Did I grab your attention with that heading?
A month ago I signed up with Social Spark as a way to gain an additional source of revenue for this blog. I am going to post my evaluation after spending 30 days with the company. For those of you that are unfamiliar with social spark, they are a website that acts as the “middle man” between advertisers and bloggers. They offer several services, including reviews and pay per click ads. I tried both of those from the blogger/publisher perspective.
I wrote two posts, one was accepted and one was rejected. Here is the link to the rejected post – MavenLink
I have no idea why the post was rejected as it met all the requirements and I think it is a decent write up. My only guess is that they did just not want to pay out. This is the only thing I can think of, I was hoping to get a real answer, but my repeated attempts to reach someone through “customer love” have gone unanswered.
I am obviously a little annoyed about that, but the thing that has me really ticked off is the cpc racket they are running over there. I have been (and still) running a 125×125 ad prominently displayed on the sidebar. First off, I have a hard time believing that this ad has only been clicked 14 times since it has been running. The reason I have a hard time believing this is because I am able to track the other ads, and they have each been clicked over 200 times in the same time period. Ok, so let’s say they have only been clicked 14 times, they go on further to say that 8 of those 14 clicks are invalid. I know I did not click on the ad, so how could they be invalid. I went to the site to see if I could find an explanation. All I found was a bunch of excuses about the program being new and they are working on it. I also found quite a few bloggers that are equally perplexed about the invalid clicks. Take a look at some comments:
“Why can’t we see what is a valid or invalid click. I’m getting really pissed at seeing all invalid clicks where I know that people have made valid ones because they have talked to me about the items they have clicked on. Why aren’t the results of click forensics “transparent” to the blogger. I’m pretty sure I’m getting shafted with the CPC campaigns.”
‘I was going through stats on valid/invalid clicks for a few CPC opportunities that I’ve taken recently. And it appears a majority of the clicks that I’m getting are being rejected by ClickForensics? Why is this so?’
Looks like I am not the only one who feels like they are getting shafted..
So I ask you, do you think Social Spark is ripping of bloggers? I can tell you based on my experience, I feel like I am/was ripped off.
I will update this post, if/when I hear from “customer love.”
****UPDATE*******
I am happy to report that a day after I published this post, I was contacted by the customer love at social spark and their parent company, Izea. My blog post was approved and I received a detailed explanation of the click activity. This was all I ever wanted, so thanks…
I don’t feel like I am being ripped off. I signed up a few days ago. I have been using the CPC opportunities promoting via twitter. I went over 20 or 30 clicks and only 6 was approved. There are many things that make a click invalid. From what I read, a click can be invalid because it was a click from a bot, from a website ip address, or it was a double click. I like social spark, I just wish they had a referral program.
Deneil Merritt´s last blog ..Flashback Monday – 1,000 Comments and Social Media Marketing Challenge
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Hmm, well it seems to me that when you get a middleman involved in anything, you often “pay” for the convenience. It seems that in this case, you may be realizing that you’d just be better off selling the ad space yourself.
However, I am intrigued by Deneil’s response. Maybe their standards on valid clicks are too high? I don’t know. I would like to hear from other people about this, which is why I’m going to retweet this article. Thanks for bringing this up.
Trey – Swollen Thumb Entertainment´s last blog ..Why Money Can’t Buy Happiness
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I have had experience’s like this before, one summer about 10 years ago I had two affiliate based programs screw me.
One screwed me for a little over $10,000, and the other screwed me out of a little over $7,000, both did it the same month.
It prompted me to start my own affiliate programs, being on both sides of the coin it’s much better being the affiliate program than the affiliate.
Extreme John@Extreme John Blogging and Business´s last blog ..Sunday Smash: Twitter, Wordpress, Pictures and Videos
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I agree with Trey about the middleman issue. Nearly everytime I have seen a blog advertising company that tries to be a middleman, they seem to be more hassle than what they are worth. There are many factors for this, but I have found that its best just to go straight to potential advertisers..
Stephen@Inspirational Thoughts´s last blog ..Inspirational Poem About God By Thomas Merton
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We’re very curious about the CPCs and the referral programs. Are they the only opportunities that bring in money? Do they really work?
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Can’t really comment as I’m hearing about these guys for the first time…. may be It’ll be better to look into the terms of what is a valid click and what is not.. but if they are not really getting back to you.. then it’s a real piss off (sorry about the language, but that’s how I would feel)
Cheers
Sandeep
Curious Little Person´s last blog ..Wordpress Blog Installation Experience
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@Sandeep-
That is exactly how I feel right now. I am mostly pissed that they are not getting back to me. I thought that if they got wind of this post they would try to blunt the negative criticism, but I guess they do not care.
Tycoon Blogger@Make Money Blogging´s last blog ..Is Social Spark ripping off bloggers?
