Entrecard Showdown: The Beginning of the End
When a new fad comes out, it’s a good idea to test the return on your investment of time, energy or money. When the fad gives you a big fat zero gain, even after you’ve given it a good chance, it’s time to cut the experiment loose.
Entrecard is one of the latest fads running around the blogosphere. Some love it, feeling it introduces them to new blogs and new contacts. Some hate it, feeling it’s a cheap cop-out on integrity and quality standards.
We like informed decisions. We don’t like to follow crowds or do what everyone else is doing just because we’re sheep in the herd. We find what works best for us – not for everyone. We try, we test, we figure out the pros and cons before signing up or skipping out.
So we signed up for Entrecard – and now it’s time to say goodbye to it.
Hit-and-Run Games
Entrecard offers the potential for members to advertise on blogs, some of them very high profile. But advertising costs Entrecard credits, often in the hundreds for good placement.
How do you gain credits? You run around the blogosphere dropping your own card on any hapless Entrecard user site. It doesn’t matter who or where or how many times you drop your card, as long as you do it to rack up the credits.
This means we get hit for drops hundreds of times a day. While some think that’s great for readership, because visitors will come over to drop their card and read, the results show much different figures.
The “stickiness” of Entrecard droppers on our blog is terrible. It’s almost zero percent. People hit and run. We’re being used for credit potential. We gain nothing. That leaves me feeling dirty as hell.
Discovering the Disgusting
When you advertise on any website, your banner should be appealing and compelling. People should see your square and want to click through to learn more about your site.
Considering that, I’m rather interested why Entrecard users create the most ugly banners I’ve ever seen in my life. Very few banner ads reflect a professional, well-made design with a few words of compelling text.
Advertising squares range from Asian women with their breasts hanging out to splattered-egg colors to blurry home pictures that are barely recognizable as someone’s dog. Do I want these banner squares on my site, a site that we worked months to build?
Um, no. What are you thinking, people?
I have discovered zero blogs of interest through the banner ads. Very rarely am I compelled to click through to view the blogs of my own accord. Most of the time, I am forced to click through to figure out why I should accept a hopeful advertiser on my blog – I mean, what’s this blurry baby face have to do with Web Business or Freelance Writing?
Jamming My Traffic
Some Entrecard users insist that the fad gains them good traffic to their blog. That may be. It’s certainly not the case for ours.
Looking at the screenshot of our Google Analytics for one month’s recent traffic from Entrecard, I see nothing amazing here.
(click image to enlarge)
We receive more traffic from one month of banner advertising on Put Things Off, a site that sends us a steady average of 15 visitors per day with a bounce rate of 40% and a “visitor time on site” of about 6 to 8 minutes.
Why then, am I sitting here with an ugly Entrecard widget on my blog offering something for nothing? In business, one hand washes the other and most dealings involve a win-win for both parties – not a win-loss.
Where’s the Beef?
Every day, I go visit Entrecard and weed through the hopeful advertisers requesting approval. Every day, I click through these godawful banners to view some truly spectacularly ugly sites with readerships of maybe 10 or sometimes 84.
But everyone starts from zero, and I understand that. So I take the time to read a few blog posts just in case I’ve discovered a true hidden gem.
Nope.
Posts that I’ve read in the past month are pathetically poorly written or completely off topic. These blogs have no relevance to mine, in 90% of cases. Most regurgitate content (and we all know how I feel about that) or offer uniformed advice with no backup. Some seem to be strange, convoluted personal diaries – frightening.
Thoughtful Decisions?
What amazes me is the number of blogs that apply for advertising space that are completely irrelevant to my readers.Why should I accept to advertise blogs about a Singapore housewife’s love-stricken sighs or a man’s exposés about his coping techniques for bipolar disorders?
Did these droppers even bother to see what kind of blog I had? Did they select their blogs carefully, choosing relevant placements that would help them increase their blog popularity? Did they come to visit and read, deciding that yes, posts about political philosophy in Kandar really were something my readers would enjoy?
No.
The Sands of Time
So far, we have low-quality traffic with a high bounce rate, we have substandard advertising and poorly written content, we have ugly blogs and unprofessional attitudes, we have use-’em-and-lose-’em…
I have to have my day interrupted by email alerts of new advertising requests. I have to schedule time in my routine to go clean up my Entrecard dashboard. I have to invest time looking at cheap sites with no value for readers. I have to waste my energy for a fad that costs me time.
My time is precious (and usually billable). I’m seeing no return on this whole gadget. I’d like to be a cool guy and offer smaller blogs opportunities to gain traffic, but I feel that Entrecard takes too much away from me.
