Already did it...I am looking forward to the results!!

I hope it helps with your server costs guys....

=-)

Interesting opportunity.  Is there a way to figure out how much it's going to cose without designing an ad?

I signed up this morning, and was there when I logged back in, but now I am not. I have money in the campaign.

Can you do a tutorial on it ?

Matt and Ben, I will be spreading the word.  You deserve every bit of success you get and I know that the big guys are watching you.  You make us proud.  Now that I know you might be reading this, I want to take the time to tell you how much your hard work and brilliance is appreciated by all of us.  I have met some wonderful, professionals here, learned alot and been inspired and it would not have been possible without you guys.  I'll be doing my part to help in your continued successs.

What is a CPM?  I don't get all the details to this feature...

I love the thought of advertising my appraisal company this way and in fact have created a quick ad already....but not a single line has enough spaces for my entire company name!  Please consider adding a few more spaces to the lines.

Already 'Been There' and 'Done That!'...thanks for giving us greater ways to make positive exposure!~

I just signed up  too but I don't see me...am I being too impatient huh huh can ya tell me??? Just teasin. I"ll give it a few minutes.

I looked and did not understand the whole scope of the outline...

How long is the ad good for? Is it like a pay per click thing?  I'm lost!  Can you guys do something like Missy suggested? 

Where do I go to sign up?

I am not sure I get it yet, but have gone out on a limb and spent $10.  I learn a lot by just doing. Let's see what happens.

CPM stands for cost per mile or "thousand" so every 1000 impressions not clicks are charged. 

Thanks guys, 

Bruno

With all (enormous) due respect, the above comments indicate a bit of confusion over the funded ads.  Frankly and ignorantly because I have no clue how much costs for you are, I'd rather pay an annual fee to participate in AR than have it turn into an ad intrusion.  Both as a member, and as a consumer.

Thanks for the updates. Looks like more information is needed to clarify how this works and so on.

Jeff

I am a clueless about funded ads so I will have to stay posted here to see what I can learn about how this works.

The information is seen here: http://activerain.com/ads

And for Laurie's comment above, there is no such thing as an annual fee for a CPM or CPC ad-types.

Thanks Alex.

Chris, Predicting costs is something we have considered and are looking to do more work with.

Missy,  thank you, I'm not sure, but I believe there is a minimum of $1 per thousand impressions (CPM) at this time.

Sharon, Thank you for our generous comment and support.

Evan CPM= Cost per 1,000 impressions

Michelle note taken

Thanks Rich J

Shannon, I'm not sure but if you are under $1 per CPM then that may be why.

Sally it lasts as long as you want it to, per thousand impressions.  Ben does have some tips right now if you click on his name in this post you will find the first tip.

Heather it's linked from your home page when you are logged in.

Thanks Rich K.

Laurie, thank you for the suggestion, this one way to be seen more throughout AR.  Higher point earners have been displayed prominently throughout The Network from day one, this is just another way.

Ava and everyone, We'll be having more tips and tutorials as we go forward.

Marc, you're above my head- as a member, I'd rather pay a fee to participate, than see the venue be a self promotional (with bucks, not brains) venue. I'm suggesting a participatory MEMBERSHIP FEE for AR.  What happens if a vocal idiot on the Q&A segment pays to introduce themselves to the detriment of ALL OF US?

What does 1000 impressions mean? I'm lost.

Noticed the ads when I logged in tonight. 

I tried signing up via iMac and couldn't get in this morning;-(

Will try again! 

Malika an impression is a display of your ad.

Roberta, I'm on a Mac, so I'm not clear on what issue you're having.

This will probably create more questions than answers but here's a quick screencast on the subject.

thanks for providing that screen cast.  I found it very helpful and look forward to using this feature.

Wow - I need to go figure this out - interesting...

Localism, too? 

