WP Text Ads Launches Marketplace

written by John Chow on July 19th, 2007

I first wrote about WP Text Ads back on May 19th when Alex Choo emailed me about his Wordpress plugin. WP Text Ads allows Wordpress publishers to sell text links directly to advertisers and bypass services like Text Link Ads.

While selling your own text links and killing off the middleman sounds like a good idea, it doesn’t work that way in real life. Text Link Ads is successful not because of their TLA plugin for Wordpress. They’re successful because of their marketplace of 10,000+ blogs offering text links for sale. Now WP Text Ads has launched their own marketplace.

I’d like to inform you that the Marketplace is up and running. WP Text Ads users using version 1.1 can join it. It’s free and requires no registration.

With the Marketplace, I hope that advertisers will be able to find bloggers much more easily.

The marketplace is pretty small right - there are only five blogs listed (one of them being WP Text Ads). You cannot order links from the marketplace. Instead, you visit the blog and order direct from them. The WP Text Ad marketplace is available for any publisher running the WP Text Ad plugin.

Right now, the marketplace is too small to be of any use. None of the blogs (except for WP Text Ads) listed in the marketplace have sold a single link. So while cutting out a service like Text Link Ads may sound great, 100% of zero is still zero.

CyberCapital.Org said on July 19th, 2007 at 11:30 am

Wow Thats a great news. Now I’ll definitely try My own Text Ads. Thanks John!
And Hey John! Can you join My new Contest? The winner Will Display His Google Ads in the CyberCapital For a week!! And that means Lot of Ad impressions
I’d love to see you in the contest because I learn all these techniques from you! Thank you So much!

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SEO Optimization said on July 19th, 2007 at 1:44 pm

Indeed it is a good news. I had Alex comment yesterday on my blog and took a look at WP text link ads and seems promising. Just wondering how much time it will take for bloggers to install this plugin.

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BlogaDollar.com said on August 1st, 2007 at 1:19 pm

Great news. This is on my to do list.
I’m almost there.
If you want to see my daily progression:
BlogaDollar.com
Greetings from France John.

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a video a day said on July 21st, 2007 at 11:24 am

it’s a great idea

maybe one day textlinkads have to pay a big sum of acquire it

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Search Engine Marketing said on July 19th, 2007 at 11:38 am

well … give them a chance to grow … it will work in the long run!

Great Idea!

Darin

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Freebies said on July 19th, 2007 at 2:15 pm

Exactly! Everybody has to start from the ground at some point and I’ll be listing my sites on there today. If everybody else does the same, that marketplace will grow plenty.

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a video a day said on July 21st, 2007 at 11:25 am

hmm, i do see the potential

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RobMalon said on July 19th, 2007 at 11:41 am

I’ve always been quite fond of dealing independently with advertisers…as long as they’re willing to pay months in advance :)

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Jason said on July 19th, 2007 at 11:44 am

Is it against Text Link Ad policy to run another type of text ad on your site?

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Rhys said on July 19th, 2007 at 1:37 pm

No. Quite simply :)

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a video a day said on July 21st, 2007 at 11:25 am

i don’t think so

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Brian Vaughan said on July 19th, 2007 at 11:49 am

If the marketplace gets built up, could be a great site.

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a video a day said on July 21st, 2007 at 11:26 am

definitely

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w2look said on July 19th, 2007 at 11:49 am

Hi John,

Just wanted to comment that yes, the marketplace at WPTA is small, but everyone, even TLA had to start somewhere. Do you think that TLA started off with thousands of users? I don’t think so. WPTA is only a few months old, but I truly believe that this is a high quality plug-in for wordpress blogs and the marketplace will continue to grow as more blggers hear about it. Why would anyone want to pay a middle-man like TLA if they don’t have to? WPTA gives you complete control over your links (including CSS) and it is very easy to install and use with wordpress. Give WPTA some time to grow and I think your opinion may change. I have also just learned that an affiliate program may be in the works for WPTA as well, which would surely boost the number of users. If anyone would like to see how WPTA looks and works on a wordpress blog, please feel free to check it out on my comparison shopping blog and let me know what you think.

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John Chow said on July 19th, 2007 at 12:05 pm

TLA started with a $100K marketing budget and got thousands of users within the first few weeks. It takes a lot of money to get an ad marketplace off the ground. Doing it your way is possible, but it’s slow and painful. Good luck and let know when the affiliate program is ready.

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w2look said on July 19th, 2007 at 12:33 pm

That’s true. Starting out small can be slow and painful, but I seem to remember another recent start-up that you got behind (AGLOCO) that spread very quickly by word of mouth along with their affiliate program. So, why not give WPTA a chance?

