This post is more or less a repeat of an email I sent out this morning to the members on my text ad site, Text.Admastery.biz. I went into its admin area half an hour ago and found eleven ads waiting to be reviewed and approved.

Of those eleven I have approved only one.

Why do people try to post ads promoting easy wealth, quick earnings, massive riches and things like that? It’s clearly stated on the entry screens on the site that such advertising will be refused and deleted without comment as this is not what the site is designed for.

My policy for some time now has been that if I spot in an advert any hint that it is easy to earn great wealth on the internet then it will be refused. Certainly there have been cases of quick success, but these are not the norm and excessive expectations should not be raised. I’m fully aware that this policy has restricted the growth of the site, but am determined to stay firm on this point.

Easy money schemes do deliver a lot of easy money, but only for the few at the top of the “food chain” who benefit at the cost of the thousands who will never even recoup their expenditure.

Today I learned of the launch of a new ad exchange, and took a close look at it. It is so new that when I checked a few minutes ago it only had less than twenty members. I’m confident that this will change quickly.

The basic format is like a standard text ad exchange of the type popularised by Frank Salinas, and therefore similar to our own, Text.AdMastery. However there some fresh twists. There’s a section which allows surfing of sites very much like a traffic exchange, and another that behaves like a credit-based safelist. This last is similar to the existing solo ads facility but instead of requiring a substantial number of credits to send a solo to the entire membership the safelist allows the sending of smaller numbers.

I suggest you take a look at it by clicking on the banner below.

This morning I came across a blog post which, although drawing some different conclusions from mine, reflected some of the concerns about the development of ad exchanges which have been floating around in my mind for many months.

Some may wonder what the owner of a very new exchange can yet have to say on this subject, but I comment less from the standpoint of an owner than from that of a user.  Given that these small exchanges have only existed in their present form for less than two years, and most have sprung up in the past six months, I reckon that as someone using them since late-2007 I can be classified as something of a veteran.

In the early text ad exchange sites it did not take long to use up a hundred views at a traffic link; now it can sometimes take months as very few people read them.  As the variety of advertising options on the sites increases (sometimes confusingly so) the attention given to any one specific component of the service will be lessened.  That is understandable, but from the point of view of both owners and advertisers it is important to have people coming back regularly both to place and to view ads.

The daily reinsertion of text/html ads is an important factor in that regularity, but it must be structured in such a way that members feel it to be a worthwile use of their time.  Also, while there on the site, these members need some encouragement to view the ads of other members.  After all, this is an “exchange”.

The points (credits) structure, both earning and spending, has a great deal to do with this; when referring to points one has to consider how many of these are needed to buy another advertisement.  In an “exchange” what matters is how many ads have to be clicked in order to earn the right to send another oneself.  The mental arithmetic has to be done site by site; a number of ‘points’ as such means nothing.

In launching the ad exchange at AdMastery.biz I decided to make little difference between points earned for clicking on solo emails and traffic links.  I didn’t go to full equality, but went a long way toward it.  Similarly, the points for clicking text and html ads are much higher than I’ve been accustomed to receiving as a user elsewhere over the past months.  Hopefully this will attract people to view ads on-site as well as at their email boxes.

Having the mix of traffic links which remain in place and text/html ads which require daily reinsertion is in my view a useful feature, provided there are sufficient other incentives to draw people back to the site both to carry out that renewal and while they’re there to view some other links.

The technology has developed during 2008, with a wide range of innovations appearing.  In many of the early exchanges, for example, there was no facility to save a text ad.  This was quickly corrected but still many exchanges do not have the ability to save html ads, making it necessary to enter the details in full every day.  Personally I don’t now use html ads on sites which lack this time-saving functionality.  There simply are not the hours available to spend re-entering everything day after day.  On the positive side the availablility of this efficiency aid does take me back repeatedly to many sites which have it.

Sadly, though, many sites seem to be becoming little more than solo email exchanges – or even solo give-aways – with little visiting of the site apart from entering new emails.  I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that in principle, but is that what the owners really visualise as the future of their sites?  I suspect not, and it could be dangerous for the future of this advertising niche as a whole; or it could lead to the emergence (I suspect fleetingly) of a separate sub-niche of solo-exchanges destined to go the way of the old ‘regular’ safelists.

I’m tempted to carry on and discuss the quality of advertising – both the quality of what is advertised and the quality of its presentation.  That, however, can wait for another day.  Meanwhile, thanks to the good people at the Ad Factory blog for triggering me to put pen to paper (sorry, fingers to keyboard!).