Thad Has a Thought

(Yes, I am Thad)

I’ve avoided posting this because I’m afraid it might set off a kerfluffle.

But ostrich mode is boring, so.

It has always been true that a lens published mid-month will probably not earn until the next month, because however strong its launch, its average lensrank for all the days it didn’t exist should be estimated as…what…? two million?  Lower than any lens that had a single visitor However, I think it was once possible to get a payout for a lens’ first month of existence, if it did phenomenally well.

However, if I’m understanding Fluffanutta right — and he knows Squidoo’s guts as well as anybody — a lens now earns nothing from the Ad Pool during its first partial month of existence, full stop. (It is eligible for affiliate sales through modules like Amazon from day one.)

This raises a question.

Do any of the advertisements on the lens pay Squidoo for that month?

If so, it’s to Squidoo’s benefit to keep push, push, pushing us to make more lenses, because part of the financial success rests on that revenue they’re not splitting with the lensmaster directly.

I say directly, because of course, Squidoo takes all the revenue from the Ad Pool and redistributes it using the Tier system. So while that lens may not receive an Ad Pool payout from its first partial month of existence, all lenses that receive payouts from the Ad Pool are receiving a small portion of this “baby lens” income.

But it does mean that some lenses that earn something, earn nothing, if you see what I mean. Assuming that those lenses really are earning something for their first partial month. Do Adsense and the other advertisers prorate for that partial month? Is that amount so paltry that it amounts to practically zero?  I don’t know.

But it may mean that Squidoo has an additional motivation for encouraging us to make lots of lenses, as opposed to improving the performance of existing lenses. Of course, lots of lenses serve us too: the more “fish hooks” we have in the sea, the more traffic we draw in, and all else (sales, clickthroughs, visits to the blog or business we’re promoting, etc) derives from traffic.

So the sooner we get the fish hooks in the water the better, right? Except… there’s one thing.

The Squidoo community is incredibly generous about stars, likes, and blessings when you first announce or publish a new lens. But they wear off very fast. So it’s better to launch a lens near the end of the month, giving it just a few days to collect that initial burst of social and community love, before it slips back down. Otherwise, we miss part of the benefit of that “social fertilizer” which only comes at the beginning of a lens’ career.

Exception: If it’s a lens that will drive sales or affiliate commissions, get it out as quickly as possible. The need to get it indexed and earning outweighs the pittance it might make from the Ad Pool for that first month.