AuctionAds On The Sale Block! - WickedFire - Affiliate Marketing Forum

Jon · 07-25-2007, 02:21 AM

It's only been about 4-5 months since AuctionAds hit the scene and immediately went from beta to unreal. To date, if my research proves correct, they've signed up something like 25,000 affiliates, churning out 300M impressions a day, bringing in over $1M a month in revenue, across over 80,000 sites. Damn. That's a lot by anyone's standards.

So here's the news I have, and I can almost bet Shoemoney will be pissed that I'm reporting on it too, but I just can't help myself, because even though it's technically still a rumor, it's one of those rumors that will be proven to be true in 30 days or less.

AuctionAds has been rumored to be selling, but from what I found out, they are selling it for between $5M-$7M (which if this is the real selling price, the new owner will be getting it for a giant bargain compared to how other places like Google value companies they buy).

The list of potential buyers are:
eBay (duh)
Yahoo
MediaWhiz
Chitika
Shopping.com (even though owned by eBay are acting on its own)

Here's what I know for sure...

- Bids have been made by all "potential" buyers so far.
- Shoemoney and his crew have had some serious downtime and this project has definitely gotten out of hand in the sense that it's grown too quickly and too large for them to even handle anymore. Selling it now would be a quick and easy exit strategy so that someone with more experience and power could take it over and do serious earning damage (in a good way) with it.
- The price range is very realistic at the moment, but if they wait maybe 2-3 more months, they could get between $15M-$25M for it. If it were me, and the deal were lagging (which I think it has been) then I'd get out, and sell it in a year from now for a hell of a lot more, but that's just the greed in my talking.
- The sale will close before September 1st IF it does sell and if they don't pull out and follow my advice (you guys better read this).

So there ya have it. Another WickedFire exclusive. Shoemoney, I know you're going to email me bitching about why I did this without asking you first, but dude, the source is pretty damn good, and you'd report on it if you were in my shoes. Bwahaha!!

Drake · 07-25-2007, 03:14 AM

Ya if they have that many offers this is gold. They should show a bank those offers and ask for a loan or some venture capital money to expand.

Hire some programmers, marketing, and email communication people and build it up more. Any money spent would be well worth it and they dont even need to spend their own money. Outside people might bring better ideas for packaging and communicating with outside companies, and better lawyers...

Or is this Jons latest linkbait?

Jon · 07-25-2007, 03:56 AM

When it is made public, I want an apology from you Drake for using the LB crap.

wesley · 07-25-2007, 04:33 AM

No need for him to apologize jon, it's your own fault that people doubt everything you say since you pulled the LB card so many times.

Anyway, great news for shoemoney

Jon · 07-25-2007, 04:41 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by wesley

No need for him to apologize jon, it's your own fault that people doubt everything you say since you pulled the LB card so many times.

Anyway, great news for shoemoney

Only a few times cocksucker.. and admitted to it each time pretty quickly, doh!

But this isn't about me.. it's about AA. I still think they should wait. But if I were the buyer, now is definitely a good time to buy it for under 10 months of revenue.

productionhead · 07-25-2007, 04:47 AM

so is $1m a month auctionad's cuts or is that the total amount the users are generating?

if so auctionads itself is not profiting, the affiliates and ebay are so it might seem more of something ebay would pick up to include into their own program, who knows.

shopping.com now if they can buy this 25k+ affiliates and 300m imp/day would be huge for them and definitly profitable in the long run

krazyjosh5 · 07-25-2007, 08:49 AM

I dont understand why ebay would want to buy it? Wouldnt it be cheaper for them to just allow the affiliate program to run and generate more business for them?

If they do buy it and end up just absorbing it into their current system (or even relaunching their affiliate system, maybe), that might open the way for a copycat AuctionAds to fill its place.

bgmacaw · 07-25-2007, 09:02 AM

As long as it's not Chitika. They would probably screw it up and do stuff like kick everyone who doesn't have a single site with a million hits a day out of the program.

Xrproto · 07-25-2007, 09:56 AM

Not shocking that it's being sold, I thought that was his intentions from the get go. I could swear he mentioned something of the sort way before it was out of beta.

Good news Jon and I agree...hold out at least a year.

