Project Wonderful, Not so Wonderful
If you have been surfing around some blogs lately you have probably come across some blogs that are running Project Wonderful ads. They are particularly popular with people that are using Entrecard.
Like all advertising options the only way to know if something will work well for you is to try it, so I signed up and created an ad box on one of my more popular websites. The site gets regular traffic and generates 1000’s of page views a day. Google AdSense did not perform well on the site so I thought it would be a good candidate for Project Wonderful. Was I ever wrong. I had the ads up for just over two weeks. The grand total from Project Wonderful was .90 cents! The bidding never went up past .03 cents per day. I did better with the odd click from Google AdSense.
I was not very pleased with how the ads turned out from Project Wonderful for that particular site. I thought perhaps they are more targeted at blogs, since there seem to be several blogs running the ads and it was just a bad fit for the site I tried them on. When I changed the theme here I thought I would give Project Wonderful another try, on a blog this time. So far I have been less than pleased. The bidding has not gone up past .02 cents per day and I have had to cancel several bids because they were advertising adult content. I had the ad box set to only display safe for work ads but because hardly anyone on Project Wonderful actually rates their ads I was not getting any bids at all. If both ad spots will stay at .02 cents/day that would be a total of $1.20/month. That does not even buy me a coffee at Tim Hortons.
I did try running a campaign with Project Wonderful and as an advertiser you can get a lot of cheap advertising on a lot of blogs for next to nothing. In the campaign I setup I limited the cost per day to .01 cent and I was able to place advertising on a large number of websites across the network. The disadvantage is that my click through rate was horrible. Less than .05%. I would rather spend my money on AdWords and get less impressions but traffic that is more targeted. I suppose if you limited your advertising to certain websites and blogs you might do better than I did in running the campaign.
Overall I am not sure why Project Wonderful ads are currently so popular with bloggers. As a publisher there are better and more profitable ways of making money on your blog than as a publisher with Project Wonderful. As an advertiser you will get better value for your money using other advertising systems. I will probably leave the Project Wonderful ads up here for a few more days, as I am busy with other projects, but they will be coming down in the near future most likely to be replaced with private ad sales. If you would be interested in advertising here on the LGR Webmaster Blog feel free to contact me and we can arrange something.
Comments
LGR
Sorry to those that tried to leave a comment on this post. I accidentally broke the comment form when I changed the theme. It should be working now.
Tom
I think that PW should be thought of as a supplement. Maybe that $1.20/month isn't so great, but why not just take it?
guardian angel
Hi! I am also tempted to join PW. However what annoys me is the fact that the ads are being placed on top of the blogs that you barely see the title of the latest post. Moreover, the project seem to be convincing the users to put a bunch of ads in their sidebars. For me, I still prefer EC coz it's free. Thanks!
LGR
I agree that Project Wonderful should be thought of as a supplement, but for $1.20 a month the ads should not get the prime screen real estate that I have given them. For $1.20 and month I will bury the two ads that I have here on the site near the bottom of the screen. Is that fair to the advertisers? Google AdSense, while not the best earner for blogs does better here, even though I don't get tons of traffic. It certainly does better than a $1.20/month.
LGR
I like EntreCard, because I enjoy the community and finding new blogs. I have to wonder if people plaster their blogs with Project Wonderful ads simply to try and get the daily earnings up. Everyone wants to make as much as the A-listers. Project Wonderful won't get them that kind of money.
Tom
While I think it's noble of you to think of the advertisers, they have the power to choose if they want to advertise with you. So, if your widget is buried and they advertise, it was their own choice. And in my taste, although the placement of the widget on this site is at the top, I missed it the first time because my vision is focused on the middle and looking down. Another option you have is to choose a new layout that would accommodate it. Again, I'm not trying to force PW on you, but in my experience it's been better than Adsense.
LGR
I don't think I was trying to be noble, I was thinking about it from my perspective as an advertiser. I would be ticked if I was paying for an ad spot buried way down on the page. I just started using this layout, but you know what I will give Project Wonderful a little more time. I will move it from its current location into one of the sidebars and see how it does compared to AdSense over the next few weeks.
Natural
I use wonderful project. I'll try to remember to look you up when I get home and advertise on your site.
LGR
Your are welcome to advertise. I raised the minimum price to .05/day and moved them down the page. Would be nice to have some more advertisers on it.
Karrine
I have this ongoing Pet peeve. I would not spend my money advertising in any PRINT publication that does not clearly provide me with access to their FULL contact details. Project Wonderful does not do so. Why should any advertiser or publisher invest their potential ad revenue or investments in a company that will not list clearly list their corporate information ?
LGR
Good point but it does not surprise me. Take a look at Google AdWords. Have you ever tried actually getting a human response from them? No mailing address that I can find. You can only contact them through a web form and then it might take days or weeks to get anything other than a default email responder.