I started blogging back in April of 2006. The first blog advertising network I came across was through visiting other blogs. It was the now defunct BlogExplosion. I knew little of how blog advertising worked but I reasoned getting more traffic to my blogs couldn't be a bad thing. Later I found out it could depending where the traffic was coming from. You see BlogExplosion was considered a traffic exchange, something not allowed if using Google Adsense. I've seen a lot of blog advertising networks come and go over the years. Then a new class of blog advertising networks appeared. Essentially you uploaded your 125 x 125 ad that would appear on their widget being displayed across their members blogs. It was bloggers helping bloggers, sort of.
A couple of years ago there were several of these types of networks. There was the beer widget, Entrecard, and a couple of others (eg. Spottt, 125Exchange) based on a 2:1 ratio so very close to a traffic exchange. Then CMF Ads and Adgitize popped up as off shoots of a major disruption at Entrecard. I knew both
Ben Barden (CMF Ads) and Ken Brown (Adgitize) from Entrecard who went off to create their own blog successful advertizing networks during the huge blow out. I left Entrecard during that time, never to return as publisher and ran one ad spot for less than a month but won't go back. Mars Mattius Darian created a bit different blog advertising network call Along for the Ride. It's a widget that displays a generic ad for AFTR with a pop-up rather than displaying actual ads. A couple others from that time period, broke away from Entrecard to start their own blog advertising networks (eg. Tribal Blogs). The new blog advertising networks all have one thing in common and that was to not be deemed as being a traffic exchange. CMF Ads recently removed the bar at the bottom of the ads to make them stand out from Adgitize and Entrecard. Ads displayed through CMF Ads are on a widget that doesn't look like a widget, something I thing Ben Barden was wise to do. And Ben has remained a very active blogger so he not only is working for bloggers he is a blogger himself so understands what bloggers need. Adgitize recently added a 4 pixel bar at the top of their widget to distinguish them from other ads.
Blog advertising networks are hurting by a recession brought about folks not having time to or losing interest in blogging. The recent trend of a certain subset of bloggers, blogging merely as a way to make money in particular is hurting the blog advertising networks. We are seeing that with Adgitize. We just saw BlogExplosion close up shop even though there was not earning potential. Both Spottt and 125Exchange are gone as is the beer widget. These businesses cost money to run so they can't just keep giving out the money to those who don't want to pay back into the system.
The biggest problem facing blog advertising networks is attracting advertisers. Advertisers are needed to pay the bills. Despite the large number of bloggers in the blogosphere with that number growing daily, only a small number of those bloggers will pay for advertising. The reality is unless a blog is earning enough money to support itself, many bloggers simply don't want to put money into advertising their blog. Many bloggers pay for design templates, their own domains as well as blog hosting. All of that ads up meaning unless a blog is established and making enough money to cover these expenses, the money comes out of their pocket making paying for advertising less attractive. This explains why the free blog advertising networks (eg. Entrecard, Exposure Your Blog) are more popular than paid blog advertising networks (eg. CMF Ads, Adgitize, Project Wonderful). As a result the paid blog advertising networks are smaller and while they are effective in gaining traffic, the traffic is lower than the free blog advertising but it is a higher quality traffic.
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