Saturday, April 5, 2008

Project Wonderful - "Everybody Wins!"


Advertising is the key to success. However, if you are a small business owner, advertising may not be in your budget. TabiHats falls into that category.

TabiHats was born out of my love for crafting. I began creating knit accessories for children purely for the love of creating things. However, my home began to overflow with hats, mittens, and other finished projects. Weekly, I look to begin or finish a new project - I may have found a new yarn, experienced a stressful week, or simply need a creative outlet. Whatever the reason, out pops a new hat.

A fellow Associated Content writer revealed to me the world of Etsy. Excitedly, after opening my Etsy shop - TabiHats, it dawned on me that the only way to sell my knit products was to somehow get noticed in the sea on Online sellers. Thus, I am back to my initial statement... Advertising. How does a crafter with no budget afford advertising to increase sales? My love for writing inspired me to create a blog... TabiHats named after my Etsy shop. Which by the way is free advertising. But simply having a blog was not enough.

Recently, I stumbled across Project Wonderful. A place for bloggers and website owners to purchase and sell advertising space. Hhhmmmm....

Upon my visit to the Project Wonderful website, "About Us" page, I was struck by the first line... "Online advertising kind of sucks. We'll be the first to admit it." This opinion is based upon the fact that typically online publishers and advertisers maintain little control over what ads either appear on their site or on what sites ads are posted. Just think about Google Adsense, every blogger worldwide, is familiar with this advertising program. The program attempts to match advertising with the site content - great idea. Keep in mind, however, that as the website or blog owner you have no control.

Additionally, Project Wonderful quickly reflects that as either the publisher or the advertiser there is no knowledge as to the intent of the ad network or whether the space is even a good deal. Project Wonderful purports to change all of that. According to their website, "Project Wonderful reinvents online advertising. We've made click fraud impossible. We give advertisers the power to choose what sites their ads appear on - and publishers the freedom to choose what ads show up on their sites."

Furthermore, Project Wonderful even claims to have made the entire online advertising experience transparent, trustworthy, and fair - as well as more profitable, for everyone involved! With this in mind, I created a Project Wonderful Account. I decided to sell Ad Space on my blog for three reasons:
  1. I wanted to see how their Project Wonderful program works.
  2. Increase blog readership by capturing an audience I would not have otherwise captured.
  3. Monetize this blog to support my crafting habit.

I will admit, the site is very user friendly and the staff is very responsive. Signing up is one process and the decision to either sell ad space or purchase ad space is another process - albeit both are easy. Now that my account is set up, I eagerly await my first ad purchase.

Of course I hope you purchase ad space, but I also encourage you to try out Project Wonderful for yourself. Let me know your experience.

8 comments:

Sheikasaurus Rex said...

I use project wonderful and I love it! I have 3 ad spaces on my blog that start $.01 a day...it quickly adds up and I use the revenue from it to advertise on other project wonderful websites. Win/Win in my opinion. :) Let us know how it goes for you!

Nicole Solo said...

I use and love project wonderful :) My spots are only .05 cents a day but I went on vacation for two weeks and my views went down too far since I hadn't posted! Oops, time to work back up and get some more people to bid :) Good luck with your ad spaces!

njm said...

Deabusamor,

Glad to hear that it worked well for you. I am glad that I finally decided to try it out.

I'll definitely let you know how it goes.

njm said...

Nicole Solo,

WOW! So there is an obvious connection between posting, viewing, and bidding. Glad to know!

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

I tried adsense and it did nothing for me. I have been reading about project wonderful but have yet to delve in. Maybe someday. Your post is helpful!

woolies said...

I offer project wonderful ads on my blog as well. did you do a minimum of 30 cents per day? Mine have no minimum, so they go up and down, depending on bidding.

njm said...

Helen,

To date, I have not considered Adsense. Maybe I will research to see what they have to offer in comparison to Project Wonderful. Sorry to hear it did not work out so well for you.

njm said...

Woolies,

Yes, I did a daily minimum. I erroneously assumed that you had to set a miminum price. Thanks for the information.