I blame this all on Webmaster Talk. Ever since they placed that custom Google ad on my site, they seeded the idea in my head that I should try something like this as well. So after buying a Google ad on Webmaster Talk, I decided to buy some more space on other sites and blogs that match the topics I covered. So far I have purchased ad space at Problogger and Steve Palvina. All the ads are “Shout Out” type ads that their readers should enjoy reading. I also placed an ad on Plenty Of Fish just to see what kind of traffic it can deliver.
This is actually the first time I have used paid advertising to promote my site. I’ve been an Adwords user for a long time but I have always used it to do arbitrage. Yes, I am an arbitrager, but it’s not what you may think. I don’t use those MFA sites that everyone hates. I use Adwords to send traffic to highly targeted content pages that make me $1.50 for every $1.00 I spend.
Using Adwords SiteMatch to bring traffic to my blog will be an interesting experiment. Unlike normal Google ads, SiteMatch ads are not CPC based. Instead, you bid a maximum CPM you’re willing to pay for the site and Google will show your ad if it’s the best ad to show based on how the target site is performing. All the sites I purchased ad space on where done at $2 CPM ($1 for Plenty Of Fish) with a daily budget of $20 each. You own the entire ad spot with a SiteMatch ad, which is a feature I really like. Instead of being in competition with four other ads on a 300×250 spot, I get the entire space all to myself.
Depending on how these ads do, I may expand and advertise on more sites. I’ll keep you posted on how things go. If you can think of any other sites I should buy ad space on, please let me know. You can recommend your site if you want. 
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