1. It is Painful searching  for Advertisers.
2. Emailing potential advertisers.
3. Finding the right person who actually does the marketing.
4. Pitching them.
5. Putting together banner ad packages.
6. Sending out Insertion Orders.
7. Waiting for signed faxes.
8. Waiting on creative after deal is signed.
9. Getting banners from advertisers that are not up to your sites specs.
10. Getting banners that don’t even work.
11. Getting horrible banners that blink and flash.
12. Getting flash banners that don’t have a click URL in them.
13. Uploading banners to Ad servers.
14. Using ANY AD SERVER= Most Painful!
15. Dealing with cheezy sales reps.
16. Hiring sales reps.
17. Paying expense sales reps.
18. Invoicing for banner ads sold.
19. Trying to collect payments for ads sold.
20. Getting clients to pay for the 2nd month.
21. Making sure ads are renewed and still running.

Guess what?

End all this pain right now and sign up for AdvertiseSpace and automate your ad sales…

~ Chad

online advertising trends 2010

Millions of new pages of content are being created every day and the vast majority is created by the individual publisher, but the advertising inventory is growing at massive multiples to the actual demand. With this, publishers will need to find new ways to be found and advertisers will need to find innovative ways to get in front of this micro created content. Here are some online advertising trends for 2010.

1) Indy Publisher Advertising – Major advertisers are going to seek our smaller independent ‘voices’ in lieu of massive publishers to return to grass roots. This will be a major shift in 2010 as big percentages of ad dollars will shift to the little guy.

2) Smart phone Advertising – Advertising within other people apps. You can run standard banners within iphone apps and there are already a ton of iphone app ad networks. iphone is the clear choice right now, with Android a close 2nd and Blackberries’ a distant 3rd. AdMob help show everyone the potential value in this model with its acquisition by Google for 750 million.

3) Advertising Marketplaces – These directories, such as our own AdvertiseSpace marketplace, will sprout up out of need for advertisers to find grouped niches that meet their needs and don’t have the time to scour the entire web looking for great sites to market their products on.

4) Social Media Advertising – We saw the birth of Twitter Advertising in 09 with companies like Sponsored Tweets and Ad.ly. In 2010 expect to see tons more advertising in your twitter feeds. Facebook and MySpace advertising also grew in ‘09 with their self serve create your own banner, platforms and for this year expect more growth and hopefully some innovations with the tools.

5) Decline in Ad Networks – 2010 will be the year that publishers stand up and realize that Ad Networks having been taking advantages of them for far too long, with low fill rates, crappy ads and terrible payouts. Publishers will take control over their own inventory and demand higher rates.

6) Advertising Exchanges - There is tons of buzz lately about Exchanges, but they are not new, and some view as worse than general ad networks with a higher barrier to entry and most publishers fear them because they make inventory even more price sensitive. They are good for advertisers and publishers with billions of remnant inventory and nothing to lose. AdExchanger is a great blog to read more about these, but they are obviously a little biased.

7) Remnant Optimization - Publishers are going to demand more for their un-sold inventory and use more remnant inventory optimizing tools. These tools basically scroll through all the ad networks and find the highest paying banner for the open ad spot. 2 of the biggest ones are The Rubicon Project and Pubmatic.

8 ) Total Impact Measurements - Advertisers will continue to demand better brand engagement metrics besides the old standard impressions and clicks, measuring conversations and overall impact of advertising campaigns.

9) Application Advertising - Not advertising within an app, but actually building your own app as an advertising mechanism. Hey when someone is playing a game based on your brand, you can’t get more interactive than that? (Except actually using your real product

10) Demand Side Platforms – Everyone is also raving about DSP right now too, which is demand side platforms or even publishing. Some agencies are grouping together to have their own pool of ads to buy from. This is bad news for publishers. Basically it is media buyers saying, your content is crap and I think I could do better myself, or I just want to control the price market myself by creating my own exchange.

So, what do you see for online advertising trends in 2010?

Chad Randall, CEO

AdvertiseSpace.com

1. Searching the web to find great sites to advertise on.
2. Wandering all over the site looking for advertising information.
3. Searching a site looking for any contact information at all.
4. Emailing sites asking for rate cards.
5. Waiting for the sites to actually respond to your inquires.
6. Haggling over rates and prices, trying to get a better deal.
7. Waiting for package information.
8. Calculation CPM’s
9. Asking for more info, like traffic details.
10. Waiting for insertion orders.
11. Signing insertion orders
12. Faxing insertion orders.
13. Counter-signing insertion orders.
14. Going through a credit check. (Yes, some sites request a credit check!)
15. Sites not accepting PayPal or Credit card for payment.
16. Sending a physical check in the mail with a stamp.
17. Asking what banner specs they allow.
18. Sending in banners.
19. Waiting for banners to go live.
20. Trying to change up the creative, but no one responds.

