Many of you know that we provide a Default Ad facility for AdToll banner ad groups. This allows you to display ads from another network (or your own personal ads) in replacement of the AdToll Run of Network ads - giving you complete control of your ad inventory! Read more about Default Ads at http://www.adtoll.com/publishers.php#da_1

As an example for Publishers I have taken this a step further hoping that it gives you the initiative to perhaps try it with your sites.

What I have done is used our own PicText™ Ads as the default ads on the 120×600 ad group on our blog (left hand side under the 125×125 ad group).

Why would I do this? Quite simply to ensure ads are being served on that 120×600 ad group and to provide variety to readers of the blog. This in turn attracts more clicks on that ad group and hence more revenue!

How did I do this? Well I am going to spell it out for you so that you can try this for yourself.
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We have just released some enhancements to our Geo-Targeting options for our Run of Network campaigns.

Geo-Targeting is very important for advertisers as it allows them to target users located in specific countries and regions. We have always offered a range of options such as specific country targeting or group targeting such as English Speaking.

Due to feedback from customers we have now released some changes to our Geo-Targeting options which allows our advertisers to target specific countries based on a range of characteristics. For example we now have a “PayPal Accepted “option which allows the advertiser to target countries that have PayPal access.

We make it easy for the advertiser by grouping up all the Geo-Targeting options into “Unique”, “Grouped” and “Specialty”, as can be seen below.

Once an advertiser selects their choice of targeting they are then presented the available options, of which they select one.

Some of the new Geo-Targeting options include:

• PayPal Accepted
• Arabic Speaking
• High Income
• Premium Asian

Due to the sophistication of some of the new Geo-Targeting options we have also provided a matrix that allows you to see which options target which countries exactly - leaving nothing unclear.

Run of Network Geo-Targeting Matrix

The changes have actually been in place for about 24 hours and already we are receiving some great feedback and advertisers are using the new options on their bookings.

If you have any ideas for new Geo-Targeting options please let us know!

It has been just under a week since we released our new PicText™ Ads and they are gaining in popularity quickly with Publishers and Advertisers alike. What is it about PicText™ Ads that makes them more appealing?

For Advertisers it means they are given extra opportunity through an image to convey their message to the user.

Publishers love PicText™ Ads because they generate a higher CTR as the images attract users eyes and hence attention. The images as well as the enhanced customisation ability mean that ads can be blended into a web site not only easily but seamlessly.

Below are two examples of PicText™ Ads taken from Publisher sites.

Those are just two examples I quickly found from our directory of sites using PicText™ Ads, there’s many many more!

What I really wanted to talk about though was our Run of Network (RON) pricing on PicText™ Ads. This week we also went through a review of our RON pricing and looked at things like competitors, our current ad inventory and stock etc.. From those results we came up with a new pricing model that we believe is not only competitive in the market but very affordable and realistic.

Below is some pricing on PicText™ Ads with various targeting options (based on a $50 budget):

Tier 1 (standard) - 3.99c / click

United States - 6.49c / click

English Peaking Countries - 5.49c / click

India - 1c / click

United Kingdom - 5.49c / click

You will find our pricing has dropped across the board and is far more attractive as well. We do have a lot of targeting options available so please check out our complete offering at http://www.adtoll.com/book-ron-ad

Overall we are extremely happy with our new PicText™ Ads and with the great feedback we have received from customers it’s hard not to be!

Earlier this week we released our new Chinese default ads. We received some really positive feedback from our Chinese customers which was great! It’s nice to know the enhancements we are making are actually keeping people happy.

To follow on from this we have just released our new Spanish default ads into the network! So if you have a Spanish site you will now be served these new Spanish ads instead of the English versions.

Again we have provided Spanish banners in the complete assortment of available ad sizes, some examples below:

Enhancing our text ad offering has been on our enhancement priority list for some time and we are now happy to announce that our new PicText™ Ads are now available!

The PicText™ Ads replace our existing text ads completely but publishers need not worry as the current ad code will work. If however you want to harness the power of PicText™ Ads you will need to go to your ad group layout screens and grab the new ad code.

We have more information which is worth reading at http://www.adtoll.com/pictext_ads

As our network grows so to does our range of international sites, particularly Chinese sites. Our default ads have always been in English which is pretty useless on sites in Chinese, as their users generally don’t speak the language.

To solve this problem we just released our new Chinese default ads which will be displayed and used on Publisher sites that are in Chinese.

This gives users of these sites the ability to read and more importantly understand what the banner is saying and trying to get across, which is basically “advertise here” .

We are of course providing the Chinese default ads in all the banner sizes, some of which are below:

Advertisers want the most information possible to help them make decisions when it comes to where they want to advertise. We provide as much as possible through collecting vital statistics on ad group performance and more.

