Just Launched: AuctionAds Ebay Advertising Widget

Here’s another tool that launches today for bloggers and other website owners looking for different ways to monetize their site: AuctionAds. Like booBox and other services, website publishers create an account, add descriptive tags relevant to their content, and place an embed code on their site. The AuctionAds widget will then show eBay auctions relevant to the tags. See their demo page for more information.

AuctionAds says they’ll pass 100% of eBay affiliate fees (paid on new eBay user registrations and a percentage of sales) on to publishers for an interim period. Since eBay pays sliding fees based on the total business generated by the affiliate (which in this case is AuctionAds), eventually AuctionAds will be able to skim some fees off the top while still promising to pay sites at least as much as they’d earn as a direct affiliate. See this page for current eBay affiliate fees.

It’s a good idea, although it isn’t clear if site owners would be better off with AuctionAds v. using the screen real estate for Google ads or other advertisements. I’m sure some sites will be testing this and will publicize their results (we’re considering it for CrunchGear and MobileCrunch).

The service is majority owned by ShoeMoney Media, which recently waged a PR battle against MyBlogLog. MediaWhiz is also a partial owner (disclosure: TextLinkAds, which is owned by MediaWhiz, is a TechCrunch Sponsor).