And now the good news…you no longer need to deal with any of these pain points .  This blog post actually gave me  a headache writing it!

Sign up at AdvertiseSpace.com and fully automate the online advertising process.

So, I want to sell advertising on my site and I want to use AdvertiseSpace, so how do I qualify?

- Your site must  have  it’s own domain.  Get our own at Godaddy.com

- It should be at least 6 months old.

- The site should have a Google Page Rank of 4 or more.

- For blogs you need to have at least 20 posts.

~ Thanks & Keep on blogging!

8 ) Blogs are SUPER Viral: Traffic on blogs is super volatile and can go 5 fold over night with a really viral blog post, and if you are paying a flat monthly rate for your ad, you get tonnes of extra exposure for no extra money.

7) Good bang for your Buck: Most bloggers are part time and or just do it for a hobby, so any income is usually good income. You can get on some great blogs for as low as $50 or $100 a month. Try getting on Yahoo or MSN for $100. See if they return your email

6) Easy to get Started: Most medium sized blogs now have an ‘Advertise with Us’ section with simple pricing and some even have a click to buy option.  Sign up for our automated option coming in 2010…http://www.advertisespace.com

5) Blog readers are Power Internet users: Blog readers spend a tonne of time online, so if you are not marketing your product to them where they live, you are missing them completely. 

4) It elevates your products status: Let’s face it advertising says a lot about your product, and so does the medium by which you choose to promote it. Your product or service will seem a lot more cutting edge being promoted on blogs over the yellow pages.

3) Blogs tend to be read by other Bloggers: A high percentage of blog readers actually have their own blogs. This one leads into my next 2 points and the last one being the key reason for advertising on blogs.

2) Bloggers are Early Adopters: Bloggers and blog readers are much higher on average to test out new technologies than that average Internet reader.  The usage numbers are higher than the average Internet user and massive compared to the average TV viewer.

1) Bloggers are Very Influential: This is the big one. The powerful influencers are quickly shifting to the small voice. Bloggers are generating dedicated readers and followers that not only test out or buy a product that they recommend, but the readers too are blogging about it. It’s a waterfall of influence if even one prominent blogger likes your product. I Bloggers can make or break your product. Get in front of them early and let your product grow with them…

The End of Ad Networks  ~ http://www.advertisespace.com …Coming in 2010

Well it’s been 2 ½ years at b5media though fun times and rough times.  I’ve learned lots about blogging, how to make money online, the hard ways and more importantly the easy ways.   I’ve been to Gnomdex and SXSW, watched bloggers grow and some become internet celebs.  I’ve had the pleasure of working with some fantastic folks and some brilliant bloggers. 

I’ve always had the plan of starting my own company one day and working for myself and that time has finally come, so I decided to leave b5 and start down a new path.   I’m planning on taking a few months  of some much needed time off before I start my new venture in 2010, so I’ve been relaxing in cottage country, eating, drinking, fishing, canoeing, sleeping, reading, relaxing and generally having fun with my beautiful daughter, wonderful wife and some great friends.

Being fully un-plugged from all forms of technology for the past 2 weeks has done wonders, so much so that I’ve decided to take another week and hit the cottage for much of the same plus a little golf. I highly recommend a little un-plugged time to everyone. 

Some of the things I plan to do to in the next year to live my own internet lifestyle include:

Starting my own company, travelling to Portugal, France & Australia with my family, buying a new house and earning some money off my blogs and twitter…

Thanks to all the great friends who have reached out in support and for the job offers, I do appreciate them as well, but I’m not currently looking.

I’m happier than ever and I look forward the new adventure.

I wish b5media the best of luck in the future.

Warm regards,

Chad Randall

Blog Themes are great ones to promote in almost any niche, as a lot of your readers will be bloggers themselves and bloggers are always changing their themes.  If they purchase a theme, they will need hosting to go along with it.  And well twitter tools are just getting started.

Hummingbird 2 – This one is my personal ATM machine and my favorite one to promote.  Twitter tools are super popular now and products like this convert really well.  They have paid out over $70,000 in affiliate commissions so far and have only been around a few months. I’ve managed to hit the top referral percentage, and my blog has pretty low traffic.  (http://www.protwit.com )

Image what you could do with a medium sized blog?