This sounds good - you guys have done an incredible job with ActiveRain in the past 14 months - I know I owe much of this years business directly to AR - including a buyer of 2 homes this weekend...so mo matter what happens, I am pleased.

I have not looked at the links yet, but from reading this post I am a bit confused - as a REALTOR who is #1 in my County, if I took out an ad, where would I be? I can understand why the vendors would want to put themselves in front of the REALTORS - but not yet convinced it is for me and other REALTORS - but I am excited to take a look and figure it out...I'll ask my wife for the $10

Now Have a Blessed Day,

John Occhi, Hemet CA REALTOR®
Mission Grove Realty

Caleb,

I just checked out your screencast.  My question is how much do bids go up by.  If there is a $2.00 bid, will your bid be $2.01, $2.25 or what - is it just a penny increment?

Also, can we bid on pages with key words?  Not yet, I know, but are you working on that?

Looks Great, Thanks again.

Now Have a Blessed Day,

John Occhi, Hemet CA REALTOR®
Mission Grove Realty

New ideas always incur a learning curve. I think the tutorial idea was a good one.

John,

I would guess that right now it might not be for many agents. The service providers can certainly take advantage of it. No question about that. Loan officers could really use it to target agents in their area.

Brokerages could certainly use it for recruiting to target agents in their area. From the agent perspective, right now it takes a little digging to get to how you can use it. (although once they spread it to localism, it would certainly be worth while).

After talking with Jonathan, the one thing they surely do not want to do is have any ads along side individual posts. Anywhere that there is a collaboration of posts (or a collaboration of profiles) will eventually be looked at for opening up to ads.

There is a time coming soon, when people will be able to get RSS feeds (or maybe email based subscriptions) for cities and communities from localism (and therefor from your posts on ActiveRain). That would be a place where the posts are collaborative and therefor may be looked at for advertising. It's kind of like google, you write something good and the client gets your good content...........don't feel like writing and would rather pay, well then they can see your ad as well.

Right now, as I think through it, I could see maybe an agent from Arizona advertising to agents in Washington who might have clients that are getting to that age where they are sick of the rain here in the winter. There are certainly situations like that in many markets. Tahoe to San Fran, Florida to New York, You probably have a market that you might like to target for relocation buyers. Linking that ad to a post about what you do with relocation buyers, how you treat them, what you are willing to pay for referrals........that sort of thing.

Or maybe agents targeting anyone from a given state or county (although Ben says the county targeting is hard for non logged in members) to push more traffic to their personal blog. I think I have seen an ad trying that. (for those that blog outside ActiveRain.)

I don't know.........just trying to get my head around it. 

Okay,....I watched the thing you did....again, what is an impression and how does this work? Do I see if pop up every once in awhile...the public will/won't see it? What does bidding do? Why bid? Are we bidding against others for placement or how many times it pops up? If we bid less than what's up there does that place me in the "maybe you'll be your ad seen/maybe won't". 

Sorry, I don't understand.  Should I just buy it because I want to support his network anyway...even though I have no clue?

Okay...I'll help out.

Bob and Caleb,

I too am trying to get my head around this and see how it might work and how I might be able to make it work...

Here is a scenario...why not ALLOW individual blogs to include the ads on their own blog and share in the revenue it creates.  I would not mind allowing lenders or home stagers advertising on my blog - after all I drive a lot of traffic, so why not LET ME AT MY CHOICE decide to allow paid advertising on my blog? Of course, I would want to restrict other REALTORS from my County - perhaps all other REALTORS.  I also wouldn't mind advertising on lenders blogs or home stagers, etc.

Something for you to try and put your head around as well.

Now Have a Blessed Day,

John Occhi, Hemet CA REALTOR®
Mission Grove Realty

I understand your thinking here.  But I was hoping for a simple user fee.  Sigh.

