One way to find ad boxes to bid on is to surf other blogs and look for PW ad boxes. If they have one or more with a link inviting you to advertise on that site, just click that link to get to their bidding page. From there you can see their traffic stats and ad pricing over the last month, maybe learn a little about that site and their policies regarding advertising they allow on their site, and a link to see all their other ad boxes.
The other way is to go to the PW website and do a search based on your preferred ad box size, how much traffic the site gets, where the traffic comes from, etc. There are a lot of online comix sites, but you can tailor your search by keyword, so if you want to advertise on sites within a specific topic you can search for that. Just like any internet search, if you use general keywords you will have a long list of ad boxes to browse through, and if you use more specific keywords you will see ad boxes that are more in line with your desired niche. From there, you can sort your results based on the ad box price, amount of traffic, alphabetically, etc.
You may find it handy to use both techniques to find ad boxes.
Some things I recommend doing, especially if you're starting out are:
1. Bid $0 or $.01 on as many boxes as you can, even if the current bid is a few cents. When the higher priced bids expire, your ad will be shown in the space until the bidding price goes up again. It's a great way to take advantage of supply and demand pricing and get your ad seen on boxes you may otherwise not have budgeted for.
2. Set up an advertising campaign. You set the parameters, such as the level of traffic to the site, what country a certain % of traffic comes from, keywords used to describe the sites, price range of the ad boxes, etc. This will get your ads to a broad range of sites automatically and you don't have to babysit your ad to keep placing it here and there. This is quite simple to do, as PW walks you through the entire process. It's all point and click.
3. Send a message to the ad box owners where you are having success. Thank them for the opportunity to advertise on their site, point out what you like about their site, and let them know how you have benefited from their ad box. If you have ad boxes on your site, invite them to check it out and consider placing a bid on your ad boxes. It's kind of an "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" approach, but joint efforts in advertising is almost always a win-win. If this first step develops into a nice conversation, you could blog about it and let them know about the blog post. They, in turn, may mention your blog post, driving more (free) traffic to your site.
4. Do you have a special sale or event going on? Make up an ad specifically to draw people to that event. Set up a campaign to have PW automatically bid on sites that compliment your event, and schedule your ad campaign to end just before your event ends. An example is the giveaway I have going on through August 20. I set up a campaign with the ad shown below. The ad linked to my blog post and the ads will disappear about 15 minutes before the giveaway ends.
Remember, the key to great advertising is patience and consistency. Once you place your ads, give it a few days, weeks, or maybe even a few months to really see how your efforts are paying off.
Coming up next:
Setting up ad boxes on your sites (or, making money with PW)
A quick and easy way to make PW ads (like the giveway one shown above)
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Hi Pam! I'm ready to give PW a valient effort! I'm wondering how long you have used them and if you feel they've brought you sales. I've been using Entrecard for about a month, have seen an increase in traffic but no direct sales. I LOVE your key words at the end of the post...patience and consistency. I've got consistency down but boy are my patience in dire need of a tune-up!
ReplyDeleteWith gratitude, Laurie B.
Good question.
ReplyDeleteI've been using PW since early May 2008, and while I haven't seen any sales from it, it has been a good advertising vehicle to bring me traffic.
I should clarify about the sales, so this doesn't scare you or anyone off. The concept of Pass It On Plates is so new that I don't expect to be making tons of online sales yet. Face to face is another story, because I can demo the plates, but it will take a while before I start seeing many online sales. I'm mainly using PW and other advertising efforts to introduce people to the concept and warm them up to the idea. To that end, I think I've had some good success with PW.
I'm adding an extra post here today with my stats on an advertising campaign I'm currently running so you can see what kind of results I'm getting. Hopefully that will give you some idea what to expect.