I know there are some good bloggers out there who truly use Entrecard as it was designed to be used. I know there are some good blogs doing the same as we did, trying and testing or offering a service.
But Entrecard just costs us too much. It takes away from our professional appeal, it reduces the amount of free time I have in a day, and it’s a painful chore I don’t enjoy. I also hate the dirty feeling of being used. I also think that Entrecard has a low-class, negative association, and that’s just not the kind of image I want to convey.
So goodbye, Entrecard. I can’t say it’s been fun, but it sure has been a lesson learned.
41 Responses to “Entrecard Showdown: The Beginning of the End”
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Well, you certainly know I’m not surprised.
I think you just need to trust your instincts more. You knew what this was way back in February..
@ Tony – True, true. I’m not sorry to see it gone.
I hear you James, but my experience with Entrecard has been a little different. I scored ad placement on a couple A list sites about a month ago, and overall I’ve seen considerable traffic from Entrecard. I’ve also picked up subscribers and commentators through the network. I use it pretty sparingly though. I check in about once a week, sometimes less. I don’t go on click frenzies, dropping my card like a madwoman (though I admit I did that early on). Like you, I’m very choosy about the quality of ads that I approve.
To me, it’s a digital business card and that’s how I use it. Unfortunately, there are a lot of newbie bloggers out there who abuse the Entrecard system and that does affect its ability to function as a classy advertising and networking tool. I agree these fads are annoying, but I usually give them a chance for a few months, and they have benefits for newer blogs. For example, I removed it from Writing Forward but I still have it at my newer melissadonovan.com site.
What I would add here is that I think bloggers would be wise to keep these kinds of widgets to a minimum. Keep it to one at a time and once your blog is fairly established, remove the entirely.
Melissa Donovan’s last blog post..Poetry and Grammar
@ Melissa – I completely agree that established blogs don’t need and shouldn’t use fads like these. They just have no place and bring down the quality. I do see the use for new or small blogs to get noticed, but at some point, when a blog crosses the line, it’s time to shed what holds back a site.
I do think the concept and principle had merit. Many ideas do, but abusers (and lord knows, there are a ton of them out there) wreck it for everyone else. Hate that.
Uh, those last few words should be “remove it entirely.” Huh, this girl needs some sleep.
Melissa Donovan’s last blog post..Poetry and Grammar
James: thanks for a thorough review of Entrecard. I’ve not used it (my blog is too “young” and I’m still doing a bit of cleanup) but it was nice to read an honest opinion of this service.
Brett Legree’s last blog post..the view from the other side.
@Melissa –
I actually saw your Entrecard on this site once and said to myself “Hey, there’s an actual picture there from a real blog!”
I have to say that except for that one, I’ve never seen an Entrecard that compelled me to click through. I’m glad to see them gone as they looked pretty shabby.
(‘cept yours, Melissa!)
Dave Navarro’s last blog post..Start Monday Right: Decide To Front Load Your Day
Entrecard was an interesting idea, but the quality:crap ratio just isn’t there, and don’t think it ever will be. I did find a few quality ones, but they were needles in a big smelly haystack.
Like you, I’m about to say sayonara. I hold out because I have a pitiful hope that I can score a spot on Problogger before I give up.
Sonia Simone’s last blog post..Five Good Eggs
I like Sonia’s “needles in a smelly haystack” – that about sums it up. When something gets as much hype as Entrecard, and seems to work so well for some, one feels compelled to try it — at least on one blog. Yes, I have found a handful of interesting blogs in one of my subjects of interest, but it took a good deal of rooting through musty unsavoury (and occasionally downright disturbing) sites to find those few, very few, gems. And, as you say, James, the time investment is not incnsiderable. Is Entrecard worth the effort and the blog real estate space, not to mention that creeping sense of, well, wallowing in something vaguely unclean? I’ve come to the same conclusion: this is not for me. And when the current queue of adverts has run its course, that ugly widget will be promptly deleted.
James,
thanks for the heads up. I didn’t even really have a good idea of what it was and your in-depth review saved me a lot of time that I would have spent investigating it when I have so many other things to be reading about and learning. Now I can cross that one off the list.
thanks,
Wendi
Wendi Kelly’s last blog post..The Courage to Start
It has been an interesting experience for me as well and I am drawing the same conclusions as you are. Dropping cards are a waste of time, but if you don’t drop, people won’t drop on yours. Then you don’t get credit and then you can’t get ad spots on bigger blogs.