Sally,

Everytime you are searching around the site and you are seeing

that is an impression of that ad. If a member had bid for that space, you would see their ad there. You seeing it on your screen is an impression. if you go to a different portion of the site and see it again, that is another impression. You can target it to only members, anyone on the site, just agents, just loan officers, etc.  If you target it to everyone, the public will see it. But, you can target it to just the public from a certain area, so only people that are looking on the site with an IP address from Florida for instance.

Yes, you are bidding against others for placement. a bid of $3.00 is for 1000 impressions (or 3/10 of a cent per impression). You will notice that most places you see the sponsor the community picture I put in earlier, you see it more than once. So if you are bidding $3.00 and someone else is bidding $4.00, both of you may appear. But, if you are only targeting agents that are logged in, your ad may not appear to everyone.

You will always have a credit in your account until your $$$ is used up. So even though your ad may not appear now at a bid of $1.35 per 1000 impressions because someone else is outbidding you, once there $$$ dries up, your ad would kick in.

You can call me if you want me to try to explain it over the phone.  

I'm trying to get my head around this: 

Joe bids $2.00 CPM

Anne bids $3.00 CPM

Tom bids $4.00 CPM

Sally bids $5.00 CPM

Tom and Sally's ads will be displayed.  And they'll be charged out at the lower figure (Tom's bid of $4.00).  Joe and Anne are SOL.  :-)   Tom's and Sally's ads will continue running until their "budget" is used up.

Yikes, guys, why couldn't you just make it easy like Zillow .... you buy xxx impressions for $xxx and that's that.  <s>

I'm taking a 'wait and see' approach on the initial launch until there's a little bit of a track record and a few kinks are worked out. The concept is intriguing, but being the analytical person I am, I'll need to compare this against AdWords and other online marketing vehicles.

OK, my 2 cents....I don't want any advertising on my blog......I want to continue being a part of a community that shares with each other, doesn't compete, and possibly start changing the way they help others as now they "really" have a  financial benefit to watch out for.

 My 2 cents is way under the $10 limit, so as Cheryl says above, I guess my view is SOL :)

Kathy,

I've talked to Jonathan about this and he is very opposed to having advertising on your blog. There will not be advertising on anyone's blog. Only the areas of the site where there is compiled content. So whether that be compiled profiles (the state, county, or city pages for example) or compiled blogs (like the blog dashboard area).  

No one reading on your blog as a whole, or on a particular post of yours would see advertising.

You might have to put up with looking at someone else's ad though when you write your post..........but hey, someone has to pay the server bill!!! :)  

Bob:  So I have to kind of do a little research to see where I want to place my ad. Why would I want to target other agents, or loan officers?  Wouldn't I want to go into the referral one if I am referring a client? 

Can't we just pay a monthly fee and NO advertising? I would definitely pay a monthly fee to help with the server bill...... instead of looking at ads and competing for "ad space"? 

Isn't that what this is doing?

I'm on the phone.

I'm sorry everyone this has gotten a bit off track.  Please remember that members and their contributions are already featured.  There is nothing new about that.  Top point earners, and top posts are featured all over ActiveRain and Localism.   The ad Network is not that different from what we already do in that respect.  It's simply a way to pay for that placement along side the other posts.

Right now the ad network is not included on Localism, Localism also has a long way to go.  The main focus has been on the community here for a while but Localism will have it's time.

And regarding the bidding, the lowest bidder to make it in the top slots gets in.  However no-one is SOL because the campaigns have things like limits and wont take all of the page views unless someone decides to bid the top spot for all over.

Impressions are when an ad is seen.  We also limit the number of times one person can see the same ad during a visit.

More later... Thanks.

Is the only advantage to pay is to get an ad. What if you do not want to pay? If you do not pay, is AR the same as usual?

yep........same as usual. Except that you may see an ad here and there. And who knows, you may even need what they are advertising :)

Great integration into the site. THIS is the way advertising should be done!

guys and gals,

No offense, the idea is good, but it is very complicated too,  please if you can change the complicated way, caleb I saw your video, but still it is confusing to me, I am interested on that, but like many others fellows, I have doubts/questions.  Hope that later one you can make it easier for many of us.

keep the good blog/work ! :)

Ray Saenz

Bob:  Thank you, thank you, thank you for talking to me. (hey, and I didn't feel dumb asking the questions....lol) I understand, you were very straightforward and very pleasant to talk to. I really appreciate it and have a great night! 

