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My Initial Thoughts On New Post Level Ads Service

May 2nd, 2007 • Related • Filed Under

I’ve just sold my first Post Level Ad, which is the new advertising service from Text Link Ads. It sold for the grand sum of $5, which meant I made $2.5. It was a for a pretty insignificant post, so I don’t mind.

I think that Text Link Ads are right to start selling Post Level Ads, which will allow advertisers to better target their link purchases, which will hopefully allow them to generate traffic, but I think that Text Link Ads need to improve the publisher support for this to really work effectively.

Below are some of the changes I would like to see made which I think will make the Post Level Ad service much better for publishers:

Allow publishers to set prices - at the moment publishers have no control, which could result in highly trafficked posts going at too low a rate
In the Approve/Deny system allow publishers to see the actual price that the advertiser has agreed to paid, which isn’t currently displayed to help them decide whether or not to accept the ad (this applies to TLA links as well)
Make it easier for publishers to better manage which posts are available for links e.g.
- Group the posts by those that have been included and those that haven’t rather than in my case having to scroll through hundreds of links to find unticked posts
- Allow publishers to choose whether to include all posts automatically e.g. if you write a new post it’s not automatically included. At the moment you have to scroll though all the links to find the new post and manually add it. If you post everyday you’ll have to repeat this daily
Paginate the number of posts to make it easier to manage
Show the number of impressions that each post receives to help publishers and advertisers assess the value of links

Do you have any thoughts on the new Post Level Ad system so far? Are you selling them, or would you consider buying them in order to get targeted traffic?

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About the Author

Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University, and currently runs the Portal and online operations for one of the largest ISPs in the UK. He also writes for Windows 7 News.

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There Are 10 Responses So Far. »

#1

Comment by Dan and Jennifer on 2 May 2007:

Hey Everton,

The ability for publishers to set prices is really important - I know from our OpenAds that links right below the post content (i.e. where these will be) have the highest clickthrough of anything on the site.

So to feel that it’s a worthwhile deal, I’d like to be able to set our price there. We’d determine these prices based on what we make from the affiliate links in that region.

Great suggestions, you might email the good folks at TLA your thoughts - I’m sure they’re keeping a keen eye on the early adopter feedback.

Have an awesome day!
Dan
#2

Comment by Mike on 2 May 2007:

I’ve just had a look around the TLA site and can’t find specific instructions on Post Level Ads. Is it as simple as amending your single.php file with the TLA php code and wording it however you want the ad to appear?

Also how do you specify which pages they appear on or do the advertisers pick which page they appear on?
#3

Comment by Dan and Jennifer on 2 May 2007:

@ Mike, great question…

@ Everton - What DID you do to your single.php for those ads to actually show?

The only instructions I found from TLA was to download their updated Wordpress plugin - so I did that, now I have a little star by our entry which says we support post-level ads.

When i first installed the TLA plugin a few months ago, I had to ammend my sidebar.php to add the call to their plugin. But I don’t see any such instructions here - and in fact the TLA support folks told me the ads would auto-matgically show up.

Don’t know about you, but I like to keep firm control over what goes on with my templates and rendering mechanism in Wordpress.

Thanks!
Dan
#4

Comment by Onboardcircuits on 2 May 2007:

Congrats. I have yet to put text links on my blog but now I will
#5

Comment by Everton on 2 May 2007:

Just install the new TLA plugin and it takes care of everything.
#6

Comment by Alan on 3 May 2007:

This new service is a good idea. It benefits to both buyers and sellers. Buyers can increase their link popularity with lower cost whereas sellers earn more money from the sites and blog by selling more text links.
#7

Comment by Mike on 3 May 2007:

Everton - I’ve got the new TLA plugin (3.0.1) and installed it so the ads appear in my sidebar as before. Are you saying I don’t need to alter the single.php file? That doesn’t make sense to me. How can the page call the ads?

Confused
#8

Comment by Everton on 3 May 2007:

The plugin inserts the code itself into the relevant posts. Many plugins do similar things e.g. the quicktags above this field are inserted automatically without the site author having to touch template files
#9

Comment by Mike on 3 May 2007:

Cool bananas. Thanks for the reply. I see that TLA are offering up post level ads on a few of my sites so keeping my fingers crossed!

Thanks again for your help.
#10

Comment by Make A Guitar on 6 May 2007:

I think the post level ads are a great idea! For advertisers, it makes sense to be able to target readers at this level. For publishers, its yet another opportunity to monetize in a painless manner. Good stuff and looking forward to it.