BuySellAds.com and our plans for the first quarter of ’09

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.

We are 100% open to suggestions, criticism, etc.