P.S. Forgot, thanks for explaining. I get all frustrated when I don't understand. Sometimes phone proves better.

OK Bob, I spent my 2 cents, now I'll go for the nickle.....If I live in a certain county, and a large percentage of AR'ers live or work there......

I have looked over many of the counties to see if people joined and never contribute with comments, or posts, but have a profile.  I have found many many of these people, and they advertise with their profile....."want stager"  " best lender"  "buy an ad in our magazine" "top Realtor" etc etc etc..........

Then I see people all over AR that welcome new people, share ideas, write good posts...........

Now here is my nickles worth.......the people that set up a profile, and really haven't contributed can now pay and get more, or equal, exposure to ones that work at making this a good community.  Seems to me that this puts a new layer in the mix....a kind of sour one.........

I totally understand the need for some type of revenue to support this growing network.  I also understand how "all" the big boys are doing so........but isn't there another way? I hate to go to Yahoo and see Prudential as if they were the experts......they just have more money.  The idea presented of a monthly, maybe a yearly fee would be fair to all concerned, and weed out the ones that came, never played, and left.  You then would have income.

Just my nickle......

Ok - so I think I set everything up correctly, but I do not see my ad showing?

Incidentally, what does "active top bid" mean - where is the FAQ?  

I hope this works.............I need to get it clear in my head before I start spending more bucks......

Duane Hosek in the Black Hills of South Dakota

Agree with the ones who are saying a preference would be a "pay to play" approach, subscriber fee of some nature to be able to post , instead of ads. Just my 2 cents.

Kathy,

well 2 cents and 5 cents..............you're almost to the $10 limit......:)

In all reality, right now as an agent, you wouldn't necessarily need to advertise to draw consumer attention to yourself. I think that by writing good quality content you will be drawing attention to yourself. It's just like in google. If you google a term, there are the organic results and the paid advertising. Have you ever clicked on theh paid stuff? I never do. I always click on the organic content. The stuff that is there because it really has value (most of the time). Yet, people still pay to advertise. Let the people who want to pay to get exposure pay.........then none of the rest of us who just want to create good content have to pay.  If you don't have something good to point the consumer to if they do click on your ad, it isn't going to help you at all anyways.

I think the initial focus of the guys at ActiveRain is on service providers advertising to agents. Let the service providers pay the bills. They stand to benefit the most directly from their involvement here. Although, a guy like Jeff Turner, a prolific contributor here, who has posted a ton of great content may never have to pay to advertise because he does it so well with the content he provides. 

It isn't going to matter if some agent in Poincianna Florida tries to advertise. Broker Bryant has great content.

I would say to sit back and see if agents in your area start paying to advertise to consumers. If they do, then they have chosen that their way of supporting the network is by paying...........your way of supporting is by "work(ing) at making this a good community". I think there is something to be said for both routes.

I have clicked on a couple of these and been taken from AR to another website.  Can this be setup to open a new window?  I prefer to logout when I leave.  Thanks. 

My test drive is over and I'm not sure what to do next.  The world is dying to buy REO and distressed assets and that is pretty much what we sell, so I figured a good way to quantify return on this investment was to make a Join My Mailing List ad.  My system calculates nightly.

I bid $1/1000 and had a budget of $10.  I figured that would mean 10,000 views.  There was a counter on my ad page that says 24,000 + views.  I am a little confused there.

So I signed up mid day.  I think it was a little after 1pm.  I cheked my account at about 6pm and was out of money.  That was about $2/hr.