I circumvented all that by purchasing 10,000 credits for 40 bucks. 10,000 credits got me about 1,400 visits. Most of the ads I placed were a total waste and didn’t get me that many hits. Only a handful sent me a decent amount of visits. I managed to get on problogger and only got about 61 visits from them, which was a lot more than any other ad gave me. I would be able to do better research if the referral link actually connected to the site that I purchased an ad on. Instead it does not, so unless I run an ad one at a time, I can’t really tell what the visitors are doing by looking at my google analytics.
Some ads seem to send traffic with a 40% bounce rate, but most of them tend to be 80% or so. Too bad I can’t tell, I still got a 2,000 credits left so I might try to do some more research. I did get a few people who found my blog through entrecard comment or e-mail me. I only know this, because they told me.
Vinh Le’s last blog post..30 Must See Comment Designs for Web Designers
I tried Entrecard for about a month. I think I might have caught the attention of a handful of interesting bloggers, but I don’t think I got any lasting traffic from it. When I changed my blog template a couple of months ago, I chucked Entrecard. It felt like a rat race and I do not miss it. Especially the obligating compulsion to “drop” cards.
Mark Dykeman’s last blog post..1-800-SOCIAL-MEDIA-HELPLINE
James,
I’m with you. I removed the Entrecard widget about a week ago and haven’t really missed it.
First, I will say that it can be a good thing for smaller blogs to get recognition by advertising on more established sites in their genre and also this can be a good networking tool–I actually found someone who wrote a guest post for me.
If you stick to your genre–I think mine was Writing and Literature–then you can find some quality networking opportunities, either through advertising or communicating with similar-focused bloggers.
But…the ROI is terrible. I think I found less than five blogs through Entrecard that I still have any esteem for in my several months using the service.
Here’s the big problem with Entrecard, though. Look at the ad credit rankings in today’s Writing and Literature category.
The most expensive writing blog to advertise on costs 505 credits and the blog has how many RSS readers? 26
Second most expensive writing blog to advertise on costs 470 credits so you can be seen by 47 RSS readers.
Meanwhile, much more trafficked blogs in this category have very low ad credit requirements, which tells me you don’t generate subscribers or meaningful traffic through dropping cards all day.
Most of the Entrecard traffic I had was “drop and run.” I’ve found much better (meaning people stayed on the site and my subscriber count actually went up) by commenting on similar blogs and especially, by guest posting on much larger blogs similar to mine.
That’s the key here. Many of these Entrecard fanatics are wasting so much time for nothing…if they truly want to be seen and to gain subscribers, here’s what they should do:
1. Quit Entrecard.
2. Write a quality guest post for a much larger blog than theirs in their genre.
Now, that actually takes work and committment; dropping hundreds of Entrecards a day doesn’t.
So, Entrecard can be a good thing (and I applaud its stated goals and even their approach–it is kind of cool), but it really turned out to be a major waste of time for me.
Bloggers should focus on real content and real marketing efforts.
Jesse Hines’s last blog post..The New Writing Economy: Typos Are Okay?
I haven’t heard of Entrecard before this post – now, I know I wouldn’t be interested in something like that. I think that networking should be more personal, anyway.
RLD: Taekwondo Happiness’s last blog post..Whoops!
Wow. There must be tons of these little widgets out there that I am unaware of, being an utter newbie. I feel almost as though I just came to a brand new city, all full of lights and music and beautiful people in impossible clothes, and was suddenly made to look in the back room, where all the drugs and prostitution are.
Well, not all. But you know what I mean.
I’ll stick around in my shiny city. Playing with fire is for the Trix rabbit.
Have you noticed that when things like Entrecard utterly fail, someone develops an application that actually works, on the same concept? Hint to anyone wanting to start an entrepreneurial business out there . . . from everyone on this board, sounds like if Entrecard actually had some sort of controls against hit-and-runs and the sites were better matched by genre, it could work.
Tei’s last blog post..Out of Context: The Lumberjack
This is great James! I briefly checked out EntreCards and had it on my list as something to consider trying. My first thought was very similar to yours – that the quality of the graphics was so professional. I think it’s a great concept and might be valuable with a few improvements to the system. Thanks for taking the time to dig into how the whole thing works and reporting on your experience – you saved me a lot of time!!
James, thanks for testing and sharing the results with us. You have spared me from what would have been a mistake. As for discovering new blogs, you have made that easy for your readers with CommentLuv. I really appreciate the value you bring!
Karen Swim’s last blog post..5 Tips to Manage Your Business When Life Happens
I’m thrilled to see such thoughtful comments and that many readers have shared their experiences.
Special thanks goes to Jesse, for stating what I forgot to mention (there were so many things wrong about Entrecard that I kept leaving some out!).
