This post is more about my blog/website itself, and not just my car. Although there are some photo’s I have messed around with at the end (with a quick vote for fun), which I quite liked messing around with.
I’m asking for a little feedback to see to see if what I experienced was the ‘norm’ or not. Did I almost sell out? Did anybody notice?
A couple of weeks ago I was contacted by a marketing company about my site, they wanted to advertise on my pages. That company was “Infolinks”.
Now don’t get me wrong, they first sent me a nice email, where they asked if they could could book some time in with me to discuss a potentially good money making offer. All very professional and above board. I had to check for scams; were they legit, will it cost me anything?
I did my homework on them, all was good from what I could see. Promising start.
I responded back to agree to a meeting which was arranged via google calendar. Bang on time the next day I was called and we started to have a nice chat. He liked my site (I guessed that was standard patter), and saw a good potential to get me some extra money. They had even set a ‘budget aside ready for me’. With the average daily hits I was getting I was told that the advertising would get me $15 to $20 a day. That is a good amount to me for a niche audience like mine to be fair. That type of (proposed) money would come in handy to pay for my hosting, domain mapping and WordPress plan etc. I agreed to their proposals and within hours I was sent login details and everything I needed to get me going.
Setting it up was all straight forward enough, plugins and some little behind the scenes config and it was ready to rock. I decided I would try it for couple weeks straight and run their ads to see what the revenue would be like; in that time over 5,500 were ‘served’ on my unsuspecting readers and followers. After those two weeks I earnt a massive $3.21, that’s somewhat short of the $$ per day I was going to be getting. 🙁
I currently use WordPress ads and that pays for most of the hosting etc. I did check on my pages from a different IP Addresses to see what was going on. I didn’t like the intrusive load of ads from the start and thought it would settle down. It didn’t So I stopped it over the weekend.
My question to my fellow bloggers; did I get greedy or was I just naive and sold a story?
I learned that my readers and first time visitors experience of my pages is more important than a few cents. If I have to be a little out of pocket each year – then so be it. I’m Sorry if my temporary ads made my little ol’ blog unpleasant for you.
My Car Pictures:
OK, back to what I do know, my car. From the last show Culford I took a few pictures at the front of the building. I decided to have a little play around with some effects. It took me a while, but I learned just how easy it is to really mess up a good picture.
Here are my attempts at something arty, see what you think.
The original
Sepia
Artwork
Faded
Sepia with coloured Car
I decided to have a little poll to make it easier as I haven’t had a good ol’ vote for a while.
I have some amazing photo’s coming soon which I can’t wait to share with you, watch this space, hopefully at the weekend for a post. Although I have a car show Saturday + Sunday so not sure when I will get time to do it. This time last year I was scratching around for something to post about.
I don’t think you did anything wrong as far as the ads. It sounds a little like they’re legit, but way overselling the benefits they offer. It happens, I used to write for a website that offered pay per clicks on your articles. The amount of social media promotion you had to do though, plus writing your required number of articles, worked out to something like 25 cents an hour return. Crazy.
I often play with various treatments on my car photos. I do love the original but I gave my vote to the sepia with coloured car. I love the pop of the blue against the muted background.
Mart, regarding the ads, you didn’t do anything wrong; you were misled by some false marketing which sadly happens too often. And for the record, I did not experience any bombardment of ads when visiting your site.
Richard
Thanks Richard, glad the ads didn’t ruin anything. I won’t be using them again that’s for sure.
I thought the Sepia brought out the highlights but that choice was last — best to stick with original.
Thanks, it seems that the original is the popular choice. 👍
love the blue color of your car……..leave it original!! and happy to see you fire that company…it sounds like they were not telling you the whole story!!
Thanks for the kind comments. Yep that company were OK but they didn’t back up what they promise. Plus it slowed the site a bit and made it look a bit of a mess. They had to go and I won’t be using them again.