Out of somewhere between 10,000 and 24,000 views I got zero new mailing list signups. 

I might try this again on just Ohio and limit where the ad pops up.  Doing this on the default setting is looking a little expensive.  Like anything, I guess, the kinks need to be worked out.

OK .... I'm sorry I'm just continuing my effort to process this through my poor brain ....

I copied this from the AR Ad page http://activerain.com/ads

Bids: We use an auction based system to determine if your ad is shown. To display an ad we select all ads that meet the targeting requirements for the current page and then sort them by bid price. We take the top number of bids (usually 2-3 ads) and bill the advertising campaigns displayed the lowest bid that made the selection. Example: We pick 3 ads that have bids of $3, $2, and $1 per 1,000 impressions. Each advertising campaign would be billed $1/1000 for the impression. When placing your bid we show you the current high bid.

And this from your comment above:

And regarding the bidding, the lowest bidder to make it in the top slots gets in.  However no-one is SOL because the campaigns have things like limits and wont take all of the page views unless someone decides to bid the top spot for all over.

So ... if the highest bidders just keep renewing their ads, then the lower bidders will never get a chance to squeeze in?

It's none of my business, of course, <s> but wouldn't it just be easier to say the cost is $xx, take all ads, and serve them all up on a rotating basis?  With over 43,000 members, and I don't know how many thousand non-member page views per day, there should be a way to fit all ads in.

I think this makes total sense for service providers wanting to reach out to us Realtors but I am still not quite sure it is fair for Realtors who don't spend the time writing good posts and making comments to be able to buy the same exposure.  However, I think true ActiveRainers would rather refer to someone they have gotten to know through blogging rather than an ad so it may work out best for everyone!  Thanks for taking the time to give us all answers and training.

I like the idea of the unobtrusive ads much better than forcing members to pay. If you want to place an ad you are free to do so, and IMO they are fairly cheap for the highly targeted audience you are getting. If you don't want to pay you can still use AR as you always have. IMO the ads are not hurting the quality of AR and they allow it to continue to be a free and open network for RE professionals to share ideas. If AR became pay to play I am not sure that I would continue to be a member and I assume many others would also drop out. This would eventually hurt everyone in the long run because there would be less activity. It would hurt the free exchange of ideas and hurt AR's power in the search engines because there would be less content.

Dear Ben, Matt & Caleb: 

I tried placing a block of ads for our current listings, but it seems that our profile was blocked and/or deleted. Please let me know how we can overcome this matter.

Thank You

I'm not entirely comfortable with bidding for CPMs, as opposed to a fixed cost - but I'll be watching to see how the new programs develop.

Bob,

Thank you very much for the $10 answer ( and it only cost me 7 cents).......you made your point very well, and I agree with you.  Thank you....it was your Goggle analogy that did it for me as I never click on the paid ads :)

Have a good day......oh, can I buy a spot and just leave the fish there, They're kinda cute...:)

After considering this over the past 24 hours I would like to weigh in with some additional thoughts...

I understand the need to generate revenue...I have been waiting for this for a long time, and I am not opposed to it.

One of the things I would like to see disappear though is dead wait - you  know the thousands of blogs that were set up and nothing happens with.  Is there someway to remove them from the city/county/state rankings if they go a determined time span without contributing - say 90- days.  Allow them to come back with no penalty, and at that time they can be re-indexed.  It is sorry to go to a city and see 30 blogs and only 1 of them has over 5000 points or has contributed in the last 90 days, beyond the basic set-up.

Another way to weed out the dead wood would be to charge a very minimal fee, payable annually - even if it were only $1 a month, many would simply disappear.  Go ahead and give them a 90 day free trial, to make it easy,

Perhaps a combo fee structure would be good - charge $10 a month and then deduct $1 for each article written each month - require a minimum word count (250 to 500 words) to prevent article spam.  Just think of how much server space could be eliminated if we discarded the dead weight.

