Within an hour of putting my 300×250 ad spot up for sale, I get an email from Ryan Stewart of eleven21.com offering to buy it. Ryan sent me the $1,000 before he even sent me the ad. This was shortly followed by another $1,000 payment from Bidvertiser (their ad will run next month).
What Ryan is doing with the ad space is actually quite creative and is sure to generate a bit of buzz. Ryan is flipping my ad space. The ad links to a sales page on eleven21.com offering the 300×250 space for $1,500. The price is prorated so it goes down $50 for each day the space doesn’t sell. It’s also been listed on eBay.
The genius of this plan is if Ryan flips the spot within 10 days he would come out with a profit and all the traffic he received up until that time would be free. If Ryan can’t find a buyer, then the ad is still promoting and sending traffic to his blog, which is monetized very well. There will also be the buzz generated when other bloggers write about the world’s first ad flip.