Xrproto · 07-25-2007, 10:09 AM

Here in his predictions for '07 ww w.shoemoney.com/2007/01/06/my-official-predictions-for-2007/

"7) eBay after 4 years (well it seems like 4) of trying to develop there own auction based ad network will buy an existing one for a zillion dollars *cough* shoemoneyads *cough* DISCLOSURE NOTICE: I OWN SHOEMONEYADS"

That was before they split it and started AA.

LazyHippy · 07-25-2007, 11:13 AM

Shame AuctionAds has stopped fuckin working.... hopefully it will be better in more reliable hands.

Hope Google buys it just to piss eBay off!

gage · 07-25-2007, 11:15 AM

From Dillsmack: Jon, you are a moron.

lucab · 07-25-2007, 11:30 AM

o i c

EasyClickTravel · 07-25-2007, 12:20 PM

Yep, you can see this one coming a mile away.

nachoninja · 07-25-2007, 02:07 PM

I highly doubt they are making that much $$$ a month

Aequitas · 07-25-2007, 04:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nachoninja

I highly doubt they are making that much $$$ a month

If shoe wasen't lying then he isn't making anything from it yet, he said the creators won't make a penny for 6 months from AuctionAds, 100% of the affiliate income will go to the affiliates, he said but after 6 months they will start to earn.

Now he could have planned this from the start and it would have been very smart, the above message was more of a sales ploy then anything, he just needed to get people to join, and let it build its-self up for at least 6 months, after which he could easily flip it for a couple million, easy cash.

krazyjosh5 · 07-25-2007, 05:48 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Aequitas

If shoe wasen't lying then he isn't making anything from it yet, he said the creators won't make a penny for 6 months from AuctionAds, 100% of the affiliate income will go to the affiliates, he said but after 6 months they will start to earn.

Now he could have planned this from the start and it would have been very smart, the above message was more of a sales ploy then anything, he just needed to get people to join, and let it build its-self up for at least 6 months, after which he could easily flip it for a couple million, easy cash.

So the deal is that AuctionAds pays out 100% of commission revenue for the first tier and then they keep the difference once they get enough traffic and get bumped up to higher tier payouts (55%, 60%, 65%, 70%, etc)?

Or that they just payout 100% for 6, 7, X months to get users built up and then start skimming (paying out 95%, 90%, etc)?

nachoninja · 07-25-2007, 06:04 PM

The phrase "fake it 'til you make it" applies here

Aequitas · 07-25-2007, 07:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by krazyjosh5

So the deal is that AuctionAds pays out 100% of commission revenue for the first tier and then they keep the difference once they get enough traffic and get bumped up to higher tier payouts (55%, 60%, 65%, 70%, etc)?

Or that they just payout 100% for 6, 7, X months to get users built up and then start skimming (paying out 95%, 90%, etc)?

I'm not 100% sure how shoe and his team set this part up but I know that they said they would not earn any money from this for the first 6 months, all cash earned in the first 6 month's will be paid out to the affiliates, so 100% goes to affiliate for the first 6 months.

From there I never heard how he was going to start making money from it, I assume he was just going to take a 5%, maybe 10% cut off the top of the 1 Million per month, which means that instead of the affiliates getting 100% only 90% would be distributed among the affiliates and the other percentage would be for shoe and his team.

However the 6 months are not quite up yet and I haven't heard anything else about him taking a cut from this, so this is why I assume he had it kind of planned from the start, offer affiliates 100% profits for 6 months to grow the network super quickly and then flip it to a larger organization for a couple Mil.

natekapi · 07-26-2007, 10:19 AM

Isn't AuctionAds partially funded or partially owned by the company behind Text Link Ads?

Why wouldn't they just buy it or give them some more cash for more servers?

I'm not accusing, but I'm wondering if this could just be linkbait?

Drake · 07-26-2007, 10:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon

When it is made public, I want an apology from you Drake for using the LB crap.

Sure if it gets oficial I will. You probably have someone at one of those companies teeling you whats going on. But it does sound a bit linkbaity.

Strangely enough, Show has a new show on webmasterradio.fm with a new logo and intro. There is one show on there now. In the 40 minute show he mentions VC money in that 6 out of 10 VC investements fail, 2 break even, and 2 hit it out of the park? So who has he been talking to have all this nice statisitcs in his head?

And he talks about auctionads quite a bit often quite nostaligic. Then he slips up on saying he owns auctionads and then it sounds like he says he "runs" auctionads. Weird....

