mind giving impressions back to Entrecard because you guys have helped me and I’m sure you will continue to help as I add more of my blogs into this system. But I would want to ensure these where adverts that where of use to my visitors, so there would definitely need to be some sort approval process and choosing the niche allowed to advertise.
I’ll through out a number 4 and maybe even a 5 idea. By the way I give this freely and not with any sort of intellectual property claims. But if you use them then I would appreciate you throwing some traffic or something myway
What is there was another advert option. Say something like Adsense or Bidvertiser. In the adverts there where four or five link adverts shown at any one time. Of couse no page rank or anything should leak from the adverts. Then you could have Bloggers optin to show this second widget. Then to enitce the bloggers to show this second advert, there was an COOP type agreement where the revenue was shared between Entrecard and the Blogger showing the widget.
Second idea, what if you took your Wiki code and modified it so that each blogger on this system had a page which they could write up some unique content promoting their blogs. Then if you took the same concept as above with the COOP and shared revenue with the person, then this could turn into a real money maker. Not only would you have users creating the content, but this content would be crawled by the spiders and should bring more SE traffic.
These are just a couple of ideas off the top of my head and they problably need to be flushed out some, but I believe they would help you solve your problem and at the same time keep the community growing.
Bruce
December 14th, 2007 at 9:30 am
I would be open to option 3 if I could approve/deny the ads. I also wouldn’t have a problem with seeing adds on the Entrecard site.
Charging for credits seems a bit complicated though. Besides what it would to the “economy” of the system, once there is a cash equivalent to credits, I imagine there are tax implications. If i earn 10,000 credit in my first year and you also sell each credit for a quarter, or whatever, I wonder how the IRS would treat that $2,500 cash-equivalent income I just earned.
I’m not an attorney or tax professional — just someone who doesn’t want to deal with more paper work.
December 14th, 2007 at 10:17 am
I haven’t read the other comments (no time – at work) but how about something like this…
Have a class of users who are “sponsored”. I can pick one to display on my widget for a predetermined credit price (determined by the sponsor, not by me) – for a full day just like normal. So I would say “I want this Co.X ad on my widget for one day and I get the Co.X price of 20 credits for it.”
The sponsors pay Entrecard either per sale, per click or per view (or give them the option of one of the three).
Entrecard gets paid by the sponsor, and I get credits (and I choose which sponsors appear and which sponsor pays the most).
Maybe even the choice – Flat rate sponsors (flat fee to Entrecard and flat credits to me) or CPM sponsors (variable fee determined by views to Entrecard and variable credits to me)?
December 14th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
#2 is good, I do not like 1 or 3.
If #2 is the case, I am interested in becoming a sponsor. =)
December 14th, 2007 at 9:40 pm
I wouldn’t mind the 5% ads.
December 14th, 2007 at 11:01 pm
Sponsored ads in main page sounds good, the 5% ads sounds good too.
I wouldn’t like to pay for a better service here, but doesn’t sound so bad.
December 16th, 2007 at 5:04 am
I support the second option. This will give something for the users and advertisers can ensure that they get visited.
I don’t think pro account is a good idea. This can decrease the users’ good impression about Entrecard.
The third idea is also not much good. We have to pay a good amount to advertise in a blog a day. 5% of a day will not be a long time and we don’t want to loss even 5% of credits we are paying for advertising.
December 16th, 2007 at 10:12 pm
I think that having a “pro” status would not be the best idea because it would separate the users and may make some people feel like there are “social classes” on the site. I wouldn’t mind the 3 idea or even the 2nd. Good luck and I am loving the site.
December 17th, 2007 at 1:20 am
Option 2 works best for me. Possibly Option 1, but not Option 3.
December 17th, 2007 at 6:05 am
Options 2 and 3 would be best. Creating “pro” accounts might just frieghten off future members. Most of the members I see on Entrecard are small bloggers with low cash reserves. Giving up a little ad space on the entrecard widget is painless and allows us small guys to continue in the same way as everyone else. I hope that you avoid the pro account and use this much subtler approach.
December 17th, 2007 at 6:34 pm
I wouldn’t want non-approved 5% ads on my blog. Option 2 or 1 is the way to go in my opinion.
December 18th, 2007 at 4:32 am
i think 5% is fine EC needs to pay there bills too
December 19th, 2007 at 2:40 am
I am for selling credits. Entrecard should make money by selling credits, this way nobody’s blog will be intervened by this 5% impression proposal.
December 22nd, 2007 at 4:31 pm
[...] is also in discussion with its members on how to monetize it without annoying them. I think they are taking a very good approach, [...]
December 31st, 2007 at 5:45 pm
The 3rd option _definitely_ has my vote.
January 9th, 2008 at 6:07 am
3 or 1, if 1 doesnt create any huge advantages for users.
January 30th, 2008 at 12:54 am
simple, run ads on everyones dashboard pg/ sell monthly plus put ppc/ 4000 daily visitors as of today
February 1st, 2008 at 3:43 am
Thanks for sharing
February 20th, 2008 at 4:33 am
I was wondering how the developer could possibly make money now. We want you to make money and make it big so EntreCard will prosper and you could have some funds to support other similar concepts.
So here’s my 2 cents…
I would go with 5% of ads displayed in our widgets for EC’s pleasure (maybe make a feature where we can choose what type of ads will be displayed) and displaying sponsored ads in the site itself. You can implement both.
For those who who want 100% of the ads on widgets to be their own choosing and doesn’t want ads displayed on their pages on-site, they can opt to pay a monthly membership fee.
Thanks.
March 26th, 2008 at 9:05 pm
I, for one, am very favourable towards the 5% dealy. It wouldn’t be very bitingly intrusive, and it would keep everything for us users free, including the upcoming features, such as being able to use this with more than one blog on one account…. something I believe is a downright screaming need here. That solution seems to me to be the best overall, and the least negative, ultimately, for us users.
After all, you all need to be making money to fund this wonderful venture, and we need all the wonderful features – those present, and those to come – to be readily available and useful to us, without having to dig into our own pockets.
Seems to me to be the best solution, overall – and perhaps more importantly, the most simple.
I really hope you decide to go for that option.
Keep up the Great Work! ^_~
– Falls-Down-Laughing ^_^
June 8th, 2010 at 12:06 pm
5% ads that’s not so much
June 19th, 2010 at 6:22 am
Sponsored ads in main page sounds good, the 5% ads sounds good too. I wouldn’t like to pay for a better service here, but doesn’t sound so bad.