Elliott C. Back: Internet & Technology

I’m not a very big fan of Gizmodo, but I found their RSS feed interesting today. Check out the attached photo, which highlights four ad units nicely clustered at the bottom of every post. They’ve got two text ads (one from Pheedo, one from Google) and two Google Image/Video blocks:

I have mixed feelings about this. One the one hand, that’s a lot of ads. On the other hand, they’re tasteful and all clustered together so that you’re clear they are ads. They are compact, and don’t interrupt readers who are reading the feed. So in some sense, they’re an excellent example of how to do RSS feed advertising.

Strangely, I was paid $165.95 twice by Yahoo in April, and the charges were then reversed a week later. The payment came through ACH, which rules out various credit card services. The only thing I can think of is a Yahoo Publisher! payment, but I don’t use Yahoo Publisher anymore–and haven’t, for years:

Appears on your Chase (CHASE FREE CHECKING) statement as Yahoo REVERSALPPD ID: 2000223247 on May 6
Appears on your Chase (CHASE FREE CHECKING) statement as Yahoo EDI PAYMTSPPD ID: 2000223247 on Apr 30

I’m sending them an email to figure out what this is about. I like being paid, I don’t like so much money being taken away. And, oddly, in Yahoo Publisher I’m setup to receive a check, not an ACH. So, I don’t even know which Yahoo service is screwing around with my bank account!

Update: As I thought, it was Yahoo Publisher:

Hello Elliott,

In response to your email, we apologize for any confusion this transaction may have caused. We had some technical difficulties with this month’s payment cycle that caused several of our publishers to see such transactions on their banking statements. We are sorry for this error.

We have since confirmed that as of May 1st, 2009 we have resolved this billing issue and all misprinted payments have been reversed. We would advise to contact your banking institution for confirmation.

We understand that all banking institutions have their own policies regarding holding periods for pending payments. We would advise to contact your banking institution for confirmation of the payment reversal. Typically, it may take up to 5 business days for pending payments to drop off.

If you have any further inquiries, we would like to speak to you via phone. We may be reached at 866-785-2636. Our hours of operation are Mondays through Fridays from 7:00 am to 5:00 p.m., Pacific Standard Time.

Please feel free to contact us via email once more if you have any further concerns.

Sincerely,

Kristell Larios
Yahoo! Publisher Network

Since Techcrunch just mentioned Yieldbuild, a company I love, in YieldBuild Raises $6 Million Series B For Optimizing Ads, I figure that now is a good time to throw in my two bits. If you don’t know, Yieldbuild is the internet’s premier advertising optimization tool, boosting webmaster CPM and CTR. Crunch says it uses computer algorithms to automatically optimize your site’s ad spots with the most profitable combination of ad layout, style, and network. The system continually tests alternative configurations of layouts, networks, and color, looking for the highest performing ones.”

Does it really work? Check out this chart:

The answer is simply yes–it improved CPM on my blog network by 21%. If you discount revenue from other blogs, this one went from 1.51 CPM to 2.51 CPM, an increase of 66% just due to using Yieldbuild. Now that I have a fulltime job, I don’t have time to bang out optimized advertising solutions. If you’re like this, why not let Yieldbuild do it for you?