Our 4-Hour Workweek

A week ago we took the action to study various advertising models and decide which one to implement. In Our 4-Hour Workweek Business Model we decided to explore Ads-click.com, Federated Media, Advertising.com, and Problogger.net

First, I decided to learn more about Google and their Adsense program. We have used this exclusively on our Sacramento Executive website. Adsense provides two sources of revenue - contextual ads and search. Contextual ads produce more revenue than the search function, but we are not scorching a path to the bank. Serious bloggers shun Google Adsense. They adopt more sophisticated adertising models.

Google has a beta offering that I decided to use - more along the affiliate program model. I put a banner ad (worldwide hotel reservation service) in the prime spot immediately below our logo. I also placed a vertical contextual ad (120 x 600 pixels) down the righthand side of the site. Let's see if these two changes increase ad revenue.

I decided to use ads-click.com. Gillian set up the account. I went through the creation process. ads-click.com provided the script, I copied the script to my main index template, and with great excitement, rebuilt my site. To my disappointment, the ad was not served properly. So I tried again and again. To no avail. I looked for on-line help, but got nowhere.

Okay, I thought, it's time to visit Problogger.net, the guru of professional blogging. Darren Rowse, founder of the site, recommended Text Link Ads. So I set up a text link account, built my ad, and couldn't get it to work. Again I was disapointed.

These ad tools are promoted as being simple to implement, but they are not. Down, but not out, I need to talk to technical support...but it's Sunday, and the "on-line" support function - chatting with a real person - is not available - they are presently "off-line".

I checked my e-mail and found a note from the Text Link Ads group:

"Sorry, but our ad script will not work with static HTML sites or sites that do not support a server side technology. So our system will not work with TypePad or other hosted services."

I wonder if this is why it doesn't work? I have a hosted service and a cousin of TypePad - Movable Type. And what is a static HTML site anyways? Do I have one? This will require more investigation. I just wish they would have told me this before I started the process.

What did I learn from this? I need to take Tim Ferriss more seriously about outsourcing. I spent 5 hours today on this project and could have outsourced it, gone to bed, slept, and perhaps it would be working when I woke up.

Well, it's clear, I need to remember Tim's advice.

Pierre Cutler
Our 4-Hour Workweek