WidgetBucks Pay Per Click Ad Network

There’s been a lot of talk about the WidgetBucks ad network so I thought I would signup and try it out. I believe that every affiliate program or advertising network should be tested to see if it works.

So I signed up with WidgetBucks.com and I have to say the design impressed me. In a Web 2.0 world of soft gradients, rounded corners, pastels and soft deopshadows their website is quite unique and punches your eyes out with hard edges, bold colors and strong type. It could almost be a hunting site, and if you squint your eyes while looking at the Widget homepage you can see camouflage and bullet holes (note I have a very large monitor with a lot of horizontal empty space, if you run your monitor at 1024x768px you likely won’t be able to see the army theme).

I wonder how many webmasters and blog publishers will make a killing from Widget Bucks ad payouts? They claim up to $2 per thousand impressions using pay per click ads from these sources:

* shopping.com
* wal-mart.com
* amazon.com
* target.com
* bestbuy.com
* ebay.com
* circuitcity.com
* and more

Below you can see a WidgetBucks ad unit:

There are Many bloggers are talking about Widget Bucks including an interesting post by Shoemoney who notes the draconian legal statements in the signup page:

[you cannot share] click-through rates or other statistics relating to Site performance in the Program provided to by Mpire;
Client agrees that Mpire may use Client’s name and logo in presentations, marketing materials, press materials, customer lists, financial reports and Web site listings of customers and therefore grants Mpire a limited license to use Client’s logo in accordance with the foregoing.
Back-links placed by Mpire in the HTML code must not be removed.

Here is a plain text version of the HTML code that WidgetBucks autogenerated:
<!– START CUSTOM WIDGETBUCKS CODE –><script src="http://www.widgetbucks.com/script/widgetMagic.js" type="text/javascript"></script><div id="container_3DXrqR0cN8CLCUgg" class="wbtw468x60"><a href="http://www.widgetbucks.com" target="_blank">WidgetBucks – Trend Watch – WidgetBucks.com</a></div><script type="text/javascript">writeWBStyles("www.widgetbucks.com");setTimeout(function(){var day = "" + new Date().getMonth() + new Date().getDate() + new Date().getYear();var widget = new mpireWidget("http://www.widgetbucks.com/widgets/wbtw468x60.swf?uid=3DXrqR0cN8CLCUgg&apiURL=http://www.widgetbucks.com&day="+day,"3DXrqR0cN8CLCUgg");widget.write("container_3DXrqR0cN8CLCUgg");},Math.floor((Math.random() * 150) – (-(Math.random() * 150))) – (-200))</script><!– END CUSTOM WIDGETBUCKS CODE –>

It does not have hidden text links, unlike some other shady ad networks.

Since Widget Bucks is so paranoid about allowing us to post earnings statistics, you will only know if this is a good program if it becomes widely adopted. People have complained of slow loading times. An anchor on my site is completely unacceptable, I would rather have an ad network that paid less but seamlessly integrated into my site.