New Feature: Allow Advertisers to Pay in Your Local Currency

We are pleased to announce that Trafficspaces now supports multiple currencies.

When we launched Trafficspaces, we only supported the US Dollar ($). However, after receiving an increasing number of requests to support support currencies like the Euro, British Pound and Aussie Dollar, we've finally done it.

How it works

Simple. When you setup your Trafficspaces ad platform for the first time, you'll be prompted to choose between over 20 currencies. The currency you choose will be your default currency. You won't be able to change it once you've created the platform.

Here is the full list of supported currencies. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Advertisers, Features, Publishers | Comments

How to Sell Ads Online > Simplify The Advertising Process (7/7)

This is the seventh and last part of the How to Sell Ads Online series.

This final article builds on the last discussion on providing a self service system.

The concept is simple.

Since human beings take the path of least resistance, if you make it easy for advertisers to get their job done, they'll do it over and over again.

So how do you do it?
Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Advertisers, Publishers, Sales, Tips | Comments

New Feature: Conversion and ROI Tracking for Advertisers

This is just a quick news flash to let everyone know that we've finally added support for conversion tracking into your favorite ad platform.

What is Conversion Tracking?

It is just a way for advertisers to determine how many of the people who clicked their ads actually went ahead and bought something on their site, or signed up for a newsletter, or performed the action for which they were advertising in the first place.

What is ROI Tracking

ROI is marketing speak for profit. It actually stands for Return on Investment i.e. how much profit did the advertisers make on the leads that you sent to them.

Why you need to care

Savvy marketers are really interested in these two metrics because it helps them determine which sales channels are working.

If you don't provide access to this information, how are you going to make a case for them to spend even more money advertising with you.

If their campaign works and they are hitting their targets, it's a no brainer – they are going to increase their ad spend with you.

On the flip side, if their entire campaign isn't performing well, then they can use the tools within Trafficspaces to determine which ads aren't working and which targeting rules work better.

How does it work

It is pretty straightforward.

For each campaign, advertisers can generate a tracking code, which should be added to the page that appears immediately after the intended action by the lead e.g. a signup or purchase completion page.

Trafficspaces handles the rest. Through the Campaign Dashboard, they'll be able to track everything from those who saw their ads, those who clicked, those who went all the way and how profitable their campaign was. Superb stuff.

We are quite proud of these two new features. Try it out in the demo in the Manage Campaigns section. Let us know what you think in the comments.

Posted in Advertisers, Features, Publishers | Comments

How to Sell Ads Online > Let the Market Determine the Price via an Auction (6/7)

This is the sixth part of the How to Sell Ads Online series.

One of the first questions that come to your mind of when you want to sell online advertising is – how much do I sell it?

$10 CPM?, $1000 per month? $1 per click? Which is best? 

How much to sell it and how to sell it have become a paradox.

You are torn between discovering how to price it correctly without scaring away advertisers and pricing it too low and leaving too much money on the table.

Here are three options.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Advertisers, Publishers, Sales, Tips | Comments

Advertising – One Less Thing To Worry About

Saturdays are normally chillout days for me. I usually lie in bed late into the morning and try to catch up on a few books.

Today, I was reading a copy of Seth Godin's free ebook What Matters Now and I came across this great quote from Michael Hyatt.

Vision is the lifeblood of any organization. It is what keeps it moving forward. It provides meaning to the day-to-day challenges and setbacks that make up the rumble and tumble of real life.

This is where great leadership makes all the difference. Leadership is more than influence. It is about reminding people of what it is we are trying to build—and why it matters. It is about painting a picture of a better future. It comes down to pointing the way and saying, “C’mon. We can do this!”

This is so true. We've been running Trafficspaces for about 18 months now. Most of the time was spent creating a product that meets the market's needs. This often meant that days, weeks, months are spent coding, testing, coding, testing and getting critized. We must be gluttons for punishment, heh

Sometimes morale suffers but one thing that keeps us going is the main vision – making advertising one less thing to worry about. I like it because it is simple, achievable and dare I say it, noble. There is something quite noble about helping others. 

It's always inspiring and refreshing when someone sends us and email and says "I found you guys on Google. This is what I've been looking for."

In conclusion, if keep your head up. Believe in your vision and keep going. It'll pay off in the end.

Heck, remember that great quote – He who dares wins.

Posted in Opinions | Comments

Get a Self-Service Ad Manager In Your Local Language

One of the key items on our todo list for 2010 is to add support for multiple languages in Trafficspaces.

It fits well in our main goal of helping you reach more advertisers.

Think about it, if you've got a Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, German or French site, it makes sense that your self service ad platform be in that language as well.

Your advertisers will love it

We are hoping to support one new language per month (fingers crossed).

If you'll like us to support a specific language, just drop a comment below. We'll consider every comment.

Thanks everyone.

Posted in Features, Publishers, Self Service | Comments

How to Sell Ads Online > Sell Exclusivity (5/7)

This is the fifth part of the How to Sell Ads Online series.

Advertisers are jealous.

Why? Well because all things been equal, given the choice between having only their ads on your site or sharing it with a bunch of other advertisers (and possibly competitors), they'll go for the former all the time.

It's a good thing because armed with this information, you can adjust your sales strategy to attract them by giving them what they really want.

This article highlights three great ways to provide them with exclusivity and increase sales.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Advertisers, Publishers, Sales, Tips | Comments

New Year, New (More Inclusive) Pricing

Happy New Year folks!

I'm sure you are all getting trollied (drunk) by now so listen up.

To celebrate the New Year, we are slashing all Trafficspaces prices and impression limits by half to make it easier for more folks to come on board.

For example, the $99 Standard package will now be $49 and it will also come with 500,000 impressions instead of an overwhelming 1,000,000 impressions.

We've been thinking about doing this for quite a while and what's better than a new year to get things rolling.

Big shout out to Danny of  CottageSmallholder for sending us a reminder.
 

Posted in Publishers | Comments

How to Sell Ads Online > Show Detailed Traffic Statistics (4/7)

This is the fourth part of the How to Sell Ads Online series.

The product you are selling is your traffic so clearly, you need to describe it.

If you were buying a book on Amazon, you'll want see the full description, picture of the cover, reviews from other readers, and perhaps even browse through a few pages of the book.

Unfortunately, your traffic is not a book so you really can't show a picture of your audience. Well you could, I guess, but I’m not sure how effective that’ll be. However, what you can do is describe it through analytics.

By analytics, I’m not referring to all the bells and whistles site analytics you get on Google Analytics,  Statcounter etc. I’m referring to just the stuff that matters to advertisers i.e. the metrics that describe who your audience is.

As explained in the "Have an outstanding product to sell" article, it is important to segment your audience and show advertisers the niches that advertisers can target.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Advertisers, Features, Publishers, Sales, Tips | Comments

How to Sell Ads Online > Provide a Self-Service Ad Management System (3/7)

This is the third part of the How to Sell Ads Online series.

To run an ad campaign, advertisers (small and large) need to go through the following processes - 

• strategic planning,
• creative development, 
• media planning,
• media buying,
• ad trafficking,
• performance tracking,
• optimization (a/b testing), and
• reporting.

Now, this is how it affects you.

Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Advertisers, Media, Publishers, Sales, Self Service, Tips | Comments