Shoemoney tends to talk a lot, often a bit too much. I would like to play poker with him sometime. Of course his bankroll would probably scare me out of most hands.

toolohen · 07-26-2007, 12:25 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jon

Only a few times cocksucker.. and admitted to it each time pretty quickly, doh!

But this isn't about me.. it's about AA. I still think they should wait. But if I were the buyer, now is definitely a good time to buy it for under 10 months of revenue.

Why the hell did Wesley get banned? For speaking out against Jon?

Tyrants!

cc23 · 07-26-2007, 05:49 PM

Talk about a quick flip..... but i am not surprised...its business.

cashflowrusty · 07-27-2007, 12:45 AM

In the last NetIncome (not the new ShoeMoney Show) I believe Shoe said that they were extending the 100% payout indefinitely. The AA plan for making money off this deal was to hit that top tier, and then negotiate a special tier with eBay and take the difference (special tier - top tier = AA $$).
That way they could still offer 100% payouts, and still make money.

That is just what I get from the WMR show(s)...

TripleFiveSoul · 07-27-2007, 07:03 PM

SOLD! Check out TechCrunch

Solid Info Jon

Jon · 07-27-2007, 07:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by TripleFiveSoul

SOLD! Check out TechCrunch

Solid Info Jon

Yeah, just saw the news. Booyah! Who called this one right?? Oh, was that me? Oh yeah, I know.

But seriously. Much thanks to our boys and girls in the field getting us insider information on companies and people that no one else gets. Also much thanks to anyone and everyone who sends us anonymous tips. You can always send it to Jon AT Wickedfire.com, and request to be anonymous, and unless I'm subpeonad for the contact, your info will be kept quiet (but it needs to be real and verified.)

Oh yeah.. congrats to Shoemoney on the sale. That was pretty damn quick. How much did you guys make on the sale at the end, or do I have to try and guess?

Here's the story from TechCrunch.

MediaWhiz Buys Another Ad Startup, AuctionAds

UberPreppy · 07-27-2007, 08:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by productionhead

so is $1m a month auctionad's cuts or is that the total amount the users are generating?

Some people need reading lessons.

They're generating $1m a month in revenue, which 100% is being paid out to the advertisers. From my understanding, I don't think AA was making a penny.

georgiecasey · 07-27-2007, 10:02 PM

wow, insider information here, this place isn't full of egotistical 14 year olds like i thought.

fair play to shoe, everything he touches turns to gold.

Jon · 07-27-2007, 10:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by georgiecasey

wow, insider information here, this place isn't full of egotistical 14 year olds like i thought.

fair play to shoe, everything he touches turns to gold.

Hey, 20 and 30 somethings here.. not teens. Go to DigitalPoint or Nambla.org if that's what you're looking for over here pal.

Drake · 07-28-2007, 06:50 AM

Ok Jon I thought it sounded real when I heard that podcast and now it is very real.

<formal apology>
You were right and this was a total scoop I didnt see anywhere else.

And the buyer was one of the companies on your list.

News Exclusive on WF!

</formal apology>

Jon · 07-28-2007, 05:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Drake

Ok Jon I thought it sounded real when I heard that podcast and now it is very real.

<formal apology>
You were right and this was a total scoop I didnt see anywhere else.

And the buyer was one of the companies on your list.

News Exclusive on WF!

</formal apology>

Thank you.

natekapi · 07-28-2007, 07:28 PM

So did anyone hear what the final sale price was? I really can't believe Shoe let it go so early. I'm a little surprised he didn't really build it up to like 50,000 or 100,000 publishers and sell then.

sebastya · 07-29-2007, 02:17 AM

shoe or MW aren't disclosing the price...bitches..lol

natekapi · 07-29-2007, 06:19 PM

Yeah but it sounded like Jon had the inside scoop

Webferret · 08-14-2007, 12:19 PM

They got $8 mill for it, about enuff 2 pay off the Jerk

josefromsf · 08-14-2007, 04:24 PM

$8 mill ... yeah right ... for a company with a lot of technical problems and user complaints (see forum posts) at the time of sale not to mention NO profit and less than a year of operation ...

$8 mill my ass more like $800k which was so low he asked patrick to keep his mouth shut about it

Jon · 08-14-2007, 08:20 PM

I tried to get a dollar amount that it was sold for.. but no one was talking. Time for plan B. Alchohol & Roofies at the next conference..

