ShowYourAdHere: An interview with Mark Wielgus

An Interview by Thord Daniel Hedengren

ShowYourAdHere is a new service that lets you manage your ads in one central place, online. Sort of like an OpenAds install or similar, but externally. Not only that, the service also helps you sell the ads, with a direct purchase system using PayPal, leaving the publisher with 75% of the amount. That should make life easier for a whole lot of bloggers, right?

That’s the idea at least, and Mark Wielgus is the guy that wants you to take control of your ads using this new service. I decided to talk to him about ShowYourAdHere to find out more of this brand new service.

But before we move on to the interview, don’t miss this introduction video, sporting Mark in his hippest dancing moves…

First of all, tell us who Mark Wielgus is, besides that crazy dancing guy in the ShowYourAdHere video?
Thanks for asking ;)  Mark Wielgus is an online publisher/blogger who’s been making blogs and websites since 2005 and trying to monetize them with some success and many failures.  Making money online and monetizing blogs is a rough game to play.   I do make most of my websites now because I enjoy the topics, enjoy making videos and enjoy providing value for the people who visit my sites.

So ShowYourAdHere is a hosted ad manager, and ad sales platform, correct? Why did you create it?
Correct!  I created ShowYourAdHere.com because there isn’t a single and easy way to manage ads on blogs.  I built ShowYourAdHere.com for myself originally and now I’m offering it to the world. I built the solution because I don’t think one exists.

For instance, the last time I wanted to rotate two affiliate banners on my site I ended up googling for php code that will coin flip and show ads randomly.  It’s ridiculous really.  Why is something as easy as providing a solution to rotate banners on a site not easy?

A huge reason I built ShowYourAdHere.com is because there is no way to handle ad sales on a blog that is easy and pays instantly.  Currently every solution holds your earnings for a month or longer and earns interest on it.  99% of the advertising solutions also control your inventory when you place their widget on your site.  With ShowYourAdHere.com you control your inventory when the ad space is empty and you still keep total control when the ad is sold.

I also built it because I wanted simple geotargeting.  I run campaigns on some of my sites that only pay on sales from US/Canadian traffic.  There was no easy solution for me to manage showing ads to people that would convert for me.

In addition we have created an ebay-like feedback system which will hopefully add a social element to the site that will add tremendous value for the marketplace when people are shopping around and deciding who to make transactions with.

Sorry the pitch is a bit long ;)  I’m really proud of ShowYourAdHere.com and the solutions it solves for bloggers.

As the owner of BloggerTalks, why should I use ShowYourAdHere instead of just downloading and installing OpenAds?
Why use ShowYourAdHere.com over downloading OpenAds?  Most people need quite a bit of technical ability to even begin to install openads.  It’s ridiculously huge to install (something like 25 MB) and it’s confusing to get used to.  Even experienced affiliate marketers pay people to manage a basic install of OpenAds. (source)

Here’s a huge reason to go with ShowYourAdHere.com:  It handles private ad sales.  In other words people can by your ad space and you will get paid instantly.  ShowYourAdHere.com is also lightweight, social, and easy to understand.

Speaking of OpenAds, they just got funding and are going to do free ad hosting. I reckon they’ll need the money, since serving a lot of ads will take some serious hardware and bandwidth. How will you manage the technical issues?
The year is 2008 and a million dollars isn’t need to serve ads to this market.  ShowYourAdHere.com is sitting on it’s very own dedicated server with fully managed hosting and the ability to scale quickly to meet any demands.  In addition ShowYourAdHere.com has a business model where a commission is made for all ad sales to help fund development and defray server costs.

Sidenote: The people at OpenAds are really great people and I don’t want to take anything away from them.  I just feel their solution is geared towards mega-websites and is way over the heads of the average blogger.  Plus they completely miss the boat on helping bloggers take payments and manage purchased inventory.

Finally, keep in mind most ad serving solutions today are mature and have been around many years and still don’t serve the small to average blogger well.  ShowYourAdHere.com is only a few days old with a bright future so I encourage you to give us a shot.  We are really excited about our offering and open to hear any feedback you have by contacting us via ShowYourAdHere.com

You sure know how to speak for your cause, that’s a good thing. How will you promote and evolve the Marketplace on the ShowYourAdHere website, since that could be a good way for bloggers to find new advertisers?
Shortly there will be a “shout out” section for advertisers to put a shout out for what they are looking for and have the publishers pitch to them.  Also the marketplace will evolve to have various search and sort methods.  In addition there will be an API coming down the line.  It would be cool to have ShowyourAdHere.com integration into every directory or place where sites are listed.  For publishers it helps sell their inventory, for advertisers it helps them find it.  Possibly more based on user input.

Maybe it’s the snarky designer in me talking, but aren’t you afraid that the pretty basic look of your site will turn people off? Especially potential media buyers browsing the Marketplace?
The #1 criticism I hear is the design is bad and we are only a couple days old so I hear you loud and clear.  I did it myself but I’m not a designer.  The design is not on the top of the list for me however I’d be willing to exchange exposure for an up and coming designer for some design work.  Otherwise I will for sure be outsourcing a new design in the coming months.

You’re talking about weekly features in the video, how about telling us what’s yet to come?
Watch the blog on Monday.  It’s now video update Mondays.  :)  Thanks for the suggestion.  What’s to come will really be built on what the community wants the most.

Finally, since you’ve been around for some time, what are your general advice to bloggers wanting to make more money blogging? After joining ShowYourAdHere, obviously!
Of course after you sign up for ShowYourAdHere.com, the second best thing you can do is build things people want to look at and then make sure people know about them.  Be proactive, don’t wait for people to come, go find them, introduce yourself, don’t spam, just say hello, my name is…

I’d like to thank Mark for doing this interview, and wish him all the best with ShowYourAdHere - be sure to check it out, and don’t miss the blog either!

This Interview was published on February 1, 2008 at 6:34 am • Did you like it? Subscribe!
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