The credit value system of Entrecard is in no way any reflection of the quality of the blog for advertising. Problogger currently costs far less than many other blogs (but is always full – I could never get on, dammit.)
@ Christine – No problem and glad to share my rants. It’s hard to know what works when we see people like Darren supporting it considering its drawbacks, though he must have his reasons.
@ Tei – I apologize for dragging you down the alleys behind the classy jazz bars, but I’m also glad that I opened your eyes to what goes on behind the scenes of the bling. By the way, don’t play with fire; that’s my job
@ RLD – Yes. Why aren’t you on Twitter?
@ Jesse – Again, major thanks to you for that insightful comment and saying what I should’ve.
@ Mark – Agreed. When we redesigned our blog for this slick fit, somehow the widget felt like a mud smear on the quality leather jacket. Ahhh, all clean now.
@ Vinh – Hey, thanks for sharing your experience as well (damn, I should’ve bought my credits; why didn’t I think of that?). It’s interesting to know how little traffic actually panned through from the experiment, though I do hope some of the traffic stuck for a while.
@ Wendi – I saved you time so I could have you spending it reading all about me. And Harry. And how great we are
KIDDING!
@ RJ – There’s a function to cancel pending advertisers. Go for it. Have a shower, and feel shiny new again.
@ Sonia – If you do get on Problogger, let me know how the traffic goes. I was holding out for that one too, but the ad requests just got to me.
@ Dave – Ha, that’s true – I’ve never clicked through on an ad myself. And there’s nothing like a bright shiny to get me! (Mel’s ad is cool.)
@ Brett – If you put Entrecard on your blog, that fire hole will be a real one when I come burn your ass for being stupid
@ Karen – Why, WHY do you post when I’m posting? Now I have to write a special message just for you…
Yes. Comment Luv has been extremely effective and DOES get results. We’ve had people write in to tell us about the blogs they’ve found through it.
Hey, amen, sister, I want CommentLuv. It’s the most addictive thing ever. New comments popping up in my email, new blogs to check out, new ways to never do a day’s work ever again . . . no, wait. That’s bad.
James – but I want to play with fire! I’m a Sagittarius!
Tei’s last blog post..Rebuttal: Writing Without Typos is Totally Outdated
@Tei: I’m a Sagittarius too, and I spend all my time putting out fires! Don’t you start too, I have enough on my hands keeping up with James – and he’s a freakin’ water sign!
Excellent comments here, I’m enjoying them very much today.
@James – I’ll probably start back up with Twitter later tonight. I took a break for a week or so, b/c my mountain of school work is starting to topple over >.<
RLD: Taekwondo Happiness’s last blog post..Whoops!
James, I actually did get on PB once, and got a whopping 30 clicks out of it. But my ad wasn’t very good–too opaque and not benefits oriented. Rookie error–I’d never got around to creating a decent one, and then I got the PB opening and just jumped on it.
Still, so let’s say I get 10x more clicks with a better ad. (Not too likely, but just for the sake of argument.) There are a lot of ways I can create 300 clicks that are less annoying and build more value than hovering on the Entrecard Campaign page waiting to get lucky and get a spot on PB. Writing another post for Brian, for example.
So I gave it a shot, and as far as I can see, it turned out not to be worth it. Not a tragedy.
Sonia Simone’s last blog post..Five Good Eggs
Haven’t tried EntreCards, thanks for the review and head’s up. From the way you described it, sounds like if an intelligent person took this service seriously and thought about actual target niches & marketing it could be a good product.
@Harry – I’m an Aries. Should I be afraid to know what Aries people do to blogs, or is it good? Any forecast would be much accepted!
John Hoff’s last blog post..The Best Rule To Follow: Keep It Simple
@Sonia – speaking of CommentLuv, I love the title of your latest post. It’s interesting without being interesting. Not sure what that means other than I’m clicking over. . .
John Hoff’s last blog post..The Best Rule To Follow: Keep It Simple
Oooh, fire v. water sign, tense moments in the workplace.
Who spent too much time with her horoscope? That would be me.
Tei’s last blog post..Client seeking for the rest of us.
@James, totally agree!
@Dave, Thanks. I had fun creating my Entrecard ads and your compliment made my day!
@Harry, I thought you were a Virgo. I’m good at remembering people’s signs. Am I losing my touch?
I got on Problogger once through Entrecard and I received over 100 visitors from them that day. It was good and it’s one of the reasons I haven’t canceled my account yet. For social networking sites, I find that Stumble and Entrecard are my biggest traffic generators. None of the others perform very well, but what I have found is that if you use one for a little while, you will pick up some readers and opportunities. I need to think more on this. And I need to get CommentLuv.
