Interview with Jim Kukral from ScratchBack

I was lucky enough to get a chance to interview Jim Kukral this week about his new advertising system, Scratchback. Scratchback Beta was launched 3 weeks ago to a select group of bloggers. In very simple terms, signing up to Scratchback allows you to put a TopList widget on your blog. You can sell 5,10,15 or 20 text links in this widget and you can set the weekly price for a link to be displayed in your Top List (or TopSpot as they call it).

If you are looking to compare it to another advertising network then the closest system I think there is to this is Text Link Ads. However, there are 2 major differences. First of all, the list is displayed via javascript therefore you do not run the risk of being penalized by Google for manipulating PageRank (Google’s words, not mine). Secondly, Scratchback pays you 90% of the ad revenue you generate. This is a very generous cut in my opinion particularly when you consider TLA only gives you 50%.

The Interview (questions in bold) :

First of all, I would like to thank you for taking the time to take part in this interview

Scratchback Beta has been online for just over 3 weeks now. Are you happy with the progress the site has made in this short space of time?

No problem, glad to do it. Yes, we’re very happy with the beta progress. Without any marketing budget, we’ve signed up over 600 users already, and growing every day,but probably the best part is that we’re working out the minor bugs in the system on display issues and other minor stuff like that. You know, stuff that isn’t mission critical system stuff, but more “how it looks” stuff.

A few months ago BlogRush exploded onto the scene trying to make an impression with bloggers. BlogRush is an ad/banner serving network whereas ScratchBack is a system which allows bloggers to sell text and image links on their blogs. Other than the fact that both use widgets to display ads, I don’t think it’s fair to compare Scratchback to BlogRush as they serve a different purpose.

Were you keen to avoid the mistakes Blog Rush made at launch when you were developing Scratchback?

Well, you’re right, we both use widgets, but Scratchback isn’t Blogrush. Blogrush gives you the promise of a “flood of traffic”, which from what I can tell isn’t really delivering on that promise? Scratchback doesn’t promise that. The reason we didn’t do a huge launch on Scratchback was because we wanted to roll it out and work out the kinks and get feedback from the users on how we could improve it, rather than just jumping in with a flawed product that doesn’t deliver on its promises.

ScratchBack is currently in Beta mode. Have you set a date for the site to go live officially?

No official date yet, but probably going to be close to the first of the
year. Don’t hold us to that though

Google recently punished a lot of websites for selling text links by reducing their PageRank by 1 or 2 points (this happened to 3 or 4 sites I personally own). Since the scratchback widget is published using javascript, bloggers do not have to worry about their site being punished by Google for selling links.

How big a role will Google’s recent clampdown on text link seller’s play in the success of Scratchback?

Interestingly enough, the decision to go nofollow for us was done months and months before the pagerank penalties for text links happened. It was a mere coincidence that those changes came shortly before our beta launch. I have to say it worked out for us, the timing I mean.

The reason we decided to go nofollow as because we wanted to build a system that wasn’t about “passing Google juice”, but more about helping bloggers earn a few tips and helping their readers be able to “give back” to them in a fun way, and get something in return. It’s a win/win for everyone!

Like all good ideas the Scratchback concept seems very straight forward, however there are few things in particular which I love about Scratchback and a few things that I think could be improved and I would like to address these in my next few questions

Shortly after launch you increased the commissions from 50% to 90% of revenue from ad sales. My main gripe with Text Link Ads was that a 50% cut was way too high for any ad network to take. Will the 90% commissions remain after the site leaves beta mode?

We moved to the 90% payout for beta just to get things going. We’ve stated in our blog that after beta we’ll move to a more fair cut, probably closer to what a system like Blogads uses. In the end, we want to provide a fair and fun solution for everyone.

I believe that the free custom widget design offer you have just now is excellent and will help bloggers increase click thru’s by blending the widget in with the rest of their site (you can see our custom widget in our sidebar). Do you plan on offering more design personalisation options in the future for Scratchback users?

