Dear bloggers (and Entrecarders), I’m going to share how I manage my advertising slots, especially the 125×125 ad slots on my sponsors area. You may have a more efficient way than mine (as they said – “Many ways lead to Rome”), so feel free to share yours too.
If you are constantly offering weekly slots to your fellow bloggers or your private advertisers, you will also constantly waste your time managing which advertisers advertise what, when will it end, where you should keep the images, etc.
I’m going to share what I do to minimize the time wasted on this. It may or may not be more effective than yours.
When someone wants to advertise on your blog
The process usually goes like this:
- You form the first “handshake” with the advertiser (they contacted you from your contact form, you contacted them by sending an email manually, you put an “Advertise Here” banner, you put an item shop on Entrecard, you were offering a free slot for a contest, etc).
- Finalize the advertisement price (unless if it’s done already).
- The advertiser tells you where to get the 125×125 image (or send it to you) and where the banner should point if someone clicks it.
- You upload the image (either on your server or to a free image hosting service).
- You add the new HTML code “href and img” on your blogging platform.
- Save the code changes and test if it works (and clear the cache if you are using a caching plug-in).
- Notify the advertiser.
- Write down somewhere when the campaign will expire and when you should take down the ad.
- Sometimes you want to send a reminder to your advertisers that their campaign is expiring soon. This is usually followed up by “Would you like to extend it?”.
- (Have I missed anything?)
It may look simple, but if you are doing this once every few days, you’d want to do it effectively.
What I do to manage advertising slots
Since I’m using the OIOPublisher plug-in to manage advertisers paying by PayPal, it’s done automatically. However, if the advertisers want to pay with Entrecard credits, I then have to basically follow the steps above.
Preparations to make the whole management thing easier (a once-off process)
- If you are on a WordPress platform, add a new file named sponsors.php (you can name it anything you want) and then on the area where you want the 125×125 slots to appear, add this line instead:
<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . ‘/sponsors.php’); ?>
This is used so that you can manage your advertising slots separately from your Sidebar or other main theme files. You can skip this process if you want, but I’d prefer to have it separately (I’m an “organized” melancholy freak
) - Create the new file, sponsors.php, and upload it to your theme directory, where the other theme files are.
If you did it correctly, you should see the file on your theme files list
- You should then put all of your advertising HTML codes on the sponsors.php file. I use an HTML table with rows and columns to further organize my advertisers. By doing this I can quickly identify the advertisements.
Click to enlarge my sponsors.php
- Create a dummy HTML text as a blank template at the bottom of the file, to make it easier for you when you have to update/create a new advertising campaign.
<!–<a href=”" target=”_blank”><img src=”"></a>–>
This way, you can just copy-paste the code and fill in the required values with the new advertiser’s info. - You should also create your default empty advertisement slot code at the bottom of the file. This way, when an advertisement has expired, you can simply copy paste your default to replace it. If you have an advertising shop item on Entrecard, you should copy paste a link to your Entrecard shop item.
Click to enlarge
- Preparations done! Bring on those advertising requests!
What to do now when an advertising request arrives
- Upload the image file (if not done already) to Flickr or any free image hosting account that you are using.
- Open your sponsors.php file that we made earlier, copy paste the template ( the <!–<a href=”" target=”_blank”><img src=”"></a>–>) to the required slot.
- Remove the HTML comments tag and start filling in the blanks with the image URL and site URL (should be a multi copy-paste job)
- Save the code changes.
- What I do, I then write it as an “event” on my Google Calendar, 1 week ahead for a weekly advertising, and put a reminder to remove it after it has expired. You can either choose an email reminder or an SMS reminder (I put mine as an SMS reminder – free). This way, I don’t need to remember when I should remove which advertisements. I let Google reminds it for me
Set it and Forget it!
That’s it! I’m trying to learn how to write a WordPress plug-in. One day, I’m planning to create a plug-in that does this easily from the Administration. You can also try the new Google Ad Manager. I tried it but I found it too complicated to use. I can honestly save much more time with the steps above, although it’s a much more manual process.
So what do you do to manage your advertising slots? Feel free to share it with us if it’s more effective than my method!
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I think I need to join viral blogs too. I like your tutorial Michael.
yanjiarens last blog post..Canada here we come.
Mike,
I almost do the same thing to manage my ad slots except google calender where i use excel sheet to store the details when the ad started and when it is ending.
I think i should also start using calender…
Nihars last blog post..Friday Night Links Party – 5 September 2008
IOIPublisher is really fantastic but can it be use for blogspot? If not what is the best ad manager for blogspot?
Useful article , especially that I’m trying to set up the blog, buzzed and dugg, thanks
Trying to take some infor here Mike. I actually put the dates of my advertisers and just remind them of their deadlines… not much, i don’t have much ads to manage anyway, only around 4 of em. ^^
Plus, i use blogger.
very helpful, thanks for the tips. this takes some of the complication out of advertising.
robs last blog post..Sony Laptop Safety Recall
Good stuff, Mike and pretty detailed explanation. Though I don’t accept EC credits for ads, if I do….there is an easier way to add banner ads right from OIO and bypassing the payment gateway. All can be done without a separate html coding or Google calendar, all I need is to set it to 7 days and voila…
Yan
Got here via bloganese and Potpolitics just so you know.
Got hung up reading this article as it truly peaked my interest. You offer some great suggestions on tracking ads.
Thanks. Now I have to continue checking out your blog
Wendys last blog post..This is totally disgusting and, apparently, true!
Ugh sorry I haven’t gotten back into your comments these few days..
@Nihar: Google Calendar is good because it gives you auto reminder on your email and/or mobile phone!
@Bonoriau: Sorry man, I’m not on blogspot so I don’t know about it
@Rogue: Well you might get more one day! Don’t forget to come back to this post when you do heh heh.
@Yan: Hey that doesn’t sound too bad. I might give it a try one day. Or I might stick to my old conventional way ^^
@Wendy: Thanks, hope to still see you around
i like that you set up a checklist to make the procedure more organized. no ads like these yet on my blog (maybe someday when i have more than the current trickle of visitors). :O but it’s good to read about this in advance.
koujis last blog post..haiku poem: conversation
I’m sure one day you’ll have lots of visitors and advertisers
Good luck and keep on blogging!
thanks. let’s see what happens. and may you have continued success as well.
I ve got no ad slot on my blog,
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