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John Chow said on July 19th, 2007 at 1:42 pm

I am giving them a chance. Why do you think I’m writing about them? :)

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Mybloggo said on July 20th, 2007 at 3:15 pm

John is giving them a chance ….If not he will no writing this post

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shaun said on July 19th, 2007 at 12:00 pm

Thats sweet I’m sure this new service will do well.

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Mybloggo said on July 19th, 2007 at 12:08 pm

Great News….Hope can earn some money from here

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Casey said on July 19th, 2007 at 12:14 pm

This could be extremely successful if it grows! And I bet it will.

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OneYearGoal.com - Make Money Online said on July 19th, 2007 at 12:17 pm

Thanks for the heads up. Let us know if it grows John.

One Man. One Year. $100,000 online.
http://www.oneyeargoal.com

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H:H said on July 19th, 2007 at 12:18 pm

I don’t get it, this is like putting a paypal account with the text “advertise here”. The good thing about TLA is that they have all the advertisers in the same place, you don’t have to go and search them.

The only way this will be useful is for big sites with lots of visits

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w2look said on July 19th, 2007 at 12:25 pm

WPTA does have a marketplace where all of the advertisers in one place. Check out the ,a href=”http://www.wptextads.com/marketplace”>WPTA Marketplace for yourself.

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w2look said on July 19th, 2007 at 12:27 pm

Sorry for the typo. Should have read :

WPTA does have a marketplace where all of the advertisers in one place. Check out the WPTA Marketplace for yourself.

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Terra Andersen said on July 19th, 2007 at 12:31 pm

:mrgreen: It’ll be useful in a few months, i’m sure!

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SLBusiness said on July 19th, 2007 at 2:22 pm

Good concept, if it gets popular it could be a money maker. Though not something that is immediately useful I guess.

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bob cobb said on July 19th, 2007 at 2:38 pm

I havent had the greatest luck with TLA. There are so many sites on there now its hard to find buyers

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simply said on July 19th, 2007 at 2:56 pm

Many sad guys here with no money, be happy and I will give you a free membership inn the new community pownce from the man behind Digg. You have to go to my blog to get it http://euroanddollar.blogspot.com/. If John need one he is the first one.

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Joe Bartender said on July 19th, 2007 at 2:57 pm

Thanks for the update on this. I occasionally get a sale through Text Link Ads, and it’s nice, but as a small blog I think I get lost in the mix.

The other downside for me, is that I think there are a lot of potential advertisers for my market who don’t have a clue about PageRank or backlinks or even to go to Text Link Ads.

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Jashan said on July 19th, 2007 at 9:17 pm

Hi John,

What is that scraped feed thing in my RSS Feed.

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Michael Fultz said on July 19th, 2007 at 11:13 pm

This is good- another option for bloggers…

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web development blog said on July 19th, 2007 at 11:32 pm

Well, I just got accepted for TLA. I might try WPTA but they’ll need to grow a bit first. It’s nice to have another option though.

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Alex Choo said on July 20th, 2007 at 3:14 am

Hey everyone,

Thanks for your encouraging comments, and for giving WP Text Ads a chance.

Just so you all know, I don’t have a $100k budget. Will you believe me if I tell you my total capital invested up to know is about $200?

I don’t have any staff to work with me on WP Text Ads either.

And since I live in Singapore, I certainly don’t have the exposure that TLA and the other guys have because they can do demos and join conventions.

But what I do have is a belief that WPTA serves a useful purpose, and a desire to work at it until users feel it does that.

WPTA is still a baby. So is the Marketplace. I’m very thankful that there are people who take the time to join the Marketplace even though it is very immature now.

But we’ll get there.

So thanks for all your support. And if you have questions or feedback, just drop me an email at alexchoowk at wptextads.com

Sincerely
Alex

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lionstarr said on July 20th, 2007 at 3:42 am

I didn’t even know WPTA, but now I will certainly hve a look at it!

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samuro said on July 20th, 2007 at 9:07 am

Sound like interesting, something new and I have never heard about WP Text Ads before. Thanks for the good option. :cool:

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Paypal2u Bloggers said on July 21st, 2007 at 5:03 pm

It just need a promotion and good network building. If many out there used the services, the advertiser will come eventually.

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Wahlau.NET said on July 21st, 2007 at 8:05 pm

another ads option is definitely good

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chrisblogging.com said on July 23rd, 2007 at 11:56 am

I am interested in keeping an eye on this. It appears to be heading in the right direction…

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Alex Choo said on July 24th, 2007 at 7:09 am

Guys,

It’s really encouraging to know you think WP Text Ads is useful. Do not hesitate to drop me an email if you have new ideas on how to improve it.

I hope more of you will give it a try. Right now, not many people seem to be joining the Marketplace.

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Michael Fultz said on July 24th, 2007 at 9:53 pm

I think this deserves a try…

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