We have some exciting plans for ’09 that I wanted to share with all of you. Here you go:
New User Interface / Information Architecture
Many changes are being made (small and large) to help simplify and improve the overall user experience. This includes a complete redesign. Some highlights:
- We have separated out Advertiser and Publisher specific account functions into their own navigation buttons and added drop-down menus for these sections.
- Under My Account – added a Settings link and cleaned up the Payment Preferences section.
- New “Transactions” section for both Advertisers and Publishers will now outline each and every transaction (i.e. not just payments, but cancellations, modifications, etc.).
- Integrated Support System – you may have noticed a better support process these past few weeks. We have integrated a support system that includes help articles and how-to’s.
- BIG changes to the “Buy Ads” section.
New Search Functionality / Buy Ads Section
As you can see, there are a lot of big changes in this release, but this one is the biggest and should have the most impact on the Advertiser’s overall experience with BSA. We also believe it will have a nice impact on our publishers bottom line as advertisers will be able to find them more easily. The search functionality has been greatly expanded upon and improved, the screen shot below should speak for itself (we hope!). When you click on a listing it will expand an intermediary screen within the current view showing you important details about the site (and allowing you to add stuff to your cart) without having to click through to its detail page. Filtering the results will be super easy with the slider controls and inline keyword filtering on the left. We’ll be adding more controls to help narrow down your search, but for launch there will be what you see below. Columns are now sortable, too (wooohooo!).
Automated Cashouts
Currently, in order to cashout you need to send us an email. This has been a great way of getting to know our publishers better, but it’s time to automate this for you. You will still need to request a cashout, but now you will be able to do this from within your account.
We are also lowering the minimum amount for wire transfers to $500 (previously $1,000); however, the fee does still remain at $35 per wire transfer. We were able to lower this minimum due to a new wire system we have setup. PayPal and Check cashout minimum’s will remain the same (no minimum for PayPal and $50 minimum for checks). It’s also important to note that when we cash you out via PayPal, you don’t actually get charged a fee from PayPal – we take care of that for you and you receive the exact amount that’s in your BSA account.
Stats / Conversion Tracking / Stats API
Both Advertisers and Publishers will now see stats for their ads/sites in their account. We are also integrating conversion tracking for advertisers who want a more detailed stats report in their BSA account. Most notably, however, is that you will have the option to get your BSA stats from our API! This feature is still in planning stages, but we plan to allow advertisers to pull their BSA stats from our API sometime in Q1.
A view of the main advertiser stats page:
And then the detail page for each ad:
Automatic updates for external stats
Previously for your site statistics you were required to login and manually refresh. Now your statistics will be updated automatically for you every 7 days! In addition to tracking Alexa, Compete, Delicious, Yahoo! Inbound Links, and Page Rank our update will be adding some new stats (see next item)…
New external stats
We’re going to be adding RSS subscribers and Twitter followers. These are very important metrics that help advertisers understand more about your reach, influence, and authority. You will need to specify your Feedburner URL and your Twitter handle, but once we have these details in your site settings we will automatically pull them into your BSA listing page.
Use funds from your account to purchase ads
Right now, one of our biggest pet peeves with our own app is that users cannot use their account funds to purchase ads in the network. Well, in the new version of BSA you can.
Re-Use Creative
Currently, advertisers need to upload creative for each ad in their cart. In the new version, you will have the option of selecting previous creatives you have uploaded vs. having to upload a new one each time. This should save you time in checking out and also when it comes time to edit multiple ads of the same size.
Embeddable advertise page for publishers
Pretty much every site in our network has an “Advertise” page on their website and/or they’re linking directly to their BSA listing page. We take pride in the fact that BuySellAds.com “doesn’t get in the way” like most networks do. So, to help take this one step further, we’ll have a JavaScript widget that will embed your BSA listing page directly into your site. All you will need to do is grab a couple lines of JavaScript, put it on your “Advertise” page and it will feed real time data and information about the advertising options for your site. The layout will be very simple and customizable to help blend in with your existing layout and design.
New ad units
We’re not going to get into too much detail on this one, but we’re going to have 2-3 interesting (and tasteful) new types of ad units coming out to help publishers make more money and to help advertisers reach users in new ways through BSA publishers… stay tuned.
Timing, etc.
