
AdBrite will cease operations on Feb 1, 2013 - JimWestergren
http://view.email.adbrite.com/?j=fec31d7271640c78&m=fe911570706d057a72&ls=fe2912787463037d721670&l=ff001670726501&s=fe5b17707c6d067e771c&jb=ffcf14&ju=fe6315737763007c7217&r=0
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arbuge
With all due respect I'm not surprised. My media buying agency had tried
buying traffic from them about a year ago and the quality of the traffic we
got was shockingly bad. Support was not at all helpful. We were left thinking
that they either had no measures to combat click fraud in place, or that they
had no problem with selling that kind of traffic.

Common problem unfortunately in the media buying business, but not a
foundation to build a long-lasting company on for sure. Word gets around.

~~~
mikecolella
I'm absolutely amazed that they have stayed in business this long. My media
buying agency has also tested their network several times over the years. They
have absolutely junk traffic, and I had come to the same conclusion that is
has to be largely fraud clicks.

~~~
photorized
40M in funding makes it easier to stay in business.

------
CoffeeDregs
This thread suggests that it's probably fun to say: good riddance to the
fuckers! (And you _might_ say "good riddance, you fucker" if you were on
FuckedCompany...)

I've met pud and talked with him in an entrepreneurial setup, and I was truly
impressed by his early-stage insight. Seriously, he's smart and savvy, so
there, but for the grace of God, go I, etc. Rather than piling-on in a
FuckedCompany-like sense, I think it's more interesting to think about the
trajectory of a company founded by a bright and very in-tune entrepreneur.

Looking for lessons:

    
    
      * What do you think went wrong?
      * What are artifacts of the failure you can enumerate?
      * What would you have done differently?
      * How did their competitors excel?

~~~
SyneRyder
I think the obvious reason is marketshare. Most websites were running Google
AdSense, so AdBrite didn't have as large a catalog of websites to advertise
on. I remember browsing the websites on there in my niche, and the majority of
AdBrite publishers I saw were splogs with scraped content.

Sometimes AdBrite wasn't serving ideal ads to publishers. I remember one site
that had acai berry & weight loss ads, on a page specifically about not
letting mass media dictate your self-esteem about your appearance. I guess
AdBrite didn't have the critical mass of advertisers for better ad
selection/targeting.

On the other hand, as an advertiser I liked how AdBrite was setup. I could
target a specific website & specify exactly where on the page of that site I
wanted my ads to appear. My most successful display ad campaign was on AdBrite
(though I'm something of an advertising newbie). For that reason I'll be sad
to see AdBrite go.

~~~
tucson
> "I could target a specific website & specify exactly where on the page of
> that site I wanted my ads to appear."

You can also do that with Adwords.

------
obsession
After being banned from Google Adsense (I still don't know the reason why) I
have used Adbrite as an alternative. It's no surprise they are shutting down.
The ads they deliver are borderline suspicious and they don't make publishers
any money at all. I have earned $0.07 with Adbrite whereas I could have earned
$60 in the same time frame with Google Adsense.

Does anyone know good alternatives?

~~~
strozykowski
I'm in the same boat (AdSense ban and all). I would be interested to hear if
anyone has experience with some alternatives.

~~~
Turing_Machine
I haven't been banned, but AdSense is incompatible with my preferred mobile
framework (jQuery Mobile) without some ugly (and possibly TOS-violating)
hacks. Other mobile frameworks are in the same boat.

I'd also be interested in alternatives (ideally, Google would fix the AdSense
code so it works, but people have been asking for that for a while).

------
revelation
I've unsubscribed you from their mailing list. You are welcome ;)

~~~
heartbreak
You can update his profile without signing in.

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rrival
There's a joke in here about adbrite ending up on fuckedcompany.com

~~~
brianbreslin
what is pud up to these days?

~~~
pud
He's reading this thread & posting here once it's bonked off the HN front
page. Is that bad HN etiquette?

~~~
brianbreslin
not at all, one of the reasons I love HN is because you replied. same reason I
love Quora.

------
byoung2
They had over $40 million in investment capital according to Crunchbase
(<http://www.crunchbase.com/company/adbrite>), with $5 million of it within
the last 8 months.

------
relix
No regret. I tried out AdBrite once and when I wanted to cash out the $130 I
had earned back when I was a student, they told me they couldn't pay me out
because they hadn't received the money yet, and that was that. Nothing I could
do. This was 6 months after the pageviews in question ran, so it's not like
they didn't have time.

