BlogBank Blog

Earlier today we processed about half of the checks scheduled for release from our recent round of payments. The checks were deposited to the bank accounts of their respective users. If you’re wondering why there’s a mention of “bank accounts,” we’ve actually used it as a payment option for our previous batches when possible; bank deposits are definitely much safer and faster than sending the check through regular mail or an express courier anyway.

Since a good number of those scheduled to receive a check are first timers, many of you still had incomplete details. Instead of waiting for everyone, we decided to deposit the ones that were ready and will just be sending the rest in another batch of deposits.

If you have a check due, please sign in to your account and fill out the details. And to make things just a bit easier for us, send an email to team(at)blogbank.com.ph with the following details: your username, the email address you used for your BlogBank account, your complete name, and your bank details. For your bank details, be sure to include the account name if it’s not the same as your full name, along with the account number and type (savings or current/checking). And if your bank’s quite picky with the details like your account’s branch, include them too so we can make sure we get you your payment as soon as possible.

If you’ve already received the deposit and noticed that the amount is not exactly the same as that listed in the publisher app, note that there is a tax deduction as mandated by law. The deduction will likely be smaller than we’ve all expected and we will give you more details on this soon.

Hey guys! I know I promised you last week an update regarding payments for unpaid campaigns this year, so here it is!

Topping our previous record of roughly 420,000 pesos, this batch of payments grows 25% and comes out to around 540,000 pesos. This time 9 campaigns pushed 53 bloggers to breach the 2,000–peso minimum for having a check issued.

Since I just finished updating the system with all the data and calculations, we can only start next week for all the verification and other required documentation to produce your checks. The team will be working hard to have them released at the soonest time possible, so we all have a bit more for our holiday shopping. We should have an update on your checks in the coming days.

Do sign in to your account to see if you should be expecting a check soon, and while you’re at it, be sure to complete the requirements we’ve mentioned before so your payment is released with no trouble.

Hi Guys! It’s been eons since we’ve posted an update here on this blog so I’d just like to let you know that we’re processing the payments data for this year’s campaigns as I write this. Sometime next week, we will be updating the system for your blogs’ summary of campaigns listing down the unpaid amounts for each campaign. More on this round of payments in about a week’s time!

Keep on blogging!

Ana Santos wrote a piece on us for The Manila Times. She interviewed us a few weeks ago over bottomless ice cream at Rockwell:

“You don’t have to be a ‘famous’ blogger to enlist. We believe in the power of ‘word-of-mouth’ and blogs can easily develop a following when they start.

Enjoy the holy week!

Here are some tips for inputting BlogBank codes onto your blog.

1. When you login to your account, you will see 3 ad codes – our advise is to install all three for maximum earnings. Whenever we have a campaign, we can automatically activate any of these codes to appear on your blog. If there is no campaign going on, we don’t display anything — we believe in only showing ads when we are paying you.

2. Remember that the BlogBank ads are based on CPM so traffic matters. Our suggestion is to place the ads on your blog’s sidebar for maximum CPM. You can also choose to place the code on single posts (i.e two on the sidebar, one on single post) — it’s really up to you.

3. Although we do not pay via clicks we DO track click through data. This data is used to present to clients which allows them to see which blogs are more effective for campaings. Please put your BlogBank ads in visible areas of your blog: on the upper 50% of your template or in prominent areas in your single post, but never below your template. We disable ads that are placed in the bottom of the page. We also disable ad codes that are “spammed” several times inside a blog.

Like what Jayvee mentioned in our previous post, we have been busy processing our data to produce our earnings for previous campaigns. Earlier today, we finally have the earnings for 11 of our past campaigns and you can view it under the earnings tab for your account.

This is probably the biggest payment we will be releasing as one batch, the 11 ad campaigns helping 50 of our bloggers to reach the 2,000 peso mark required for the issuance of checks. As it stands now, we are set to release a gross amount around 420,000 pesos as payments for these bloggers.

Before we actually write your checks though, we need to account for taxes as required by the law. I must admit, this isn’t the fun part of the process. Depending on your financial status, each blogger/publisher will be deducted a 10% or 15% tax. If you are earning below 720,000 pesos a year, you qualify for the much lower 10% tax. You just need to send us an affidavit stating such and we’ll only deduct (and remit) 10%. We do have an affidavit template and we’ll be putting this up under your account; download, print and sign, have it notarized and send us the original copy.

If you’d rather not apply for the lower tax or if you’re earning more than 720k, let us know right away and we’ll have your check ready at the soonest time possible.

Now why are you still reading this? Go lookup your account and see if you’ve reached 2,000 pesos. You just might have reached it this time. And don’t forget to invite your friends to apply for the BlogBank.

In 2008, we issued four payments — about one every quarter. 2008 was a good year for us as we gave away a little bit more than P200,000.00 worth of checks for bloggers. We ran 20 ad campaigns.