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Dan,
I’m sorry you’re having a negative experience with SocialSpark. I looked into your two issues as soon as I saw this post. First of all, for the post of yours that was rejected, it was a simple disclosure badge code issue. It looks like you may have edited your post near the disclosure badge or pasted it in incorrectly. If you look at the post in a web browser you can see a bit of exposed HTML code hanging around near the disclosure badge and you’ll notice that the badge’s image map doesn’t work. Our Customer Love team has had their hands full lately and may not have gotten to your ticket yet, but they will be able to help you with your code issue as soon as they get to your place in the queue.
As for your clicks, I have gone through all 116 click records we have in the database for you and it looks correct. I am seeing four false positives (two of which were on an Opp whose funds had been depleted so you would not have gotten paid for that) and three “unknowns” (possible false negatives — the reason for the low score isn’t clear). You received quite a bit of click activity from http://me.dium.com, Wordpress, Twitturly, Google App Engine, Tweetmemebot and several Python web applications. You also received 27 clicks from web hosts (e.g. Amazon EC2, RackSpace, SliceHost, ASPAdmin.net). While this may seem unusual it really is normal. The high instance of bot and web application activity on Twitter and other social networks is the reason we filter each click through ClickForensics.
I have saved your click report (an Excel document), so if you wish to see it you may email me directly or submit another ticket to Customer Love.
Thank you for your participation in SocialSpark and I hope that I’ve been able to help.
Jamie Kite
Product Owner and Developer
SocialSpark.com
Jamie Kite´s last blog ..Reselling SocialSpark CPC Campaigns
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I’m in the same boat as Sandeep. But a little unlike him I did sign up, was confused and left the website. I thought it was a social network and it turned out to be something else!
Hopefully your experience will get better as time passes!
I don’t think I’ll ever use the service!
perhaps deneil has some good valid points to look into!
bbrian017´s last blog ..Converting New Readers or Taping New Markets
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Hi Dan,
I am sorry to hear about your frustration with the CPC program in SocialSpark. We sure would like to assist you in getting this resolved. Our product manager for CPC has been trying to post a comment to your site all afternoon, but it doesn’t seem to be showing up.
As this system is new to us, we are always open to feedback and happy to discuss any questions you may have or suggestions to make the system better.
All the Best,
Carri Bright
Communications Lead
IZEA
Carri Bright´s last blog ..Reselling SocialSpark CPC Campaigns
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@Jamie and Carie-
Thank you so much for your response and explanation and thanks for approving he post. I certanly understand the growing pains associated with new businesses and new business models. With that said, I will stick with you and make sure I update the above post as well.
Tycoon Blogger @Make Money Blogging´s last blog ..Is Social Spark ripping off bloggers?
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That article looked fine to me, I was shocked that it was not approved. Looks like it was a simple error. I’ve been a member of theirs for awhile now and have often wondered as to how they determined invalid clicks. I though all clicks were valid unless I was the one to click it? At least I now have an understanding of how it works, thanks to this post and the reply from Jamie.
Sire@ WassupBlog´s last blog ..Aussie Powerball Jackpots To $80 Million
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very interesting information. I love how you are blogging about this experience. it’s on all of our minds… continuing to read your other posts.
Brent´s last blog ..Text Message Marketing: Five Tactics to Reach Your Tarket Customer
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I believe you have shown the risk of having writing business. My friend also have the same case. She write for someone. but her client reject with unacceptable reason. This is hard to tell, whether the reason is valid or not.
Ruri@Free article directory´s last blog ..Learn How To Earn Profit From Starting A Home Based Business.
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I am intrigued about the referals and CPC campaign, can these make you a lot of money?
Mark
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I think it is bunk that they just don’t want to pay you, i would trash the system it really seems rigged.
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Jamie Kite (2 comments) Reply:
January 16th, 2010 at 4:15 pm
@Matt@Suit Hangers, Did you read this whole post? His SocialSpark post was promptly paid after the error was corrected and he received a detailed click report explaining the click activity behind the numbers. The system is most definitely not rigged.
Jamie Kite´s last blog ..And Your 2009 BCA Winners Are…
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I am a huge fan and promoter of SocialSpark, though their CPC program is all but dead since SponsoredTweets was released. I did do okay with a few CPC programs last year mostly from twitter clicks not banners or ads on my site.
I really enjoy doing product reviews and even when rejections occur, they are just bugs in the auto validator, always open a ticket and you will always get prompt response. I have never not received a payout or lost payment for any opps I have done and I have done over 50 opportunities from SocialSpark in the last two years.
It is actually my single largest revenue source for blogging month by month.
Dragon Blogger´s last blog ..Finding and Choosing Pay Per Click (PPC) Programs
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