Alex Choo sent me an email about his new WordPress plugin call WP Text Ads. This free WordPress plugin allows you to sell text link ads directly to advertisers.
With WP Text Ads, no middleman is involved. And without having to pay commissions, it means your clients save on reduced rates while you do not earn any less compared with traditional brokered programs.
WP Text Ads allows you to sell text links at your home page, throughout the blog and at the post level. You set the ad rates and runs and have full control of the business relationships.
Choo offers two versions of WP Text Ads. The first is free but limits you to selling two ads. The standard version removes this limit at a cost of $127. The standard version also comes with a 180 days money back guarantee.
While selling your own text link and keeping all the money sounds like a great idea, it real life it never works as planned. For one thing, you need to be a decent size blog in order to do direct sales. Without a marketplace like what Text Link Ads offers, the chances of an advertiser finding you is very slim. My friend Ed Lau is with TLA and they’ve sold five text links for him so far (and some post level links). When I asked him how many of those advertisers would have found his blog without TLA, his answer was, “Zero.”
If you get a lot of direct advertising inquiries then WP Text Ads maybe worth buying. A text link on this blog cost $240 a month ($100 coupon here). At that price, one new link sale and the program will more than pay for itself. I certainly have the volume to do my own text link sales but I couldn’t even if I wanted to because Text Link Ads has me sold out 95% of the time.