“don’t have any idea what I am doing. I tried a CPC today and I am not sure if I did it right. I copied the cost and posted it on my twitter page. I guess what I need is a tutorial. Is there somewhere I can find this information or can you help me? I appreciate any help you can offer.”

I’m going to assume that this person mean “code” instead of “cost”. So let’s start from the beginning. If you recall from my post “How Do I Make Money From SocialSpark” post on July 4th I talked about the different ways in which a user can make money with SocialSpark. One such was is through CPC or (Cost Per Click) opportunities. Usually the cost per click is anywhere from .11 a click to .68 a click. Here is what I said about Cost Per Click in that post.

“… the Cost Per Click opportunities give you various Ad units to use. However with Cost Per Click you are paid when someone clicks the link that you post through your blog, Twitter, or Facebook. You can do a pretty decent amount of money by posting a few links in various places.”

How do you do this right?

I find CPC to be one of the easiest ways of making a little money on SocialSpark because of the simplicity of what your readers need to do. All they need to do is click. You have various ways to get them to do this. Let’s Take a Look at one of the CPC opps from SeaWorld. This one has been pretty good to me without me doing much at all. That is a great thing about CPC opps because you can be active or passive.

Here is the typical CPC Opp screen.

CPC Opp Screen

Let’s break this down to the components. First is the offer detail area. This is where the advertiser tells you about the campaign and offers you ideas about why readers would like to click the links or visual ad units.

CPC Description

The next section is the Additional Info section. This is where you see what you will be paid per click, the landing page, what you have made so far, how many people have seen your links and so on. Take a look and I’ll break that down too.

CPC Additional Info

If we go from left to right you can see first Conversion info. This tells the blogger the name of the campaign, how much each click is worth and gives a link to the landing page. As we move across the image we see the Opportunity Stats section. This section tells you the start and stop dates of the campaign. The stop date is subject to change. A couple reasons for the stop date to change would be if the campaign runs out of money or if the campaign goals are achieved. Below that there may be additional requirements, for instance this opp is for English only blogs. Then there are other requirements like RealRank and blogger location. Advertisers can use blogger demographics to help target the area where the blogger’s readers are most likely from.

The section at the far right is where you see your conversion stats. As you can see I’ve made little under $5.00 in this campaign so far. Below that I can see how many people have viewed the links I have posted and how many people have actually clicked. Below that are invalid clicks. SocialSpark uses Click Forensics to determine if clicks are valid or invalid. This was a bit dodgey early on and many clicks were seen as invalid especially on Twitter. This has since become much better and more accurate. Below the invalid clicks is the area of Pending. These are clicks that will most likely convert to accurate clicks.

So, how do you get the links so people can start clicking? That is where the next section, Ad Units comes in. The Ad Units section is where you can see the types of valid links that the advertiser has made available. In this case SeaWorld has decided to use a Text Link, Twitter, Facebook, A Leaderboard (Great for RSS Feed), and a Larger Ad Unit box. Also at the bottom is the Disclosure Badge. Take a look at this close up. Notice that the Leaderboard is what has generated me the most clicks so far.

CPC Ad Units

With the Text Link there are two ways to use Text Link in your posts. You would click the Get Code button on the far right and a screen will pop up.

SocialSpark Text Link - Get Code

You can copy and paste the code with the view tracking embedded in it like this Visit Busch Gardens or Aquatic free?. This is good because it gives you the wording that the advertiser wants to use. The other option is to grab the Link Only code and attach that to keywords that you would use instead. For example if I wanted to say Buy a SeaWorld Ticket Get a Free Busch Gardens or Aquatica Ticket Free!

Did you notice that the first link looks a little odd. There is space all around it. I cannot figure out if I need to set my CSS to make that look normal or if that is because of the tracking image. I generally don’t take option one because of that very design issue. If anyone can help me make those look better I’d certainly use the link with view tracking embedded more often.

The next type of Ad Unit for this campaign is the Twitter One. When you click the Get Code button a screen pops up with the code for you to copy and paste into your tweet.

SocialSpark Get Code for Twitter Link

As you can see there is a very important message to this Get Code. Each tweet must have the #spon tag that discloses that the tweet is a sponsored tweet. Blogging or Tweeting or Facebooking without disclosure is against the SocialSpark Code of Ethics.