------
AndrewWarner
Why do you guys think they failed? What are the decisions that got them here?

------
lmm
Nice as it is to see the advertising industry in trouble, this will put even
more control into the hands of google.

~~~
KeyBoardG
Why is it nice to see the advertising industry in trouble? Those are people
with jobs and families to take care of.

~~~
slig
You missed the obvious sarcasm as in "even more control into the hands of
google" is not a good thing.

~~~
beering
I think you missed the "Nice as it is to ...," which suggests it's not
sarcasm.

~~~
slig
You're correct. Should've paid more attention.

------
relaunched
Best of luck to the adbrite team. Unfortunately, this happens. Also, if any
adbrite developers are interested in coming to Minneapolis, we'll expedite
interviews :-)

Contact info in my profile.

~~~
seanconaty
All 26 of them.

~~~
relaunched
Sure. Why not?

------
redegg
AdBrite was a great network. Their payout rates were by far the best of any
network I've tried.

Full-page ads were a killer revenue source, I would get 4x the amount I would
have gotten on Adsense.

------
aresant
I cant believe im the first commentor to call FuckedCompany on this, I am
clearly getting old.

------
xSwag
I tried out Adbrite last year for an ad placement at footer of one of my
websites because I couldn't put any more Adsense on the page, it wasn't too
bad but it was nothing compared to how much Adsense generated. It was still
better than Clicksor and Bidvertiser. The thing I didn't like with Adbrite was
that they had too many "spammy" advertisements.

<http://i.imgur.com/ZvN347V.png>

------
nivla
I received this email a few minutes back. It is sad to see this happening and
that too on such short notice. Used to use it along with Adsense, and it was
the only good alternative.

I am certainly going to miss the feature where they automatically swapped
their ad-code to any competitors if theirs din't cross the minimum CPC
threshold.

If I recall correctly, the CEO/Founder of Adbrite is a member of HN. Maybe he
can shed some light.

------
citricsquid
infos: [http://allthingsd.com/20130128/sales-talks-fell-through-
so-a...](http://allthingsd.com/20130128/sales-talks-fell-through-so-ad-
exchange-adbrite-shuts-down/)

    
    
        but sales talks “unfortunately fell through a couple weeks ago.”
    

I wonder how often this happens. Just this week another company (own3d.tv)
suffered the same fate.

~~~
JensenDied
Sometimes things don't pan out as well as all parties hope, and it flows
downhill.

I'd much rather see a company close up because they know they are no longer
sustainable than to try and extend beyond where they can pay the people that
are supporting them. ([http://www.destiny.gg/n/own3d-tv-a-beginners-guide-to-
being-...](http://www.destiny.gg/n/own3d-tv-a-beginners-guide-to-being-an-
asshole/))

------
useful
I had a top 3 site on adbrite and was making almost six figures per year
around 2004. I got banned without any warning. It was fun while it lasted.
Their whole system sucked. They banned me because they wanted me to charge
more. Their system allowed a huge backlog of ads that I had to display when my
site got popular and prevented me charging more.

------
DigitalSea
I tried AdBrite once, that was the only time I used them. The traffic they
sent was junk and I am almost sure they had no click-fraud detection in place
so most of the clicks were fraudulent. Good on them for staying in business
this long though, surprised they lasted all this time.

------
kanzure
Why aren't they selling off the campaigns, users, or other assets? Just a
complete shutdown?

~~~
wilfra
I always wonder this whenever companies shut down. Somebody would surely be
willing to pay for all of their code, users etc. Why not let it live on and
see if somebody else could be a better steward?

I know I'd be willing to give it a shot...

~~~
oijaf888
I assume their liabilities greatly outstrip the value of the code/etc that
they could get. Possibly in bankruptcy some of the creditors will sell of
parts of the company but its unlikely to be very public.

------
sinni800
A friend of mine would be receiving $5500 from them in ads by Feb 1. He
suspects that he is never going to get it.

What do you think?

------
justindocanto
So I'm assuming their adult ad company, Black Label Ads, is going to go under
too?

------
late2part
Well, that's something awful to see a fu __ed company go under.

------
ttar
C'mon people! Let's give these guys a break. They had a vision for something
great and they tried their best to make it happen. Not every business
succeeds, in fact almost many fail. They had the guts, the vision and the
nerve to be great.