Melissa Donovan’s last blog post..Jeff Buckley: Grace (Album)
@Melissa: Virgo?? Dear woman, bite your tongue! Virgo is nowhere to be seen in my chart.
@ Harry – Is pain in the ass?
James,
You’re welcome. As soon as I saw the title of today’s post, I knew I would like it and probably wholeheartedly agree with it.
And I did.
Entrecard can be a moderately valuable resource, but it’s just not worth the time involved. Much better ROI things out there, like guest posting.
Jesse Hines’s last blog post..The New Writing Economy: Typos Are Okay?
Wow!
I’m kind of glad that I didn’t jump on this bandwagon. Thanks for this review!
Laura Spencer’s last blog post..Of Note: JenWriter
@Harry, Well that changes everything.
Melissa Donovan’s last blog post..Jeff Buckley: Grace (Album)
@ James: I wouldn’t do that, it would ruin the look!
No, right now I have more important things to do, like write good blog posts, clean up my old links etc.
Brett Legree’s last blog post..the view from the other side.
In the three years I’ve been blogging I’ve seen programs and traffic driving widgets come and go. Very rarely do any of them bring real,”sticky” traffic to your blog. The only way to bring in the people who will keep coming back is to write good content – and you already do that.
Deb Ng’s last blog post..An Interview with b5Media’s Jeremy Wright
After a similar experience with BlogRush, I only took a glance at EntreCard. Nice idea, but probably not worth the effort. After reading this, I’m glad I saved myself the time to really dive into it.
Lodewijk van den Broek’s last blog post..7 Little Timesaving Tips for the Workplace
Strangely enough, just discovered Entrecard today, via bizarro, random coincidence: the creator had posted an item about Twitter someone else I read linked to. In other words, an organic find. I liked what the post had to say, thought I’d give it a Stumble thumbs-up and…denied! Either SU blocked them or they opted out of SU stumble-ability—guess which scenario I think is the case.
To be as fair as possible, I then did some quick searching, and did not like what I saw. Random foreign boobage and corporate tools on my pristine blog? Uh, no. No.
I found you, organically, as well: via Google Reader’s suggested blogs feature. (Would love to check out Toluu, if someone wants to throw me an invite.) Good writing, interesting topic. Imagine: friend referral and organic search actually work.
Thanks for a well-thought out and executed post. More of that, please.
@communicatrix, adding “Random Foreign Boobage” to my list of potential band names if I ever spontaneously develop musical talent.
@John Hoff, hey, cool, I hope you liked the post. I usually avoid “curiosity” titles like that one, but between the subject matter and the photo I found I just had to go with it.
Sonia Simone’s last blog post..Relationship Marketing or Social Media?
My experience with Entrecard has been a bit different from everyone’s, it sounds like. For me, I made some friends that I really like a lot, most of them in my niche of cinema and a few who just have really cool sites (health, photography, oddities). I would not have found these people otherwise, so I am thankful. Though I agree, the majority of sites on Entrecard are crap, there are a few gems and good people. Being new myself, the traffic, as little as it is, is still useful to me.
Like a diaper, Entrecard is not a bad thing, it serves an important helpful purpose, but one day, you don’t need it anymore and it becomes an unnecessary discomfort.
Jaden @ Screenwriting for Hollywood’s last blog post..Sunday Picture Post 6 / Read Out Loud
Hi James, I’ve been subscribed to your blog for a couple of weeks now but haven’t commented until now. I fell for Entrecard pretty early on, and have been carefully evaluating and testing it’s value (or not) since putting the dang widget on my site.
I must admit that I have found numerous quality blogs using Entrecard, but lately I’ve become very disillusioned with it. I haven’t had any difficulty getting my adverts approved, since my family/relationships/parenting etc topics seem to be enjoyed by blogs completely out of my niche.
You’re absolutely right about the high bounce rate, although I have had many people say they discovered and subscribed to my blog because of Entrecard. What really disturbs me personally about using Entrecard is the amount of time necessary (usually wasted) to gain credit points from chain dropping. I simply do not have time, or the desire, to spend my time chain-dropping to rack up credits.
The other day I posted about discovering that a family/relationships Entrecard user is actually a convicted sex offender masquerading as a parent blogger, who is very active on Entrecard. I am disgusted, and the internet police and other authorities have been notified of his shenanigans.
I am seriously considering removing the widget altogether and flushing it down the proverbial toilet once and for all.
Lin Burress’s last blog post..How to Spice Up Your Marriage: Fun and Easy Ways to Add Romance to Your Relationship