My personal take is don’t forget to disclose on every thing. If you do not disclose then you are deceiving your audience and making SocialSpark look bad. SocialSpark is for the ethical blogger please be aware of how you are a representative of SocialSpark in your blogging, tweet, etc.

So what does a tweet look like with the code and #spon tag in it.

Example of a Sponsored Tweet

So you can see that I put my own personal spin on the campaign and I made sure to put the #spon hashtag plus the link for the Get Code box. This sort of campaign is very similar to the one that you can do for Facebook. You can click the Get Code button for a Facebook link and a box will pop up with the correct link code.

SocialSpark Get Code for Facebook Link

You take that link and then post it into facebook. You will be presented with a catchpa (sp) to determine that you are not a robot. From there you have write your post and with facebook you have more space to get your message across. Depending upon the link you might even be able to choose a thumbnail. Remember that #spon tag in Facebook as well. Here is an example of adding a sponsored link into Facebook. I had to use another campaign, this one for the Rock Band Alaska.

Posting a Sponsored Link on Facebook

Other Ad Units are more visual and they can be many different sizes, for example if you see the top right hand side of my blog you will see some 125 X 125 ads, these are everywhere and they could be CPC, CPA, or Affiliate links. In this campaign that I’m talking about with SeaWorld they have decided to use the Leaderboard size which, as I stated earlier is great for your RSS feed. I use the Plug in RSS Footer. This lets me swap out different campaigns at the bottom of my feed. I make sure that I disclose on this as well. I state “Do you Like BenSpark.com? Help support it by supporting my sponsors.” This gets a few clicks here and there and for this particular SeaWorld opp it has done very, very overall. Here is an example of of my RSS Feed Footer.

My RSS Feed Footer

And to get the code for each of these visual ad units once again you click the Get Code button on the right hand side. Each visual unit will tell you the dimensions of the image so you know where to post it on your blog. Just copying and pasting this code into your blog posts is very easy. Here is an example of what the copy code pop up looks like.

SocialSpark Ad Unit Codes

And this is an example of one of the visual Ad Units for the SeaWorld & Busch Gardens & Aquatica CPC campaign.

Probably the most important thing with each of these campaigns is disclosure and if you are writing a blog post about a particular campaign like I am right now you are going to use a SocialSpark Disclosure Badge. I have one at the bottom of this post. You can easily chose the color of the badge that you’d like to use. Here is an example of what the code box for that looks like. See how you can select the color from the drop down menu and then copy the code.

Social Spark Disclosure Badge Code

So that is it, that is how to use the CPC opportunity on SocialSpark. This of course is a simple way to use the campaigns. “I’m Not A Famous Blogger” IZEA Insider Crew Member DragonBlogger has done a pretty successful CPC campaign that he details in his post Most Successful SocialSpark CPC To Date. He takes this instructional post and goes way beyond in how to effectively make money from a CPC campaign.

Do you Like BenSpark.com? Help support it by supporting my sponsors.

Copyright (c) 2009 BenSpark.com

What the Heck is a CPC Opp?

A While ago I bought 5 bags of M&M’s from Target and sent away for a free Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen Dispenser. It arrived the other day. It features the Red M&M as Optimus Prime. It is a pretty decent size too. It works well with the rest of my M&M’s and Transformers items on my desk at work. They are still going to be available until August 31st and while supplies last.

You may have noticed that I’m having a little contest for IZEAFest. Okay, I’m having the Ultimate IZEAFest 2009 Prize Pack Contest! You only have until August 11th to enter your video into the contest for a fantastic Prize Package!

Do you Like BenSpark.com? Help support it by supporting my sponsors.

Copyright (c) 2009 BenSpark.com

M&M’s Prime

I mentioned Busch Gardens, check out this latest announcement for details.

Yes, you get to go to not 1 but 2 Awesome Theme Parks all for the price of 1 IZEAFest ticket! Busch Gardens Howl-O-Scream, Here We Come!

What’s that you say? You don’t have an IZEAFest 2009 ticket? Never Fear!

BenSpark.com along with IZEA, MarketLeverage, XShot Pix, ZINK Imaging and Martha Decker are Here to Help!

