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Performancing Ad Network Posted: 28 Jul 2008 01:41 PM CDT In the last week a new ad network has launched - PerformancingAds. Bloggers who have been around for a while will know that this isn’t the first time Performancing have ventured into the ad network space - they previously launched a network back in 2006 but closed it down last year during a period where they when through a management restructure and ultimately were sold. I was sad when the network closed last time as I thought it did have promise and love to see new ad options launched specifically aimed at bloggers. So this week when I was told it’s back I was really excited. Here’s How It Works The ads are based around the popular 125 x 125 pixel banner ads that you see on many blogs (including the ones you see in ProBlogger’s sidebar). It is a self service system where advertisers sign up, submit ads and pay for them all via Performancing and then they send you your share of the revenue at the same time each month. You can book your own ads for free - might seem a little silly but if you have spare spots and want to fill them with ads pointing at affiliate programs or even key parts of your blog you can fill them with internal ads. Publishers are put into a Marketplace where your blog will be shown to prospective advertisers looking for blogs to advertise on. They have a traffic exchange system where you allow other blogs to show their ad on your blog in exchange for credits which can be used to display your ad on other blogs. You also earn credits by selling ads. The Revenue Share - You earn a minimum of 60% of what the ads sell for - Performancing takes the other 40%. This will be tiered up as high as 90% for publishers for ‘better performing publishers’ (not sure if that is based upon sales or traffic) You have control over where the ads appear, how many are shown and even some control over how they look (like spacing between them) You can create multiple regions on your blog so have the ads appear in multiple positions You can filter out ads you don’t want to appear by adding words for keywords and/or domains that you don’t want advertisers from Advertisers buy ads based upon weekly increments They have a premium program where if your blog has over 250,000 US pageviews per month they can sell ads on your behalf in different size ad units (728×90, 300×250 and 160×600). You have control over what ads are priced at. You can also set ads to be no-follow ads (or not). There is a WordPress Plugin to help manage these ads if you’re a WP user PerformancingAds are new and as with any ad network I believe you shouldn’t expect too much too quickly from it as it takes time to get them working to optimal levels for both advertisers and publishers. The success of this network will depend upon their ability to sign up advertisers. Last time around PerformancingAds did manage to sell quite a few ads on ProBlogger - but it took time for them to get to that level. Looking to Advertise on Blogs? Performancing is looking advertisers at present and are offering $25 off your first ad purchase of $100 or more. Last time Performancing had their ad network I actually used it to advertise my blogs quite a few times. There were plenty of bargains to be had around the blogosphere and it was a pretty cool way to increase the exposure of my blogs to new audiences. I suspect this will be the case again looking at the current marketplace of bloggers who have already signed up. Share This

Conversations On Relational Blogging Continue Posted: 28 Jul 2008 09:14 AM CDT A week ago today I published a post asking ‘has Blogging has lost its relational focus?‘ It was a post that generated some great conversation in comments and one that sparked other bloggers to pick up on the thread and write about it on their own blogs. Today I thought I’d point out some of the conversations that are going on around this topic in the hope that it’ll extend an important topic: Richard MacManus wrote a good post titled Mixed Messages in the Blogging Landscape which picks up the topic and looks also at social media and how it could be impacting pro blogging. Shel Israel asks if Social Media is becoming a Vast Wasteland? and looks at some of the arguments for and against whether it is. Duncan Riley writes about the Changing Blogosphere and Blogging 2.0 and has some interesting things to say about a shift in blogging that’s been going on and encourages bloggers to embrace them. Mark ‘Rizzn’ writes about being on the edge of a Eureka moment and in a longish article shares some interesting ideas including that blogging is in need of an upgrade - he points to video as a way forward. I’m sure there are others - if you’ve written on the topic of late feel free to share your links in comments below. PS: I should reemphasize that in my original article I didn’t conclude that blogging had lost its relational focus. I did muse about whether it was harder to find and suggest that it is more evident in some niches than others - but by no means have I given up hope in the medium of blogging or its social media. In fact, for me, it’s so social that at times this little introvert can barely cope! The reason for my post was simply to remind bloggers of our social/relational roots. One of the stimuli for the post was recently witnessing a couple of new bloggers go about attempting to build up blogs in ways that I could describe as anti-social. They came to me for advice after months of blogging in a very insular way, not linking out and not wanting to interact with other bloggers in their niche - in fact they viewed other bloggers in their niche suspiciously and purely as competitors. My counsel to them was to consider that while other blogs might be competitors in one sense - that there was amazing opportunities in interacting and working together. As I look at my own experience of blogging and that of bloggers that have been far more successful than me I see that often it’s those that are most social and willing to interact with other bloggers that rise the highest. I don’t see this changing even if the technology behind what we do does. Share This

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