Infolinks was the third In-Text Advertising solution that I have used. I began using Infolinks on my movie website on June 8, 2010. Applicable keywords and phrases were automatically underlined and highlighted once their code was put into the footer of my website.
Income Results for one week (seven days)
After seven days, the Infolinks ads on my movie site received 141 clicks and $5.65. This total made Infolinks the third best money maker out of Kontera, Infolinks, and Vibrant on my movie website. As you can see in my Kontera Review, for the same amount of clicks during the same amount of time I made more with Kontera. Note: All of the In-Text advertising tests were conducted on the same website.
Ad targeting
Like Kontera, the ad targeting for Infolinks needs a lot of work. On my movie website, the ads displayed did not match the underlined word or the content of the story it was in. Ex Director. When I hovered over this underlined Infolinks word, a Pellgrini Legal ad popped up. What that had to do with film in question, the director or even the film studio he was working for was beyond me. Then I hovered over a film title and a NetFlix ad came up about the type of film in questions and their rental service, so that was creditable and decent result.
Payout
The payout threshold for Infolinks is $50 and they offer three different ways to receive your money: PayPal, Bankwire (min $400), and Infolinks prepaid Mastercard.
Strengths
Standard ad design for all of their ads. A viewer while always know an Infolinks ad when the see it. It’s clean and to the point.
Infolinks ads display for italicized words which means if you have a movie title italicized to set it apart from the rest of the text in your post or film review, the in-text advertising will still display.
Infolinks has premium advertisers like NetFlix under their belt. For a movie website, that is good news.
Infolinks gives the user the ability to change the link color of the in-text underlining on your site, whether you want dotted or a solid line, and the ability to set the max number of links per page.
Weaknesses
As I mentioned in Ad Targeting section of this review, very few of their ads are targeted toward films/film websites so when something film-centric was underlined on my movie website, most of the time something else irrelevant to the post’s content and the site’s content was displayed.
For actors, directors’ names, film studios, and celebrity names, Infolinks’ ads were 99% non-existent. For a person running a movie website or a celebrity website and using a in-text advertising solution, this will cost them money daily are these texts are the ones that will show up most on their sites. That is why Vibrant has code specific to entertainment websites that entertainment webmasters can place in the footer of their site. More on that in my Vibrant Review. Kontera may not display a SERPs box like Vibrant, but they do underline (actors, directors’ names, film studios, and celebrity names) and a pop is displayed. Like I said in my Kontera Review though, there is vast room for improvement for what they display for those pop ups but at least the underlining occurs.
Infolinks Content Categories do not include Entertainment, Movie, or Film. This is why their ads are mismatched with a movie website. Their Arts category does not cut it.
The standard Infolink ad size does not adjust/expand for certain ads like Kontera ads have begun to and which Vibrant ads do as well. For TV commercials, movie trailers, etc., this is a hindrance and a presentation limitation for Infolinks. The ad should be as eye catching and engrossing as possible. Vibrant (founded in 2001) knows this, Kontera (founded in 2003) has caught on to the fact and is adapting. Infolinks (founded in 2007) will have to follow suit as well.
I did not see any movie trailers, DVD/Blu-ray commercials/ads pop-ups when using Infolinks.
In Conclusion
Infolinks is embryonic, begun only three years ago. They have tons of room to grow. A little VC money and who knows. Infolinks needs more work than Kontera in displaying relevant ads on certain types of websites and their algorithm definitely needs work when it comes to displaying ads on a movie website. Movie and entertainment websites are a valuable niche segment that Infolinks seems to have barely scratched the surface of. I have heard some favorable reports from movie webmasters on the use of Infolinks but when asked, they had neither tried Kontera nor Vibrant yet. It will be interesting to see what they say once they have. As Infolinks gains more movie studio support and attention, TV station ad dollars, their lack of ads in those departments will change and improve. Like I suggested to Jonathan Cohen – a Kontera Community Manager that commented on my Kontera Review a few days after it went live – Infolinks should consider forming a strategic alliance with Google or Yahoo. They could use their search engine results in their ads the way Vibrant uses Bing’s in their ads. Infolinks gets paid, Google or Yahoo get more search engine traffic, and Infolinks’ users get more relevant pop-ups for movie stars, films, and celebrities. It’s a win-win. They could even form a relationship with IMDb. That would be something. As it is now, Infolinks would be my third choice when it comes to in-text advertising on a movie website.
What have been your experiences with Infolinks? Share them below.