Xrproto · 08-15-2007, 04:03 PM

Well considering this: "Media Whiz how they were going to be a minority stake holder in AuctionAds and provide customer support and the mass payment knowledge. We structured it so that we both owned 50% each of the company that owned the majority of AuctionAds."

That could mean shoe and pickle (sp?) at least owned 25.5% of the company each. So together they would have at least owned 51% of the company while Cheese Whiz owned at the most 49%.

Considering Cheese Whiz was involved pretty much from the start they had inside knowledge of everything or one would think so since they owned a slice of the cheese already.

My guess is they both walked away with a nice chunk of cheese from Cheese Whiz.

Speaking of which, ritz crackers + pickles + cheese whiz = yummy!

Ranking for cheese whiz!

07-25-2007, 09:56 AM	#9 (permalink)
Xrproto Waste of e-space Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 1,876 iTrader: 4 / 100%	Not shocking that it's being sold, I thought that was his intentions from the get go. I could swear he mentioned something of the sort way before it was out of beta. Good news Jon and I agree...hold out at least a year. __________________ I can assure you I am as insane as the next man.

07-25-2007, 10:09 AM	#10 (permalink)
Xrproto Waste of e-space Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 1,876 iTrader: 4 / 100%	Here in his predictions for '07 ww w.shoemoney.com/2007/01/06/my-official-predictions-for-2007/ "7) eBay after 4 years (well it seems like 4) of trying to develop there own auction based ad network will buy an existing one for a zillion dollars cough shoemoneyads cough DISCLOSURE NOTICE: I OWN SHOEMONEYADS" That was before they split it and started AA. __________________ I can assure you I am as insane as the next man.

07-25-2007, 02:07 PM	#15 (permalink)
nachoninja Love the dog Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Fleshlightville Posts: 4,071 iTrader: 2 / 100%	I highly doubt they are making that much $$$ a month __________________ Copeac Affiliate Network + Liquid Web VPS = $$$$$

07-25-2007, 06:04 PM	#18 (permalink)
nachoninja Love the dog Join Date: Oct 2006 Location: Fleshlightville Posts: 4,071 iTrader: 2 / 100%	The phrase "fake it 'til you make it" applies here __________________ Copeac Affiliate Network + Liquid Web VPS = $$$$$

07-29-2007, 02:17 AM	#33 (permalink)
sebastya Moderater Join Date: Sep 2006 Location: Santa Barbara, California Posts: 744 iTrader: 1 / 100%	shoe or MW aren't disclosing the price...bitches..lol __________________ Affiliate Data Feed Solutions

07-25-2007, 03:14 AM	#2 (permalink)
Drake Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 1,661 iTrader: 5 / 100%	Ya if they have that many offers this is gold. They should show a bank those offers and ask for a loan or some venture capital money to expand. Hire some programmers, marketing, and email communication people and build it up more. Any money spent would be well worth it and they dont even need to spend their own money. Outside people might bring better ideas for packaging and communicating with outside companies, and better lawyers... Or is this Jons latest linkbait?

07-25-2007, 04:33 AM	#4 (permalink)
wesley Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2006 Posts: 441 iTrader: 0 / 0%	No need for him to apologize jon, it's your own fault that people doubt everything you say since you pulled the LB card so many times. Anyway, great news for shoemoney

07-25-2007, 04:47 AM	#6 (permalink)
productionhead Hard Body LLC Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 1,560 iTrader: 4 / 83%	so is $1m a month auctionad's cuts or is that the total amount the users are generating? if so auctionads itself is not profiting, the affiliates and ebay are so it might seem more of something ebay would pick up to include into their own program, who knows. shopping.com now if they can buy this 25k+ affiliates and 300m imp/day would be huge for them and definitly profitable in the long run

07-25-2007, 08:49 AM	#7 (permalink)
krazyjosh5 theres GOLD in dem tubes! Join Date: May 2007 Posts: 1,020 iTrader: 3 / 100%	I dont understand why ebay would want to buy it? Wouldnt it be cheaper for them to just allow the affiliate program to run and generate more business for them? If they do buy it and end up just absorbing it into their current system (or even relaunching their affiliate system, maybe), that might open the way for a copycat AuctionAds to fill its place.

07-25-2007, 09:02 AM	#8 (permalink)
bgmacaw Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 94 iTrader: 0 / 0%	As long as it's not Chitika. They would probably screw it up and do stuff like kick everyone who doesn't have a single site with a million hits a day out of the program.