It is now 2009, and as we prepare for our first year anniversary celebration, we are also going to issue our first batch of checks for 2009 (And yes, blog more often!).

A lot have asked how we do things —

“When do we get our checks?”

“When can we see live earnings reports?”

“is there a set payment cycle for ads served?”

To answer the first question, I must answer the third question first — when we started BlogBank, we set our sights on doing payments monthly. It turned out to be a logistical nightmare to issue checks — plus not everyone was making the P2,000.00 cut for a check to be released (that answers the first question). So we decided to do payments at least quarterly. We deposit your money to the bank accounts after deducting 10% or 15% tax (we are a local company and we pay our taxes!). If by some reason you didn’t enter your bank information in your profile page, we hunt you down through text (or usually in a blog event since we all know one another) and ask for your bank details. So please, fill in your bank details in your profile page!!!

As for the second question, this is the next thing we are working on. Markku has all your data safe and sound — it’s just not showing up live. What I love about Markku’s work is that whatever he does scales pretty well. When we launched, our first task at hand was eliminating spammed pageviews (!!!). After that was done, we enhanced our reporting tool for advertisers. Now we’re working on automated payments. A payment report in your account is generated when we issue checks. That’s how it works as of now, btu we’re improving that practice to make things more informative.

Over and above these, we were never lacking in terms of serving our clients (and especially many thanks to you guys, my blogger friends!!!!). It is comforting to me that BlogBank grows at a steady pace, and we’re introducing small features here and there, most of which you may not notice, but are important to the overall system of how we work. One thing remains consistent, and those are the clients that we service. We want to be fair to them and fair to you, and that is no easy task. Thank you for being the most patient people on earth!

To those who got tickets to the Eraserheads concert and Red Jumpsuit Apparatus because of us, I hope you all had fun!!!!

P.S. If you really do need the money and have not made your PHP 2K mark, you can always ask and we can do something about it.

We’ve been getting queries from some of our publishers/bloggers regarding the status of payments for campaigns concluded in the last few months that I think we should blog about it now. As of writing, we sadly are not yet done producing the data for all campaigns after May 2008.

First of all, please accept our apologies for being unable to send out your payments. We are very sad about this, too.

Primarily, we are having trouble with some possible taxation issues as we are effectively passing money from one company to another entity. BlogBank being a Filipino company, we have specific laws that categorize transactions we do as taxable, and this may include the payments we pass on to our bloggers. I wish I could explain things further but I’m seriously not qualified and just as clueless; as bloggers ourselves we would’ve wanted earnings be passed on to the publishers before taxes. This would’ve resulted in a similar setup to AdSense publishers where they (we) receive payments as is and settle our respective taxes on our own. Under Philippine laws though, we cannot apply a similar solution.

As a result of the legal barriers we have now, we are unable to compute the earnings for all blogs running BlogBank ads. Typically, earnings are computed by a simple formula that pegs traffic data against the total money set aside for the blogs of a given campaign. Unfortunately, the said “total money” is no longer a fixed value as it may be subject to certain taxes and similar things. We have been consulting with experts in this matter to make sure every action we take is fair and legal.

Be assured that we do have the capacity to pay and checks will be sent out as soon as we can. We are working hard to iron out the kinks to avoid possible legal troubles in the future. More updates on these matters soon.

This is a rather late update and some of you may have already found it, but there is a new tab in our publisher app that reports the earnings for your sites for previously concluded campaigns. I’m sure all our publishers have been waiting for this.

As of now, the tool reports earnings up to the end of May. We are still processing the stats for campaigns that conclude after that date and will make them available at the soonest time we can.

Go on, check your earnings now.

Trinoma will be holding an exclusive sale for BPI cardholders from September 11 to 14 2008. All you need to do is flash any BPI card to enter the Trinoma Activity Center. By “BPI card” this includes BPI credit cards, ATM and debit cards. If you aren’t a BPI card holder, you can still enter after signing up an info sheet for them at the BPI booth in the Activity Center.

The following brands are participating in the sale:

Aerosoles
Anne Klein
Anne Klein Watches
Bass
Beauty Bar
Beka
Calvin Klein Jeans
Calvin Klein Underwear
Charriol
Citre Shine
Conair
Debenhams
Denman
Dep
Designer Fragrances
DKNY Jeans
Ecco
Fruits and Passion
Gap
Hawaiian Tropic
Jack Nicklaus
Kenneth Cole
Lacoste
Liz Claiborne
Marks & Spencer
Max Factor
Mexx
Nine West
Oka B
Polo Ralph Lauren
Princess
Rowenta
Springfield
Tefal
Zero Frizz

The BlogBank loves sales And we’re supporting Trinoma’s efforts to spread the word across all the blogs in the network!