You want it now, we want it now too… we’re in the same boat. It will be launched some time in the first quarter of this year (Q1). We’re very close, and things are looking pretty good, but we’re not in a hurry to launch. Despite the quirks here and there the current site works… advertisers are buying ads and publishers are selling ads (which is our #1 goal). So, we’re not going to pull the trigger until we’re 99% ready to go.
What can you do to help?
Help us spread the word about BSA and the new version:
- Tweet about it, please use this URL: http://ow.ly/7ni
- Write a post on your blog about it, you are free to use the screenshots from our Flickr account.
Todd founded BuySellAds and lives in Boston with his wife and chocolate lab Rusty. He's a front-end engineer by trade and believes in a less obtrusive future in online advertising. For more, follow him
Great changes. Let’s hope it will work our for everybody, making BuysellAds even better than any other ad-service out there.
WOW, I want to join all the other amazed used of BSA and thank you for taking the time to make such great improvements, as well as congratulate you on BSA’s continuous success! Can’t wait to see the changes…
Good plan. Eagerly waiting for the implementation.
I am eagerly awaiting these changes. I hope you drop the private beta tag soon as it scares away advertisers.
The changes are fantastic! In particular I like the new UI and the ability to include Twitter and RSS reach stats. I’m with PC, though, in that I think the “beta” classification scares away potential advertisers.
thanks for the comment, we’re now out of private beta ;)
Cheers mate,
best of luck to ya guys.
Agree with the last few guys that have mentioned it, drop the Beta tag ASAP please. I have also noticed a decline in advertisers signing up for ads on a few sites i monitor … guys that had 4/5 ads sold have 2/5 now and people are not renewing. I will have to take the ads off myself if i dont see some people buying shortly ….. i would like to give it until atleast the new means for searching and filtering comes in but i’m not going to wait weeks for it.
I won’t argue with anyone on this one since we’re both speculating. However, I do agree that the site needs to come out of the “private” part of beta since it works well and there are hundreds of happy advertisers and publishers who are buying/selling ads and seeing results. We’re working hard to get things tidied up for this to happen.
@neil, advertisers don’t cancel ads because of a “beta” state on a site on which they have purchased ads flawlessly. They cancel ads due to lack of performance above anything else. A good placement can survive in even the worst of conditions because it’s a good placement. For your site, you will greatly increase your chances of selling an ad if you have the default “advertise here” box on your site (I actually don’t even see where you have the ad code installed right now). That being said, we will have a Japanese section on the new site since this seems to be the next biggest vertical in BSA after web design/dev vertical.
Cheers for the feedback Todd.
I would have to confess i probably wrote that took quick … as usual.
I agree with your comments and look forward to seeing the changes sometime soon!
All the best with the new changes, i’m sure it will be a success.
Will it be possible to translate this embeddable page? It would be very useful once you will move from closed beta to public version.
I like the look of the new additions but one I havent seen “Categorising”.
Originally I joined this site because it allowed Advertisers specific to design and webdesign to place Ads on sites that have good content and visitors.
Sadly I find this has dramatically changed over the last few months and now sites are being added that realistically have nothing to do with design.
I think that categorising sites would be a lot better for Advertisers to choose from – the current Ranking system (impressions – the more impressions the higher your rating is in the list) includes all sites and not category specific.
If it takes ages to find a site then an Advertiser may well go somewhere else – I have lost advertisers over the last few months, but I dont know why – there is no reason in my opinion as my site is permanently updated and has a steady increase in traffic.
So – sorry for the long post but had to be said
p.s Please review sites a little more in-depth before allowing them to use your system :)
I agree that creating “categories” would be a great idea. It would help advertisers sort through the now hundreds of publishers. However, I 100% disagree though that you should ignore sites that aren’t design sites. Those of us that maintain non-design sites have been hoping for a system like this forever now!
I would also love to see two other features:
1. Discount Codes – “First Month half off with this code:XXXXX”
2. Option to show data – Not all sites have rss feeds, twitter accounts…
Aside from that, thank again for the brilliant system you have in place!
Hi Dan,
Thanks for the suggestions. Yes, enabling certain stats does make sense. Discount codes sounds cool too, added to our list of future improvements.
