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Thursday, April 2, 2009

Shop Talk Friday: Project Wonderful

Kristen, from FirebirdHouse.etsy.com, has some tips and tricks for getting your advertising feet wet.

I want to Advertise. Now what?

When it comes to deciding where and how you promote/market your shop, do you find yourself lost in a maze of blogs, sites, and complicated information?

If so, take heart. Deciding where to put your promotional efforts, ads, and budget really only requires some good information, a little common sense, and occasional trial and error.

Decisions, Decisions

The Internet can be a lot like a circus, where there is something going on anywhere you look, and all the activities look equally promising and fun. If you have ever been to a three-ring circus, however, and had so much trouble deciding which ring to watch that you ended up only getting bits and pieces of all three, you know that trying to do it all just means you end up scattered.

So let’s start with a good place to begin advertising on the Internet:


Project Wonderful
(PW) is an unusual and inventive way of providing ad space to people for what the demand cost actually is, by setting up an auction. If there is no demand or it is small, your cost is equally small, while ads on pages with much larger page views and visitors will cost you more, but only up to what you are willing to spend. This is a great way to spend what you can AND maximize the effectiveness of a smaller budget. They provide excellent stats that are easy to understand, will walk you through the process, and have a lot of help available. It’s a great way to get your feet wet.

Here’s how it works:

You, as the advertiser, bid on advertising slots on websites, which you can choose and target to your needs and to your customer base. If you’re the highest bidder, your ad will appear until someone outbids you. It’s that simple. Your ads can appear immediately, or you can schedule them to appear on a specific date. You set the amount by telling PW how much you want to pay per day to appear on that site.

For example, if you say you want to pay a $1.00 a day for a week, your total cost will be $7.00 max. If someone bids higher, you have the option to raise your amount per day and bid again. It’s all within your control. Since you pay by the day and not per click, you don’t have to worry about fake clicks and fraud.

PW’s powerful search engine can help you find the perfect match for reaching your customers, and you can also set up Ad Alerts, which can tell you immediately if a space you want to advertise on becomes available. They provide extensive data, allow you to compare, see bidding trends for sites, and more. All you need to make really good decisions is right there and easy to read.

You can also set up Google Analytics to track your PW ads by configuring a correct URL that Analytics will read.

Remember: You maximize your advertising dollars by placing ads on sites which reach the maximum number of potential customers for your shop for the least amount of money.

Other good sources of information include:
So go over to the Project Wonderful website, read through the ins and outs, then dive in. Got questions? Let us know here on the blog and we’ll be glad to help!

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Great post and thank you for including my blog.

tinybird said...

I've got project wonderful ads for free on my blog right now. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how it works. Good post!

Jill said...

great post!

if you're looking for a way to make an ad (including animated/rotating ones) check out this post
http://www.livngoodjewelry.com/2009/03/tools-for-handmade-artistbusiness.html

Jus Shar Designs said...

Good info here!

I had a little trouble with PW at first. I eventually got the hang of it though. Google Analytics is a whole other issue for me. :-)

1) Placing the ad space code on my blog wouldn't work as text, until someone at PW told be to use the widget option instead. It worked.

2) The first ad I ever placed on someone's blog, I did as an ad. I got constant emails. The way to stop it...run your ad as a campaign instead of an ad. Bye, bye emails.

3) I started my ad spaces on my blog at $0, but I guess it's gone as high as $.02 from what I've seen. I'm not working that hard at it, and it's still making my some change.

Ambient Lights said...

Thank You Kristin, you're awesome!! :D

Jus Shar Designs, what the dif (other then emails) for a campaign vs ad setting?

Paw and Claw Designs said...

I'm such a HUGE fan of project wonderful! I've found so many great shops that advertise on my blog.

Great crash course in it's use!

Ange said...

I'm new to project wonderful, but have found it has resulted in hits to my etsy store... no sales yet from PW, but i'll get there :)

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