Well, here are just a few ideas I have to help raise a few dollars and help make AR a leaner and meaner blog platform.

Now Have a Blessed Day,

John Occhi, Hemet CA REALTOR®
Mission Grove Realty

Ok I am confused - how do I get the impressions I was just charged for? I put in $50.00 and bid to the highest reported bid $10 CPM - this was about 10 hours ago, and I have not had one impression reported. Is there something you need to do to activate my ad, or did I set it up wrong?

I look forward to give this a try and see how it helps my business. Thanks for making things better and better.

Morgan,  I took a look, I'm not sure why there haven't been any views. I'll have to look further. "Active top bid"  is the top bid for the campaign you are running.  The campaign will be charged at the rate of the lowest bid that would be eligible for a spot in that campaign.  For example, if there are 2 spots, and 4 campaigns with bids at 19, 10, 9 and 7 dollars, the price per 1000 impressions would be 10$ until the $10 campaign ran it's course.

John members are not required to contribute to remain active, however their information is not submitted for Google Base Updates if they haven't been around for awhile.

Brian, I'm not sure I fully understand, but you're charged up to your maximum bid for every 1,000 times your ad is displayed.

Diane thanks, but this is yet another way to contribute.  There are great benefits that come from regular participation that don't come with just advertising. In the end though both help this community.

Regarding charging fees.  ActiveRain offers free services, and we will be enhancing those offerings, but we've already let the community know that we won't be charging for those.  We are not going to become pay for play.  However, as we enhance our core offerings we will also provided added tools for which some will come with a fee.

Cheryl you're right, If the highest bidders keep an area stocked with their bids then they will stay up.  The rotating basis is an interesting way to think about it and we've had discussions for other offerings that would do just that.  However with what we're doing now we're trying to let the market decide what each impression is worth instead of pricing it ourselves.  Different targets will carry different values.

Rich, the extra views means you weren't billed $10 per thousand, but $2.40.  You're not charged for the top bid, but for the top bid required to keep you in a spot.
 
On a side note I'm really not sure how effective i would expect the ads to be for real estate sales people, considering that the majority viewers would likely be members.

Doreen you have a good point that's something to think about.

Ray, If it's complicated now we'll have to continue working on it to make it less so.  Thanks for the feedback.

John your "allow" model is a good one and has been considered.  It is possible FYI to setup advertising on your own blog if you wish.  Google Adwords, and other providers  are happy to let you partner with them and your AR blog has the space to do so.  All the revenue would go to you.

Now I am really confused.  I thought I bid $1/1000 and not $2.40 or "up to" $10.  I guess I don't know what these calculations mean, therefore I don't think that we will be buying more.

Sorry rich I misunderstood.  If your offer was $1 per thousand than you were charged no more than that.

The bidding system is the same used by Yahoo and Google for their ads.  It works just fine.

Now if I could just get my ads to show. 

Wow - I totally forgot to follow this post... sorry!  Here's what the code monkey who wrote this has input on... as usual the views and opinions of what I say on AR probably doesn't always fall on party lines (because I STILL haven't gotten that memo :)


@Evan:  CPM is clicks per 1000 (M being the roman silliness).  When you bid $1 you're saying I'll pay up to $1/1000 every time my ad is shown.

@I DON'T SEE MY AD:  This is fairly complex... here's a brief tour... I'll be doing up exhaustive docs this week ... this usually has to do with targeting (see my post on that http://activerain.com/blogsview/187040/Tips-on-Ad-Targeting ).  Also - if your ad is "active" you'll only see it 5 times... if it's "active-unlimited" you can see it as many times as you have money for.  Who your logged in as effects what you see - if you do an ad for MA and are logged in with a location in WA you won't see your ad except on the MA regional page ( http://activerain.com/states/MA )

@Celeste:  it's pay per impression (which means, every the ad is displayed you're debited).  It's good for as long as you have cash or until you stop it.