One particular statistic an Advertiser would be interested in is the number of RSS subscribers a particular blog has. This helps prove the popularity and authority of a blog and goes a long way into assisting decision making. As of today the Feedburner Subscriber Count is now available for sites that use Feedburner.

Now, in the Site Directory you will see the Subscriber Count as part of a site’s details:

You will also see the Feedburner chicklet in the Rate Card of the site to give you an up to date figure.

For Publishers we also provide this information in your “My Sites” area:

If you are a Publisher and you do not see your FeedBurner Subscriber Count in your account area or on your Rate Card then please get in contact with us and we can make it happen for you.

Before you do please make sure you enable FeedCount and the Awareness API from within the Publicize section of your Feedburner dashboard.

We are proud to present out latest available ad format, the Peel Away Ad.

Peel Away Ads are a new technology that provide a different and innovative method to advertising. A “peel” appears on the top right hand side of a web site and when the mouse moves over it, the “peel” opens smoothly to reveal the advert within.

Peel Away Ad as seen on ModYourCar.com

We already have Publishers adding the new format to their site and it looks fantastic! On top of that it’s very easy for Advertisers to book an ad; all they need is a 500×500 banner image.

For more information on our Peel Away ad format visit http://www.adtoll.com/peel_away_ads_faq

We released the new changes to our Affiliate Program late last year and to this point we are very happy with how it has helped grow our company and given our Affiliates more earning opportunity.

I myself have managed to get some referrals under me and to show exactly the power of our Affiliate Program including the reporting we provide I thought I would blog abut some of my results.

OK I will admit my results are not all that exciting but I am not a real active affiliate trying to get referrals under me. Anyone actually putting in some effort could get some huge returns! Nevertheless below are my stats as they currently stand and I hope it hi-lights some of the powerful reporting we provide.

Statistics (last 30 days)

Our Affiliate Program area provides some nicely presented graphs (as above) that allow you to get a picture of your results from the last 30 days. Graphs include ‘Number of Referrals’, ‘Referrals by Country’ and ‘Referrals by Domain’.

From my results you can see most of my referrals have come from the United States and from forums.digitalpoint.com, which is due to my high level of activity on the forum there - my signature contains my referral link.

Referrals

Under the statistics we show you a list of all the referrals under you and information such as the date they joined, the country of origin, the referring URL (if known) and details of the Site / Ad Group they came from if they were directed from one of your Ad groups. You can see from here that I currently have 21 active referrals.

Affiliate Earnings to date (1-Feb - 9-Feb)

What you are most interested in is really how much these referrals have made me. Above is the section of the Earnings Report showing my Affiliate Earnings for the month of Feb up until now (9-Feb). We provide you a summary of your Affiliate Earnings broken down by day. We also show you whether the commission came from an Advertiser or Publisher referral.

Overall like I said I am not an active affiliate looking to earn from our Affiliate Program. Even still I have managed to drum up some referrals and have commissions rolling in! If you were committed to really pushing AdToll and working on signing customers you should be able to really get some great results. We do have a number of affiliates with over 100 referrals under them and performing quite well.

For those that do not know about our Affiliate Program or who don’t even know what one is I have included below the 3 questions contained within our Publisher FAQ:

What is the AdToll affiliate program?
The affiliate program allows you to make money by referring on customers to AdToll.

How can I earn as an affiliate?
As a publisher you automatically earn commissions as an affiliate through the links provided on your Ad Groups. You can also use your affiliate link to refer customers to AdToll (see Affiliate Program in your account area).

What commission can I earn?
We allow you to earn commission for Advertisers and Publishers you refer to AdToll.

• For each Advertiser you refer, you will earn a 20% commission on profit for each Ad Booking they make for the first 90 days of their membership.
• For each Publisher you refer, you will earn a 10% commission on profit for each Ad Booking they receive for the first 365 days of their membership.

Peel Away Ads are a new technology that provide a different and innovative method to advertising. A “peel” appears on the top right hand side of a web site and when the mouse moves over it, the “peel” opens smoothly to reveal the advert within.

You will find literally dozens of web sites selling packages that allow you to create them and banner creation services are already offering to make them for you.

What hasn’t happened is the true mainstreaming of Peel Away Ads and we feel the time is now. People have been waiting too long for this to happen and now it is - “the future is NOW for AdToll customers”.

Imagine how brilliant it will be to easily book a Peel Away Ad on another site or offer Peel Away Ads to your own advertisers, all through AdToll!

Booking a Peel Away ad will be so easy you won’t believe it! In fact it will be as easy as providing the 500×500 image that sits within the “peel” - AdToll does the rest!

Sometime in the next week we will be introducing the new Peel Away Ad format and we beleive it will be a big hit with Publishers and Advertisers alike. Keep your eyes “peeled” to this blog for the release!