I’ve teamed up with these great sponsors to give some lucky winners amazing prizes. One lucky winner is going to hang with me at IZEAFest 2009 and go on a very special outing and that lucky person will also receive the Ultimate IZEAFest 2009 Grand Prize Pack! But never fear I have prizes for two runner ups as well.

How to Enter for the Ultimate IZEAFest 2009 Prize Pack?

In order to qualify for the Ultimate IZEAFest 2009 Prize Pack you must do all of the following:

• Create a 60 second video (no less thank 45 seconds and no more than 90 seconds) of yourself answering these questions:

• “Why do I Want to Hang with BenSpark at IZEAFest 2009?”
• “How will IZEAFest 2009 Change My Life?”
• “What Am I Most Looking Forward to at IZEAFEst 2009?”

• Videos should be tagged with izeafest, benspark.com and marketleverage
• Post videos to Youtube, or Vimeo or Viddler or all of them.
• Write a Blog Post elaborating on the questions and embed your video. Take a look at my 10 Great Reasons to Go to IZEAFest 2009! & 10 Items to Bring With You to IZEAFest 2009 posts. Read them and add an 11th reason for both in your post.
• Posts should be tagged with izeafest, benspark.com and marketleverage.
• Your post should link back to the contest post and encourage others to enter. It’d also be nice also to link to the contest sponsors for their great contributions.
• Leave comments with links to your video(s) (if posted on multiple sites) and your blog post.

*Videos and blog posts will be judged by a Panel of Bloggers (I’ll announce those folks in a later post) and the winning blogger will be selected on Tuesday August 11th and announced the following Monday August 17th on MarketLeverage TV. The winner’s video will air on the show as well!

How to Enter the for the Runner Up Prize Packs.

So, if you are just looking for IZEAFest 2009 tickets and maybe a few extras then here are ways to enter. These options below do not qualify you for the ultimate prize pack. These qualify you only for the Runner Up Prize Packs.

• 2 entries – Write a Blog post after you take a look at my 10 Great Reasons to Go to IZEAFest 2009! & 10 Items to Bring With You to IZEAFest 2009 posts. Read them and add an 11th reason for both in you post. Posts should be tagged with izeafest, benspark.com, marketleverage.
  (Leave a comment with a link to your post.)
• 1 entry each – Follow @BenSpark, @MarketLeverage, @MlDina, @Xshot, @IZEAFest and @MarDeck on twitter.
  (Leave a comment for each one you follow)
• 1 entry each – Tweet about the contest – include the hashtag #UltimateIZEAFest.
  (You can send up to 6 tweets 1 separate one with each of the people above. I.E. Tweet: @MarDeck I’m gonna win that case of BluFrog in the #UltimateIZEAFest Contest – http://urlbrief.com/8e4d3a)No more than one a day, please.)
  (Leave a comment with the direct url to each tweet.)
• 1 entry – Stumble this post
  (Leave a comment with your stumble name)
• 1 entry – Subscribe to Benspark.com either by RSS or e-mail
  (Leave a comment and let me know you subscribed.)

What is so Ultimate about this Prize Pack anyway?

The Ultimate IZEAFest 2009 Prize Pack includes: An IZEAFest 2009 pass for the entire event including the Kickoff Party at Busch Gardens Tampa on Thursday October 1, 2009 & Blogger Takeover day at SeaWorld on Sunday October 4, 2009. This pass also gets you into all the parties, the swag and the speaker sessions. Did I forget to mention IZEAHunt you get to participate in that too. This pass alone is one highly sought after prize!

But that is not all: The Ultimate IZEAFest 2009 Prize Pack ALSO includes:

• An XShot from XShotpix.com.
• A Polaroid Pogo and ZINK Paper from ZINK Imaging
• A Swag bag from MarketLeverage
• A BenSpark.com Swag pack from Me
• A Flip Mino HD from MarketLeverage TV
• A Case of BluFrog Wildly Healthy Energy Drink from Martha Decker.
• An Asus Eee PC 1000HA from MarketLeverage
• And there might be more prizes added as we get closer to the contest end date!

What about the Runner Up Prize Packs?

There will be two Runner Up Prize Packs.