@Heather: Just go to http://ads.activerain.com and sign in - you're already signed up since you're a member

@Roberta: I do all the site development on a mac - what browser are you using?  Safari is not well supported on our site - but everything works in FireFox http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

@Lane: I believe Localism is coming - should be pretty quick to implement once we iron out the kinks here.

@Hemet:  2.01 beats 2.00 - it's a cruel world  :)  Key words are probably a long ways out - that would be very tricky to implement.  You can already bid on pages (Home page, blog post page, etc.)

@Celeste again:  Yes - your bidding against others.  If you're in the top three (or two, depending on how many ads we're showing) you don't necessarily need to be the highest bidder - just the in the top 3.  We're working on making this easier to figure out ... it's evolving as rapidly as I can type.

@Cheryl - because google does it this way and made billions... Zillow is still working on that  :)  (teasing)

@Kathy - there shouldn't be any advertising on your blog (the part the public sees) so not(SOL)  :)

@Doreen - should be opening in a new window now... my bad - sorry!

@Hemet re dead wood:  unfortunately companies are valued on member counts in .com land.  So, while they might be dead wood, they're still worth something in investment circles.  In virtually all communities the % of active members is rarely much more than 1,000 or so and, within that, 90% of most content generally comes from less than 100.  I haven't run the stats in months - but we're close to those numbers...

@Lenn - I've received all your emails - I'm in the middle of implementing your bank idea... and will reply when I'm done with that.

Next question?  :)

-ben

Thanks Ben!  Got to talk to Bob last night who was very helpful and pleasant (I like when people don't act like I'm dumb about this...even though I am haha)  and very patient explaining everything to me. Thanks for your input.

My impression is that this is for vendors to advertise to agents and lenders currently, but with the advent of localism advertising that will change.  When will localism come on line with this, and will we get notice? 

Ben: I am on iMac/Firefox--and I think my account is all jumbled.  Could you check? Thanks!

Roberta - what is "all jubmled".  I just logged in as you and things seemed to be working.

Another great idea!

Bravo... I can appreciate these little ads.  I don't feel they are too intrusive.  I've been saying it for awhile.  I like free.  If I want to advertise I can...I love it.

Is there a possibility of bogus impressions? (hostile hits)

I knew the time would come.  And ActiveRain deserves to do it because they have provided a great community for the real estate professionals.

I've read some really good comments and concerns above.  First, AR is right not to charge a fee to participate in the community; this is why it was popular to begin with and you don't want to change a good thing.  Hence, there won't be an annual flat fee to be a member as opposed to their current CPM ads. 

We all knew this was coming (at least I knew and most of the people here knew that as well).  In any business, revenue is key.  ActiveRain has provided us with a great community and this is a way for us (and other advertisers) to return the favor.  Think of it like Realtor.com.  It used to be free (still is, but you have to pay additional fees to have more exposure, more photos, virtual tour, videos, etc..)  Although this is not a fair analogy as ActiveRain is not even remotely as excessive as Realtor.com (my opinion).

Lastly AR is just following suit of the normal way to advertise, which is CPM or CPC.

I did PPC on Overture/Yahoo for a few years. Spent tons of money and had to stay on it a couple times a day to increase my bid to keep my ads in the top 3 for each keyword phrase. The organic benefit of AR allowed me to drop PPC.

My question on AR's PPI is ...

• The links I have set up on my outside blog & web site go directly to my profile ...
• When the public does a Google search and one of my posts is listed, when that consumer clicks on the link, they go directly to my post ...

So in both those examples, the public would never see anyone else's ads ... Right? In order to see the ads, a person would actually have to browse around AR in order to see the ads. Does the public really do that or all those impressions coming from AR members. If so, then it would seem the main benefit is to those companies that specifically want to advertise to real estate agents or lenders who are AR members. As for Realtors, we're still better off just writing good content for Google.

Am I making a correct assumption or not???