Tech Companies Turn Widgets Into Ads

Posted on May 17, 2007

It has been expected in the tech community that eventually retailers and marketers would have to pay to get bloggers and website owners to put more commerical and marketing-focused widgets on their sites. Google plans to make this a reality by including Google Gadget offerings in its AdWords/AdSense program.

Google is not alone. Tumri with its recent infusion of $6.5 million is also in the business of widget advertising. Technorati also recently asked an interesting question related to widget advertising in a survey. Niall Kennedy writes that widget construction and directory sites like Widgetbox and Clearspring also have plans for widget advertising. Mashable has a post about a widget affiliate advertising program called Starnum. And a TechCrunch post mentions a few others including Mpire, Boobox, AuctionAds and Ebay. Amazon.com also has a number of embeddable ad tools that Amazon affiliates can place on blog and websites.

Google won't be the only player in widget advertising but with its huge AdSense network it will be the biggest player. To get the best placement on blogs widget advertisers may have to offer a combination of cost per click, CPM and referrals. A widget advertiser only offering referral commissions probably won't get as good placement as a widget advertiser offering a high CPM rate or a combination of CPC, CPM and referall fees.