Cheers,
Todd
Thanks Mark. Currently, we are creating what we call “Ad Packs” that are essentially categories of sites. It’s in the directory screenshot in the upper left hand side. I’m not sure that “Ad Packs” is the best name for this, but I’m more focused on getting the functionality done than naming right now. So, yes, we do have categories of sites in the new version; however, it may be slightly different and more prominent than is currently represented in the screenshot we posted.
Regarding the non-design related sites, we are accepting sites that are not specifically design / development related, but we have tighter requirements for these sites. I’m pretty sure that most of this problem will be solved with better categorization. There will also be a concept of an “advertiser profile” where they will automatically get recommendations based on their profile, spend history, etc. I’m not sure if this will be ready for the initial launch, but it’s something we will have in the works shortly after the initial launch.
In addition, we will also be removing some sites from the inventory: 1. sites that we just can’t sell ads for because nobody wants to advertise with them and 2. sites that “snuck” through our validation system during private beta.
Thanks for the comments Mark!
Great changes. Can’t wait.
i wonder if we site owners can use our own customize static/animated banner instead of just “Advertise Here”=)
you can hard code in your own banner around the BSA ad code and turn off our default advertiser here banner ;)
Cool!! This is awesome feature.
i am already join in your website but i am waiting for approval my blog.
Hi,
Should we think that .blogspot sites can’t accepted from buysellads?
some excellent usefull updates that will benifit everyone.
great stuff ;)
role on Q1
I’m excited for all the new improvements, especially the stats pages! I think the Twitter followers and RSS subscribers will also help me out a lot, since I focus and take pride in these numbers mostly.
This looks absolutely amazing, guys! I’m really excited to use BSA as my sponsorship portal when I get my blog up. I’ve been waiting to see an improvement on BSA exactly like this. I’m loving the detailed information I’ll be getting on my sponsors.
Realy good improvements!!!
I like it a lot :)
Really looking forward to the improvements. Iv only recently joined BSA but without the improvements its still miles past other advertising sites
how cant i get it!!
Any more news on a date?
Just a small idea, How about adding a filter feature when look to buy ad’s; e.g. filter buy Alexa rank or monthly visitors.
yes sir, we have that must-have in the new version.
Hi,
I would like to know whether you give any suggestions on fixing the price and placement of banner ads in the site. For instance lets say I have a 728X90 banner space free. I can either place one banner ad of size 728X90 or i can place 4 ads of size 165X90. I would like to know do you give suggestions on this and also on fixing the price. Thank you.
Man…I am seriously waiting for these changes, by when can we see these updates ?
i have try to add some ads in my other blog and i am waiting for buyers
Looking forward to it, mainly because BuySellAds has been easy to set up and use and the advertiser interest is there, too.
Anyway, one or two things I’d like to ask for:
* Easier CSS styling. I tried to get two ad blocks into two 960.gs layout blocks and failed miserably. In the end, it’s just a bunch of images, so why make it so complicated?
* I don’t see why you would make http://s3.buysellads.com/stats.js uncacheable.
* http://s3.buysellads.com/stats.js could take a little bit of YUI love ;-)
* Ideally, you would only track an impression only once per page instead of twice per ad tag.
Maybe have someone who rocks at HTTP performance look over your setup. Even though you use S3, there’s still room for fewer requests, I guess.
با
Looking forward to these feature. Hope that BuySellAds will open up some new feature for lower traffic website.
Hello Todd,
Are you the only one working on this site? Is this why it is taking so long to make this update? I see this is a plan that has been going on for months and still no changes. When do you think it will be done? I wouldn’t take much longer if I were you. People are going to start to think that you are just a procrastinator and have no plans to finish anything in he near future. Maybe you shouldn’t have told anyone about the upgrade until you knew a better launch date. You are doing great, but taking too long.
Hi Brandon,
Nope, not the only one. This blog post says that it will be launched in the first quarter of this year (i.e. April 15th) so from my perspective it’s going to be on-time. We’re working hard to get this live for everyone, trust me. And we will be live by the promised date of April 15th ;)
Thanks Todd, you’re doing a great job.
Awesome! Just over 2 weeks until relaunch. I can’t wait to see this :)
I can’t wait for these changes. Its going to be great.
very good work
thank you
This is a cool way of advertising. I will try this someday.
I like this. I am waiting for these changes,
Fantastic web site – hope to visit once again.
Great Things happening here.