I’ve experimented with Entrecard during August to determine my return on investment for the time I spent doing Entrecard.

I first varied the number of cards that I dropped and then dropped consistently more than I did in July. The top graph shows my August results. The graph beneath it shows my July results. I explained how I did the graphs in July.

At first glance you may not notice the difference. But if you look at the numbers on the left side of the graphs, you’ll see that the August graph goes to 350, while the July graph just goes to 100. The one thing that is consistent between the two graphs is the colors:

Blue = Cards dropped on me
Red = Cards that I dropped
Yellow = Ad clicks
Green = Organic clicks.

August Entrecard Graph

July Entrecard Graph

Return On Investment From
Entrecard Organic Clicks

Both graphs illustrate that the number of drops I received remained substantially lower than the number that I dropped. In fact the organic clicks remained quite consistent throughout August. The low was 14 and the high was 53, for a range of 39 drops. The average was 34.5.

Yet my drops varied considerably. The low was 0, and the high was 300, for a range of 300. I averaged dropping on 111.3 blogs per day. So the average that I dropped was more than three times the average of organic clicks that I received.

Top Ten Entrecard Droppers

I am grateful to my top ten droppers, who dropped considerably more than my top ten for July.

People You Need to Know 29
HRM Business Practices and Notes 23
Turnip of Power 23
Software Outsourcing to China 23
The Success 23
Cheap Keywords 21
CDubMarketing 20
Bizphere 20
Gain, Make, Earn Money Online 19
Search Engine Panel 19

Return On Investment From Entrecard
Drops With Ad Clicks

Ad clicks did improve the total drops slightly. With them, the low was 20 and the high was 109 for a range of 89. The average increased to 53.3. The total drops reached 1,652. Even with the ad clicks, I dropped an average of more than twice the drops that I received.

Top Ten Entrecard Blogs For Clicks

Listed below are the ten blogs providing the most clicks and the best return on investments by credits for clicks:

Return On Investment
From Entrecard Time Invested

One statistic that I kept for August that I didn’t keep for July was the amount of time that I spent on Entrecard. I did forget to record my time on three days. Still I logged 1,759 minutes or almost 30 hours dropping cards. So each drop that I got on my blog cost me more than a minute of my time.

Return On Investment
From Entrecard Comments

I also left 32 comments on Entrecard blogs during the month. I received only 7 comments from Entrecard blogs, and two of them were from the same blog. So I left an average of 4.6 comments for everyone that I got back.

My blog provides dofollow for comments. In case you don’t know, that means that if you make a relevant comment on one of my blog posts, you will get a linkback.

Return On Investment
From Entrecard: Analysis

With these statistics, I have to seriously doubt the effectiveness of the time that I’m spending on Entrecard. If you haven’t kept similar statistics for what you are giving to other Entrecard blogs in return for what you are receiving, you may want to consider doing so.

After all Entrecard is marketing for your site. As business people, we should always calculate the return on investment for marketing activities.

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Posted 9-2-08:
Interpreting Entrecard Statistics
August 2008