Projecting some Wonder
Posted May 10th, 2007 by Howard Tayler
Webcomics luminary Ryan North kicked off an advertising system a while back. Hurting for a good name (apparently “Adsense” was taken already) he called it “Project Wonderful.”
I’m going to try it out, because it really does look… well, wonderful. It’s pretty simple for both advertisers and publishers, and I like the concept. And in celebration of the simplicity, I’m enabling a skyscraper that you can buy into for as little as $5.00 per day. The way the system works, if your ad gets approved by me, and you’re the high bidder (or the only bidder offering $5.00 or more) your ad is the only ad that runs all day.
So… if you’ve got $5.00, something to advertise, and a skyscraper ad (160×600) that doesn’t suck, now’s your chance to grab 30,000 eyeballs. The banner is to the right… click, and bid.
Explore posts in the same categories: Advertisers
May 10th, 2007 at 10:19 am
I’ve had Project Wonderful on my blog, irateweirdos.com [/shameless_plug], for a few months now and I really love it!
I’ve had Ad$cents out there for quite a while. After nearly three years, I had earned a whopping $14 bucks - Google won’t send you a check until you hit $100. We just don’t get the kind of traffic to make a one or two percent click-through rate pay off. Not that I ever intended to get rich from the thing, but it would be nice to have the site pay for its $25 a year hosting at least. Most of the clicks I get on Ad$cents pay a grand total of $0.
When PW came along, I figured that as long as I was donating ad space, I might as well donate it to something I can get behind. But, this hasn’t been the case at all!
I put $20 into my account three months ago. In that time I have advertised my blog on several great sites (Hint, Howard! Give us some cheap buttons! ^_^ ) right now I’m even advertising on a syndicated strip’s website! I’ve never paid more than $.05 cents a day - and that was to advertise on Evil Inc! A bargain if there ever was one!
In three months, my balance has yet to drop below $15 and have gotten hundreds of click-throughs to the site. We may even be approaching a thousand - for a site that averages 25 hits a day - that’s big news!
On top of that, I’m getting money back! Right now we are averaging about $.07 a day. That’s right, seven cents. My ad on the syndicated strip’s site is costing me about two cents a day. One of my favorite web-based games, Tiny Warz, advertises on my site! They are paying me!! How cool is that?
Ryan is right when he says “Everybody Wins!”
May 10th, 2007 at 12:58 pm
Just because I’m anal that way: Does 30.000 eyeballs mean 15.000 visitors?
May 10th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
Wow, I was just getting ready to send you email about how difficult I was finding it to learn anything about advertising on your site.
I agree that you could put a bunch of smaller (button-size) ads and get smaller advertisers (like me) as your tower ad has already soared beyond my price range. Project Wonderful has made it easy to buy advertising. As opposed to…
I thought “Hey, I like Schock Mercenary — maybe I could buy some ad space there.” So I started looking for a button called “buy advertising” or something like that. Nope. So I slogged through ALL the buttons on the side, even “process.” Still nope. Today, I randomly clicked on the “Blank Label” link and found out that most of your advertising was arranged that way. And as far as I could tell, it required you to buy advertising on the other Blank Label strips as well. Not to mention that it kept talking about “impressions” without defining the term. Probably the same as “views”, but I would like to know for sure. Not that it mattered, because I am a small-time advertiser, and could not afford the campaigns listed there. But I found the advertising info BY ACCIDENT after having given up at least once. Your page needs to do a better job of putting the information where people can see it.
I’ve found Project Wonderful very easy to use. Put up a strip of small ads, and I’ll buy one for as long as my small budget holds out.
May 10th, 2007 at 1:57 pm
adhominem: No, it means that you’re only allowed to grab one eye from each pair. :-)
(30,000+ visitors per day)
Frustrated and Jericho: With tonight’s update (maybe tomorrow night’s… I’m not sure) there will be a button-row in the archives with a 50-cent minimum bid. We’ll see how that goes. I do about 250,000 page-views out of the archives every day, so it’s a steal.
May 10th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
What are the descriptions of use for the decidedly “hammer and chisel” tools Kevyn is using? My favorite tool is the hammer -which works beautifully for everything from tightening diamond settings to taking down walls- but I am not sure how I would use it to repair sensitive optics..
May 24th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
$5 isn’t too rich. But you’ve had some nice upbidding, Howard. So I’ll quietly wait for a lull. :)
I, too, would love to see the button row.
– Briscoe