• The Runner Up IZEAFest 2009 Prize Packs includes: An IZEAFest 2009 pass for the entire event including the Kickoff Party at Busch Gardens Tampa on Thursday October 1, 2009 & Blogger Takeover day at SeaWorld on Sunday October 4, 2009. This pass also gets you into all the parties, the swag and the speaker sessions. Did I forget to mention IZEAHunt you get to participate in that too. This pass alone is one highly sought after prize!
• An XShot from XShotpix.com.
• Some BenSpark.com Swag

Official Rules

• Ultimate Prize Pack and Runner Up winners will receive their prizes at IZEAFest 2009 (except the registration code for IZEAFest 2009 which obviously will be provided ahead of time). The winners must attend IZEAFest 2009 to receive the prizes. No prizes will be mailed to winners. If you win and do not go you forfeit your prizes.
• Winners must agree to be photographed with their winnings for a follow up post about the contest after IZEAFest 2009.
• All links need to use the rel=”no-follow” tags. We wouldn’t want to piss of Google.
• Ultimate IZEAFest 2009 Prize Pack winner will win based on their video and blog post and will be determined by a panel of judges, who will be announced in a followup blog post. The Ultimate IZEAFest 2009 Prize Pack winner will be announced on MarketLeverage.tv. They will also be notified via e-mail. Winner will have 48 hours to contact me before another winner is chosen.
• Runner up winners will be randomly selected using Random.org from all valid entries and announced on MarketLeverage.tv. They will also be notified via e-mail. Winner will have 48 hours to contact me before another winner is chosen.
• You may enter for the Ultimate Grand Prize Pack and the Runner Up Prize Pack but you may only win one. I.E. if you win the Ultimate Prize you cannot be selected for the Runner Up Prize.
• The Contest is open from July 17, 2009 12:00pm EST to August 11, 2009 12:00pm EST.
• I reserve the right to final say in any dispute. By participating you agree to these terms.

I want to thank all of my sponsors for donations of such great prizes. Special Thanks goes to Ted Murphy & Ashley Edwards of IZEA for the IZEAFest tickets and believing in me enough to be an IZEA Insider, Dina Ricobonno, Michael Daoud, ZINK Imaging & Martha Decker.

I am still looking for a couple more things for the Ultimate Prize Pack – see specifically #’s 8, 6, 5 & 3. If you are a company attending IZEAFest 2009 or another blogger who is interested in donating a $150 – $200 prize, your products or something else to the contest please use my contact form and talk to me.

Do you Like BenSpark.com? Help support it by supporting my sponsors.

Copyright (c) 2009 BenSpark.com

Ultimate IZEAFest 2009 Contest

A brand new Chipotle just opened and today they were giving away free burritos to everyone who came through the door. Allison, Eva and I went with our friends Michelle and her two little ones Nate and Audrey. I am very, very impressed by the precision hard work the Chipotle team did tonight. The line moved really quickly and people were in great spirits. I thought it would be tedious but it wasn’t. The only thing I don’t like about Chipotle and this is the protective parent in me, is the rivets in the walls stick out. Eva was playing and horsing around with Nate, he’s 4 and she adores him. She does everything he does and managed somehow to slide down the wall right where the rivets were. Luckily it didn’t break the skin but she does have a scratch. That is my only complaint. The food was very tasty.

After dinner we went over to ColdStone Creamery. Before we went in though we saw an Omaha Steak store. I had never been in the store before and I wanted to look around, well $108.00 later we walked out with two large bags of various frozen meats. I can’t wait to grill up some of the Franks on the grill this weekend and the burgers too. Dad, we have dinner for tomorrow night at least!

Coldstone was the usual deliciousness. I got sweet cream and chocolate with white choclate chips and Oreo. Allison got Founder’s Favorite. We sat by the pond and the three of us enjoyed the ice creams.

I am going to have a major annoucement tomorrow regarding IZEAFest, even bigger than the Kickoff Party at Busch Gardens on October 1st. Check out details on the post below!

Do you Like BenSpark.com? Help support it by supporting my sponsors.

Copyright (c) 2009 BenSpark.com

100% off at Chipotle

But that announcement is one that is going to make tomorrow’s announcement from me all that much great! Yes, tomorrow’s announcement is going to be awesome!

Do you Like BenSpark.com? Help support it by supporting my sponsors.

Copyright (c) 2009 BenSpark.com

Howl-O-Scream at Busch Gardens