WooThemes is a great one and actually the theme I use for this blog. (someone made money off me:)

StudioPress has awesome Wordpress themes and what we use for the b5media portal sites like http://www.bizzia.com

Affiliate Theme is a solid solution for anyone looking to create multiple pitch pages.  (This one is quite a narrow niche and won’t work well on all blogs, but I have a few referral fees from my site here)

Aweber is one of the absolute best email newsletter systems to use, the one I use,  a lot of big name bloggers also use it and other bloggers are starting to catch on.  Market it now before everyone uses it

GetResponse is another newsletter system, and what I love about this one is the affiliate program is 2 tier which means you will also make money off other affiliates sales.  I currently have around 10 sub-affiliates myself.

Tweet Adder is a new one I’ve been using and pretty happy with the sales numbers.  Everyone is using twitter and growing your followers is as addictive as collecting gold in WOW.

ShoeMoney Tools - I personally haven’t promoted this one yet, but there is now a $3.95 Trial for 9 days which should make you some quick cash and I’ve seen this one popping up on a bunch of blogs.  Shoe also offers a 50% for life payout for your referrals.

Market Leverage – This is a great affiliate network to promote, as they have tonnes of the most popular offers and they also offer a 2nd tier commission.

HostGator – With blogging and online marketing you need hosting and this is the one I use.  At $125 per referral, they have one of the highest affiliate payout’s.  HostGator is one of the most popular hosting programs to promote.  (My only complaint is the banners are a little dated)

Any others ones that you love?

The End of Ad Networks  ~ http://www.advertisespace.com …Coming in 2010

Chad

http://www.twitter.com/ninjachad

If you want to sell advertising to bigger companies on your web site, you are going to need detailed information about the visitors to your site.  The biggest challenge for smaller sites is how and where to get this user demographic information?

The basic information required for most advertisers:

1. Male / Female ratio
2. US traffic % (Also your local country of residence if applicable)
3. Visitors Age ranges
4. Education level

One company that is making this easier, especially for the individual or small site owner is Crowd Science (Disclosure – I am on the advisory board for this company)

Crowd Science Demographics is a new analytics service that builds detailed reports on the demographics and attitudes of website audiences.
By surveying a small number visitors with carefully constructed questionnaires, Crowd Science Demographics is able to build comprehensive profiles that give publishers a deep understanding of their audience.

Crowdscience simplifies this process by fully automating the surveys in an easy non-obtrusive way for your site visitors.  By having a deeper insight into the type of person who visits your site, it will enable you to confidentially target potential advertisers.   Sign up and start getting a handle on who your visitors really are.

~ Chad

By: Guest Blogger

“Like life, blogging can be meaningful and rewarding as well.”

Money blogging or getting paid for blogging can mean; being paid just by writing for a site, posting advertisements, news feeds, pictures, music, or even videos. Social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn can provide sources of topics and inspiration for bloggers to write and work on and ultimately generate earnings.

Sites like those mentioned above provide leverage for those who intend to create visible web logs or blogs and pursuing advantage through multiple clicks or hits from visitors of that site. This process usually creates traffic and when there’s high traffic comes more money from advertisers of the site. Advertisers gravitate towards popular sites and are willing to pay a small sum just to make the brands of their products and services highly visible. It goes without saying that the traffic generated creates more money for the site, and more money also to the bloggers. 

Here are 10 ways you earn money by blogging:

1)  Maintain a site by writing and publishing your own blog.

2)  Provide free blogging customization to blog enthusiasts.

3)  Use search-engine optimized blogging and earn money using affiliate program sites like Twitter.

4)  Direct all site visitors to focus on few popular pages – (known as your money pages).

5)  Create more ‘Google-visible’ or ‘Alexa-visible’ web content.

6)  Create automated blogging. (Not recommended)

7)  Get paid by selling text links on your site.

8)  Get paid through affiliate programs you promote.

9) Create high-priced keywords and optimize them for ease to find using search engines, get paid by joining blog networks

10) Get paid by branding or promoting brands of products or services.

http:/blog.advertisespace.com

OK, I get pretty bored of my site design really quick and it negatively affects my blogging.  (Truthfully, I’ve been focusing more on my new blog http://www.protwit.com, but moreover, I’m just a lazy blogger)  

I got the inspiration to use the wootheme template after reading a friend’s blog http://www.incomediary.com/ which also uses a cusomtized version of the same theme.  Obviously Micheal’s has a much slicker look with the custom designs

I might also play around with a new logo, but I need to get this one to blend nicer.

(Hopefully the new design will help motivate me to blog a little more.)

Well what do you think of the design?