I Used The Blaze Ad Network 2 Times – I Am Extremely Disappointed

The WordPress Blaze Ad Network Advertising Feature Sucks

*NOTE* Please read to the bottom as there is newly updated data to my finding that you will want to read.

So last week the site owner had us put a bunch of posts in private mode, because of stupid people. Anyway, as I was scouring through all the posts dating back to last summer I noticed something different in the admin section of the active posts page. I’ve just noticed it now and apparently it was just implemented back in January.

I don’t recall it being there that long, I swear I just noticed this extra link on every post in the Admin section called ‘Blaze’ and I thought it was a plugin that I never installed. It just appeared out of nowhere.

OK, I’m curious now. What is WordPress Blaze Ad Network? I need to know, so I clicked it and got this splash screen.

So I gave it a try

I created two campaigns both paying $10 each for two days of advertising. $5/day minimum. My goal was to generate some traffic to my site using specific posts that I believed would draw in the Gardening crowds. And hopefully would have found my tips and suggestions useful, but also hoped it would generate a few Amazon sales for us also. Was I happy with the results that I got back? HECK, NO!

Below is a screen grab of the first campaign. I got just over 2.7K impressions and only *5 clicks. This is from almost 2 full days, despite what the screenshot says. Technically there were about 2 hours left to that campaign totaling 2 full days. But did I ACTUALLY get 5 clicks?

The statistics according to them said I got 5 clicks, but MY stats would say otherwise. According to Jetpack stats, yesterday I only had 1 view total, and a big fat 0 today.

I think I got ripped off! Even if I did get 5 actual visits, I still think that is a lot to pay. $10 for 5 clicks is not worth it at all, especially when I didn’t actually even get those 5 that they claim I did.

My second campaign is still running until tomorrow, but the first day for that one only has 800 impressions and ZERO clicks as of writing this post. I’m not hopeful that it will fair any better. As far as I’m concerned, I just threw away $20 on a broken system that reports false stats.

!! UPDATE !!:

OK, I figured out why Jetpack reports 1 view and Blaze reports 5 clicks. That’s because 4 of those clicks reported by Blaze are from me!! I clicked on the ad 4 times by accident because of the page shift and the glitch with the expanding window not opening up right away and I ended up clicking on the ad when it opened where I was clicking to expand the window.

And since Jetpack doesn’t count my page views because I’m logged into the WP Admin, my page views don’t get counted in the Jetpack stats. So the one-page view there may or may not have come from the Blaze Ad that I paid $10 for. If I don’t get any more clicks, by the end of the day tomorrow, I would have paid $20 for 1 click. That’s pretty pathetic.

UPDATE 2

OK, so both campaigns have been completed.

1st campaign ended with 3,463 impressions for $10 over two days with a total of 3 clicks. (I subtracted the 4 I clicked myself.) Jetpack only recorded 1-page hit over those 2 days, and I cannot confirm if it was actually through the Blaze Ad.

2nd campaign ended with 3,650 impressions for $10 over two days and 9 clicks, but Jetpack stats recorded only 2-page hits during those two days, and I cannot confirm if they were actually through the Blaze Ad.

Both of these campaigns were of two separate posts with Amazon links and in total 2 affiliate links were clicked on but were not a sale.

The stats that Blaze reported don’t even come close to the stats Jetpack reported. I have a suspicion that Blaze isn’t completely honest/accurate about their stats.

Conclusion…

Will I ever use Blaze Ad Network for future advertising? My answer is a hard pass. NO! I might try Google Ads instead and see how that goes. Maybe a future post on how well that goes.

We don’t want to spend a lot of cash out of pocket right now because the site barely makes anything because of the infancy stage it’s currently in at the moment. This $20 expense was just a test, and we’re glad we didn’t put $100 down. We might have actually gotten those 5 clicks, but 5 clicks for $100 is insane.

Has anyone tried Blaze and gotten better results? Is Google Ads any better? Post your answers in the comments below, we would really like to know those answers.