So far we’ve done over 100 custom designs, and wow, are we backed up on doing more of them. Our team has been doing them as fast as we can, so yeah, we think that our users like it to. Particularly, we’re seeing that with custom designs that the tips are flowing more and more. Keep them coming!

Mark Wielgus from 45n5.com reviewed Scratchback in late October and suggested that he would like to be able to change the unsold links to
affiliate links or something similar. Is this something that you would consider adding to the Scratchback system?

Alternatively, I believe it would be good to have the option to reduce the number of unsold links in our widgets. As it stands just now, a new widget which is set to list 20 links will have links which say ‘Get In My Top Spots’ until they are sold. Perhaps the number of ‘Get In My Top Spots’ could be reduced to 1 or 2. This would be my preference as in my opinion
unsold ads can reflect badly on a site and I can always list affiliate ads myself elsewhere on my blog

We’re building a huge list of improvements for version 2.0, and having the ability to change your unsold tip links is one of those features we plan on putting in. For now though, all you have to do is make your widget the minimum $1.00 and go ahead and buy your own links Not an elegant solution, but easy enough to do. Then just bump up the cost on the widget if you wish.

The reason we show all the unsold links is for the reader to be able to identify that there are spots available. If you don’t want to show a bunch of unsold topspots, just buy your own as I mentioned above, or do a better job of promoting them. Shawn Collins over at the Affiliate Tip blog does an amazing job of promoting his topspot widget with use of video even. Check
it out here. He’s one of our tip tip getters, having sold out of his 10 spots in the first day.

Above : An example of the Scratchback Dashboard

I think it would be beneficial for both publishers and advertisers to know how well their widgets are convertising. Do you plan on adding traffic tracking to the widget in the future?

That’s a feature that we’d like to add, sure. The reason we didn’t put it in the beta was because it would have delayed the launch. But yes, that’s something we’re planning on putting in down the road. But in all honestly, the best way to tell if it’s working is to simply login and see how many tips you’ve gotten.

Currently, advertisers need to go through the publishers blog to advertise on their widget. Do you think a marketplace or directory which lists publishers by genre would make it easier for advertisers to find suitable websites to advertise on?

Yes! A marketplace is coming soon. It with either be a user generated marketplace, or maybe we’ll partner with an existing directory out there. If you know of anyone who wants to discuss a partnership, please send them our way. But we agree that it would be good to have a marketplace. This is probably one of the first things that will happen in beta.

From reading the posts in the official Scratchback blog it’s clear that you are very responsive to suggestions and feedback from users. How important do you think Scratchback users are to the future of the site?

As I said earlier, we launched softly because we realize that our user feedback is the #1 most important thing to creating a truly valuable and long-term product that solves problems. So we encourage all of our users to give us feedback, to which we personally respond to as fast as we can. I think we’ve responded to about 1,000 emails so far already, or more.

All in all, I am quite impressed with Scratchback and I hope it’s something that catches on (What can I say, 90% is sweet!!). What are your plans for Scratchback in the next year?

Thanks, we like it too. The plan is to improve it, over and over based upon our users feedback. The way we look at it is there are 60 million bloggers out there. 99.9% of them are what we call “low traffic” bloggers, probably generating a few hundred visitors a week or less. These bloggers don’t have a way to monetize right now. They can’t sell CPM ads because they don’t have enough impressions. They can’t use Adsense because they’re generating a few pennies per day. And on and on. Scratchback is really a
long-tail solution, made for all bloggers and website publishers.

Last but not least, I would like to thank you for taking part in this interview and I wish you all the best with Scratchback in the future?

Thanks Kevin, and we appreciate your questions and the work you do on your excellent blog. Keep it up, we’re reading!

Related Links :

• Scratchback Home Page
• Examples of custom widget designs
• The Scratchback Blog