I posted in late December that “Search Marketing Affiliates and Media Buyers Should Test Adbrite” - I wrote a pretty glowing review of Adbrite since quite honestly up until recently I’ve had positive experiences with using the service in the US and UK markets - in the past I referred to Adbrite’s quality and suggested that it is a top source for buying contextual and display media on a CPC or CPM basis.
This post is not meant to say Adbrite doesn’t have value because it does. However, I strongly encourage you to be careful as it relates to purchasing traffic outside of the US and UK markets. I’ll briefly share with you why I believe Adbrite should be avoided or used with caution as a traffic source in Germany.
Pepperjam was hired by a large international affiliate network to purchase traffic for EBAY Germany. We were chosen because we have a reputation for being able to isolate traffic pockets and send large volume traffic through some geo-targeting tricks regardless of international location. Well, Adbrite has always been one of our secret weapons. Therefore, we came to an agreement with EBAY Germany and guaranteed them that we would only send high-quality German traffic.
On a Thursday in mid-January we purchased a range of ads on Adbrite. We made sure that we notified our agency team at Adbrite (led by Dana) that only quality traffic sources would be acceptable and we outlined some of the other rules associated with the campaign. We were assured that appropriate traffic filters would be put in place to maintain the quality and integrity of the campaign.
By Sunday evening we were receiving e-mails from EBAY and our affiliate network partner that the traffic we were sending them was unacceptable. On Monday we received a notice that our relationship with EBAY Germany was terminated.
Here is an example of the traffic they sent to EBAY (BEWARE - Adult Content) - CLICK HERE FOR EXAMPLE.
I sent an e-mail to Dana at Adbrite and notified her of the situation. Her first response was, “I took an initial look in your account, and was unable to find any sites that would be considered adult content.” Again, I refer you to the link above. Also, I’ll note that there were dozens of other traffic sources with similar adult content.
As you could imagine if you read my previous post on getting a $10K courtesy credit from Yahoo for “click fraud,” I sent a pretty scathing e-mail back to Dana, which included a request for a credit based on the trashy traffic they sent us. In fairness to Dana and Adbrite, here is the response she sent me to the second e-mail:
FROM ADBRITE TO PEPPERJAM: “In regards to this unfortunate situation in general, I would like to again extend my sincerest apologies. Site review is a process we take very seriously, and are continuing to improve our systems by hiring from among the industry’s best to help us grow. Even at Google, site review has a manual element that allows for human error. We know this because many of those on our site review team have come to us from Google. In addition, in the age of user generated content, systems must be built out to consistently review and re-review sites. Of course, as fast as technology moves, things do fall through the cracks, as we experienced in your campaign. For this I can only assure you these instances have been few and far between during my tenure at AdBrite, and that we continue to improve our site review processes to avoid such sporadic issues.”
I was encouraged by the above response. However, at the tail of the e-mail she said:
FROM ADBRITE TO PEPPERJAM: “I have asked my VP of Sales Jim Benton to reach out to you today, in case there is anything else we can do at this time.”
Well, I never heard from Jim.
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As I mentioned at the top of this post Adbrite has been a great source of traffic to Pepperjam on multiple occasions, especially in the US and UK markets. Germany was a failed experiment. We continue to use Adbrite in markets that have worked for us and we continue to be impressed with the volume and quality of that traffic.
In my opinion, Adbrite is one of the most innovative technology platforms in online marketing. It is definitely worth your while to experiement with it. If you’re an affiliate there is money to be made through purchasing traffic on Adbrite. If you’re an online media buyer there is significant value in Adbrite.
However, based on Pepperjam’s experience in the German market please be careful when purchasing traffic with Adbrite.
CLICK HERE to learn more about Adbrite.
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