EmberAds

Web and SaaS

affiliate ad network

SHOW HN2012

112points
78comments
#186of 1,677 in 2012
Top 12%of 2012 by points

How HN took it

MixedNo clear lean

8 positive, 19 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 15 critical, out of 44 comments about the project. Thread score -0.23.

Execution: 3 for, 2 againstDocs: 1 for, 4 againstIdea: 3 for, 1 againstPrivacy: 1 for, 3 againstDesign: 0 for, 3 against

The thread, comment by comment

Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.

positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker

What HN said

What people liked

  • Good to see competition in the ad space.

    From 2 comments
    • It is good (?) to see competition. Yet, I would like ads to be beautiful, at the very minimum. Yours do not nicely blend in. Ads well done are those coming from 'The Deck', for…
      davidcollantes on HN
    • I have an idea for such a sentence! "We're not Google Adsense" I am just happy to see competing services in this space. Adsense has shut off many publishers and stonewalled them.…
      readme on HN
  • Ember ads are an alternative to AdSense's account bans.

    From 1 comment
    • AdSense can throw you out with no explanation given or appeal possible. Just being an alternative is reason enough to exist.
      gcp on HN

Objections

  • CPA pays publishers less than CPM/CPC; not a true AdSense replacement without CPC/CPM.

    From 2 comments
    • Sorry Dom but I think unless you have CPC/CPM pricing you have no right of calling this Adsense replacement. 2-3 years back I would be applauding for launching something that…
      forcer on HN
    • > we've found this works better with sites that add value I haven't. CPA tends to be the last resort of desperation for publishers -- unless, of course, the publisher's site is…
      billirvine on HN
  • Ads shown were irrelevant (e.g. dresses) during matching.

    From 2 comments
    • That's great. I just installed on my blog, but the ads are very un-relevant(mostly about women dresses) to my topic (free and open source softwares, tools etc).
      rk0567 on HN
    • Hey HN, We've been working on EmberAds for a few months now and I think we are ready to get HN using it, The idea is you paste two lines of code, we match to your content and…
      thehodge on HN
  • Design of ads and site is weak.

    From 2 comments
    • It is good (?) to see competition. Yet, I would like ads to be beautiful, at the very minimum. Yours do not nicely blend in. Ads well done are those coming from 'The Deck', for…
      davidcollantes on HN
    • A few things bug me with the site design - The header background at the top of the page seems strange, not exactly sure what it is (wood logs?). It makes the white text harder to…
      netfire on HN
  • Conversion tracking can be gamed by advertisers.

    From 2 comments
    • Also, you're kind of at the advertiser's mercy on how reliable they are about reporting conversions, right? I can't see how the ad network could audit conversions with certainty,…
      rpm4321 on HN
    • You still require honesty from the advertiser. Whats to stop the advertiser omitting the script on every nth completion page to reduce their outgoings? Maybe omitting it for high…
      RobAley on HN

Requests

  • Add CPC and CPM pricing.

    From 2 comments
    • Sorry Dom but I think unless you have CPC/CPM pricing you have no right of calling this Adsense replacement. 2-3 years back I would be applauding for launching something that…
      forcer on HN
    • We've had requests from both publishers and retailers for CPC / CPM pricing and our system is built to handle that, it's just a case of finding some time in the schedule to build…
      thehodge on HN
  • Clearer US-market branding and differentiation from AdSense on the site.

    From 2 comments
    • "UK + US" Not seeing any US advertisers (except Staples) that I recognize. "you get paid per action " A quick look at your marketing doesn't make that apparent. It was a question…
      larrys on HN
    • Best wishes to you but I just want to reiterate what larrys says. Your home page could really do with a one-sentence description of what makes you different from adsense (and…
      glaucon on HN
  • Non-English and AJAX support.

    From 1 comment

Questions

  • How are conversions audited?

    From 1 comment
    • Also, you're kind of at the advertiser's mercy on how reliable they are about reporting conversions, right? I can't see how the ad network could audit conversions with certainty,…
      rpm4321 on HN
  • Are links converted to affiliate links and can that be disabled?

    From 1 comment
    • ``` (we even convert links into affiliate links automatically) ``` How does this play out? Your service looks incredibly interesting, but is there any way I can disable this? I…
      kmfrk on HN
  • How is inappropriate content like adult or gambling sites filtered?

    From 1 comment
    • I noticed there is no approval process. How do you deal with inappropriate content like adult or gambling sites which may breach the TOS of the affiliate networks you work with?
      jasonlingx on HN

Alternatives named

  • Skimlinks

    From 1 comment
    • Isn't this similar to Skimlinks i.e. you don't get paid by them until conversion?
      wtracz on HN
  • VigLink

    From 1 comment
    • And so does VigLink, and arguably at greater scale...it takes scale to do this well. VigLink claims to have over 30,000 merchants.
      odamone on HN
  • Google AdSense

    From 1 comment
    • A friend and I built a similar service back in 2006-2007. It was actually a rev share program based on affiliate aggregators like LinkShare and Commission Junction -- that's how…
      thwarted on HN
  • Prosperent

    From 1 comment

Category, keywords, summaries and labels on this page were made by AI (Thread Reader v2) and not checked by hand. Each point links to the comments it came from.

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