07-25-2007, 11:15 AM	#12 (permalink)
gage Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2006 Posts: 15 iTrader: 0 / 0%	From Dillsmack: Jon, you are a moron.

07-25-2007, 11:30 AM	#13 (permalink)
lucab Senior Member Join Date: Jan 2007 Posts: 685 iTrader: 1 / 100%	o i c

07-25-2007, 12:20 PM	#14 (permalink)
EasyClickTravel Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 34 iTrader: 0 / 0%	Yep, you can see this one coming a mile away.

07-26-2007, 10:19 AM	#20 (permalink)
natekapi Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: South Beach Posts: 458 iTrader: 2 / 100%	Isn't AuctionAds partially funded or partially owned by the company behind Text Link Ads? Why wouldn't they just buy it or give them some more cash for more servers? I'm not accusing, but I'm wondering if this could just be linkbait?

07-26-2007, 05:49 PM	#23 (permalink)
cc23 Member Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 38 iTrader: 0 / 0%	Talk about a quick flip..... but i am not surprised...its business.

07-27-2007, 12:45 AM	#24 (permalink)
cashflowrusty Senior Member Join Date: Mar 2007 Posts: 420 iTrader: 0 / 0%	In the last NetIncome (not the new ShoeMoney Show) I believe Shoe said that they were extending the 100% payout indefinitely. The AA plan for making money off this deal was to hit that top tier, and then negotiate a special tier with eBay and take the difference (special tier - top tier = AA $$). That way they could still offer 100% payouts, and still make money. That is just what I get from the WMR show(s)...

07-27-2007, 07:03 PM	#25 (permalink)
TripleFiveSoul Junior Member Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 25 iTrader: 0 / 0%	SOLD! Check out TechCrunch Solid Info Jon

07-27-2007, 10:02 PM	#28 (permalink)
georgiecasey Banned Join Date: Jul 2007 Posts: 19 iTrader: 0 / 0%	wow, insider information here, this place isn't full of egotistical 14 year olds like i thought. fair play to shoe, everything he touches turns to gold.

07-28-2007, 06:50 AM	#30 (permalink)
Drake Senior Member Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 1,661 iTrader: 5 / 100%	Ok Jon I thought it sounded real when I heard that podcast and now it is very real. <formal apology> You were right and this was a total scoop I didnt see anywhere else. And the buyer was one of the companies on your list. News Exclusive on WF! </formal apology>

07-28-2007, 07:28 PM	#32 (permalink)
natekapi Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: South Beach Posts: 458 iTrader: 2 / 100%	So did anyone hear what the final sale price was? I really can't believe Shoe let it go so early. I'm a little surprised he didn't really build it up to like 50,000 or 100,000 publishers and sell then.

07-29-2007, 06:19 PM	#34 (permalink)
natekapi Senior Member Join Date: Dec 2006 Location: South Beach Posts: 458 iTrader: 2 / 100%	Yeah but it sounded like Jon had the inside scoop

08-14-2007, 12:19 PM	#35 (permalink)
Webferret Banned Join Date: Jun 2007 Posts: 1,262 iTrader: 0 / 0%	They got $8 mill for it, about enuff 2 pay off the Jerk

08-14-2007, 04:24 PM	#36 (permalink)
josefromsf Banned Join Date: Aug 2007 Posts: 2 iTrader: 0 / 0%	$8 mill ... yeah right ... for a company with a lot of technical problems and user complaints (see forum posts) at the time of sale not to mention NO profit and less than a year of operation ... $8 mill my ass more like $800k which was so low he asked patrick to keep his mouth shut about it

08-15-2007, 04:03 PM	#38 (permalink)
Xrproto Waste of e-space Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 1,876 iTrader: 4 / 100%	Well considering this: "Media Whiz how they were going to be a minority stake holder in AuctionAds and provide customer support and the mass payment knowledge. We structured it so that we both owned 50% each of the company that owned the majority of AuctionAds." That could mean shoe and pickle (sp?) at least owned 25.5% of the company each. So together they would have at least owned 51% of the company while Cheese Whiz owned at the most 49%. Considering Cheese Whiz was involved pretty much from the start they had inside knowledge of everything or one would think so since they owned a slice of the cheese already. My guess is they both walked away with a nice chunk of cheese from Cheese Whiz. Speaking of which, ritz crackers + pickles + cheese whiz = yummy! Ranking for cheese whiz! __________________ I can assure you I am as insane as the next man.

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