Interview with Chuck Heintzelman (Linkbuddies.com)
By Brad CulbertChuck Heintzelman is the creator of the LinkBuddies banner exchange, one of the most popular and well established Banner Exchanges on the Internet. Today Chuck talks with us about how effective different types of link exchanges actually are, some of the new and exciting features LinkBuddies has incorporated and the current state of the banner advertising industry.
1. Banner exchanges have been receiving a lot of bad publicity recently. Complaints of little traffic increases, poor exchange ratios, low quality banners being displayed on sites, and low quality (un-targeted) traffic have been heard. What things are LinkBuddies doing to try and counter-act these negative attributes of many exchanges?
We have a sliding exchange rate that rewards members who provide a decent CTR for other members with exchange ratios up to 1:1. We also don't allow certain types of sites: porno being the big no-no. And LinkBuddies members have over 150 categories to target exactly the types of sites they want (although busy sites should use our auto-target feature to let the system automatically target the best sites.)
2. I was a member of LinkBuddies with a website I had running a few years ago. Since then, a lot of things seem to have changed. Most notably, LinkBuddies now provides a much larger range of link exchanges. Have these new exchanges been received warmly be users? Which is the most popular of these new additions?
Yes we now offer a textbox, button and box exchange in addition to our flagship Free Banner Exchange. The most popular seems to be the textbox.
3. As mentioned in the first question, one of the reasons many people stay away from banner exchanges is that they can produce low quality or un-targeted traffic. What things have been incorporated in your services to try and target displayed links more accurately?
We have more targeting options than any other exchange. Members can choose to auto-target, target specific categories, and even exclude individual sites on a site by site basis. And this doesn't even touch the other end of the equation ... the publishing side.
Since webmasters wear the dual hat of promoting their site and making web real estate available for others to advertise on, we felt it important to give webmasters as much flexibility on the publishing side as we do the promotion side. So LinkBuddies members can exclude categories of ads from appearing on their site and even exclude specific ads on a site by site basis.
4. One of my favourite features about LinkBuddies is the referral program where users get 5% of the traffic from anyone they refer credited to them in impressions. Has this feature been popular among members?
Yes it is one of the most popular benefits we have. Some members receive almost 100,000 extra impressions weekly through our referral program.
5. The banner advertising market has taken a huge plunge in recent times. It has been suggested that this is because Internet users are becoming 'immune' to banners and unwilling to click on them. Do you think this statement is true? Is the introduction of the LinkBuddies TextSwap a move to offer Webmasters an alternative to a crumbling banner market? How effective, compared to your banner exchanges has the text exchange been?
Surprisingly the click-through ratio has been much worse than our banner exchange, but since webmasters can achieve triple a 1:1 ratio with the textbox exchange, the effectiveness is slightly better. We created the text exchange as an addition to the banner exchange. Many members use both. I don't see the banner market crumbling, perhaps it is tightening up a bit and low-quality, unprofessional banners are not as effective any more, but it's exciting to think of the rich-media ads that are becoming more and more accepted.
6. While on the subject of the LinkBuddies TextSwap. I must say I like the unique concept of being able to choose the number of links you display, which in turn determines your exchange ratio. I can see this would help Webmasters mould the link section to better fit their sites. Do you find most people opt for the higher link count and ratio?
The majority of the TextSwap members use all the available slots, I don't have the exact figure but it is probably 75%.
7. I can imagine you get a lot of low-quality or inappropriate banners and links submitted to your service. What measures do you have in place to filter out these items? How effective are they?
We don't filter out ads because of low quality (only because of subject matter). If we run across an ad that looks absolutely terrible (especially because of resizing) we contact the member and make a suggestion. If an low quality ad is related to business, it does terrible, but if it's related to something unique then sometimes it does much better than expected.
8. Another difference I have noticed since last using your service is that, it is now part of the iBoost network. How has joining iBoost changed LinkBuddies? Has it helped you to achieve your mission of being the best free promotion network on the Internet?
Absolutely, iBoost has give us the freedom to do what we do best, while taking over the business worries that were kind of a pain to deal with
9. Finally, what additions and enhancements are planned for LinkBuddies in the short and long term future?
My LinkBuddies has been our most popular addition, it allows any one to go in and create their own banner (or text) exchange using our software. I've been working on major features with My LinkBuddies such as co-branding, multi-language, etc. in a couple weeks there will be a final release.
Then we're looking to new types of exchanges such as pop-up and exit pages.
We're staying focused on our motto and that's driving us: LinkBuddies - Bring the world to your web page.