Tuesday

Project Wonderful and Brokering Advertising

Project Wonderful is a resource that enables users to economically advertise on other project wonderful members blogs and websites. Project Wonderful is in essence a broker of advertising; keep in mind the word broker because I'm going to come back to this later.

When you sign up with Project Wonderful you begin by depositing money into an account so that you have funds to advertise with. Then you begin searching for blogs or websites that you think fit what you are trying to sell. Keep in mind that you don't have to advertise on sites that are similar to your market, the best practice is to find sites that are outside of your genre, but attract your potential buyers.

Advertising can cost nothing, pennies, or dollars per day. Obviously, you want to find the best places to advertise at the lowest cost. What you will be doing is actually bidding on an advertising position. If you look at the right column, of my blog and find, the four project wonderful ad spots, below that is the amount it currently costs to advertise. In my "bidding on my ads" queue on Project Wonderful are many more than four people vying for those ad spots. That is how the price to advertise is determined and the reason it fluctuates. Also, not all of those spots are going for that listed rate, some are less, but that is the amount to buy into my advertising space now.

When I place my advertising, I search out spaces that look like a fit for my product. Then I place my bidding range. I look at the advertisers stats and place my bid accordingly. I will start my bid at .00 up to what I deem reasonable. Here is the important part and where brokering comes into play. I always place my bid for a month or more. Usually three months. You may be saying, "well I can't afford that!" Well, you probably can. The reason is that your ad is not going to be up all of the time and you only pay for the space if it shows up that day.

Keep in mind that on the blog/website that you want to advertise on other ads are going to expire. When those ads expire and if your bid fits, you have the opportunity to get your ad on that space, at least until it is bumped by a higher bidder. It may also appear at the least cost that you bid. So you may be getting great exposure for almost nothing. If the advertiser has more than one ad space you should always click on each space for advertising potential. While the top or bottom space may seem to be a premium position, in this case it doesn't really matter. What you want is to get your ad up there at the least cost and most exposure. I believe on blogs as you are scrolling down, if that space catches your eye, you are going to look at all of the ads anyway and decide to click or not.

Brokering these ad spaces is a lot like the stock market. You want to buy in at the lowest price possible and get the most return on your investment. Putting your ad up for only a day or two generally means you are going to pay the highest price that you have bid. Putting your ad up over a period of a month or more, means that you will get more exposure for either a lower or equal cost. Just like in the stock market, you generally get a better return the longer you can leave your investment grow.

To recoup your costs you should also consider putting advertising on your own blog or website for people to purchase from you. I invested $25 into my Project Wonderful advertising account last March and have never had to add more funds. My account fluctuates between having $20 and $35 to spend, depending on the amount of advertising I am running and what I am earning. I always have advertising up and running. I truly believe that recognition of a brand is important. So, if you see my avatar in many different places you may at some point click and find out who is behind that avatar –which may in turn result in sales.

14 reviews:

FoundVintageStyle said...

Thank you soooo much for explaining it so that I think I kind of get it now! I am very impressed by your understanding of this...

Do you feel it has helped in your overall recognition/sales?

I should jump in too. one of these days...

Waterrose said...

Thank you. I do believe that it has helped. I think the more places people "see" you the more likely they are going to feel comfortable buying from you. That is also why I put my ad up for months on a blog. Generally people return and I think the more stable you appear the more comfortable people are with your product.

storybeader said...

great post! It's always hard to understand, all these companies vying for our business. And you've explained it well. Me? I placed my ads for a whole year, starting a 0-1¢ After a few months now, people are recognizing my name, and advertising on my blog!

Unknown said...

Great explaination, it makes me want to give it a try now. I love your blog. You are a good writer.

Anna said...

I started by only accepting ads and then once I reached $10, I started advertising on other blogs. This worked out best for me since I couldn't afford to even add cash in to start advertising in the beginning. I've placed a few ads and I still have over $11 in my account. I need to place more ads now, though.

Unknown said...

Hey there!

I'm kinda dropping by randomly (& kinda dropping by to hit you with my EC) to tell you about this new selling site I found. It's called ArtFire.com & you should check it out.

It's still really, really new (still in beta) but it's heading in a really good direction! They are already buying advertising online & in print magazines to bring in traffic to the site. (It's already got almost as much traffic as indiepublic.com)

It's got stats for shop views so you know where your customers are coming from! I know! Gasp! Faint! Right? hehe

& it's just $7 a month (for the first 5000 artists) to list & sell as much as you can FOREVER. $7 a month no matter what! I signed up on that alone! haha

Anyhoo, it is new so there aren't zillions of people using it (which is good & bad) but I thought you might want to take a look at it. With the ad campaign they are working on kicking in soon (or so they are saying), I think it's going to be a good place to start listing!

If you sign up, give me a yell & let me know what you think!

Always,
Amy

picciolo said...

thanks for such a brilliant explanation waterrose, a very helpful post
: )

Anonymous said...

Great explanation. You have a wonderful blog.

Will this be your first Arizona Christmas? Are you going to put lights on a cactus? :) Going on 30 years in AZ from MA. A belated - Welcome to you!

Cthings said...

Hey, thanks for sharing this! Done a great job of telling us about Project Wonderful! I have been looking at diffeent ways to advertise! Also like your chart.

Artifax said...

So *that's* how that works! Thanks so much for that great explanation! I had seen Project Wonderful mentioned in several places but had no idea how it worked.

Waterrose said...

Tialey...I've been here for 12 years. For the first three I had a difficult time coming to terms with decorated and lit cactus....but I'm just fine with it now. It was also strange to christmas shop in shorts,tshirt, and sandals...

Contrariwise said...

Thank you so much for this. I had never understood this before and your explanation is very clear.

I just signed up on Project Wonderful 2 days ago and haven't done anything with it yet. Your post will help me.

Anonymous said...

Great article, I use project wonderful for advertising too, but admittedly I need to spend a little more time seeking out good places to advertise.

Heather Leavers said...

for the first time I *think* I understand! Thank you.

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