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Here is an Interview with Turnip of Power | Social Networking marketer on the creation of a new advertising network called CMF ADS. CMF (Changing Marketing Forever) ADS is a widget-based advertising system that allows advertisers to purchase ad space on quality niche blogs on a CPM (cost per thousand views) basis. Currently, there are 20 blogs in the network that have been selectively chosen to participate in the initial launching.

I like discovering new and up and coming products or services and thought CMF ADS would be a great candidate to share with everyone. After you read through the questions below, I encourage you to visit CMF ADS and see what it has to offer. Without further adieu, here you go:

What was your motivation for starting CMF ADS?

My motivation was to implement an idea I had posted several times on both my blog and on the Entrecard Forums. Each time the idea was ignored or given the canned response of “We have limited resources for that.” Then recently I was disappointed with the Performancing Ads Network. Stan from razzball.com approached me and said “Why can’t we do something like that?” That’s how it all started.

What are your short and long-term goals for CMF ADS?

Short term the goal was to get good people involved who wanted to be part of something new. We wanted to test our code, our server, public reaction, and iron out all the little unexpected surprises. Long term we would like to expand our portfolio of blogs and reach out to other social networks. As we are only 3 weeks old today, we are still refining our initial goals. Just yesterday I rewrote the widget code to allow for this expansion.

What is your major selling point for CMF ADS (elevator pitch)?

For publishers: We monetize your social traffic for you. All you have to do is maintain a quality blog. We help promote your blog, help you with your website when help is requested, and at the end of the day provide you with a small paycheck for displaying our widget in previously unused space next to their social networking widget.

For advertisers: We get your message out there on 20 of the best up and coming websites. No need to interact with so many small sites individually. We bundle our members’ page views and sell them to you in a very affordable CPM bundle, providing geotargetting and other advanced features the individual site owner could not easily provide due to a lack of technical expertise.

I could imagine many bloggers will want to utilize your service. Do you have strict quality control admission?

We have quality control on both the publisher and advertiser ends. Nobody wants to advertise on horrible made for adsense splogs. Likewise, no blogger wants scammy ads on their website. We manually approve all blogs and ads, allowing both publisher and advertiser to opt out of any ads or sites they wish. Each blog in our network was discussed in detail before being sent an invitation to join.

If a blog is interested in joining what will be the minimum requirements for joining?

Initially we invited only WordPress blogs. Since then we have allowed blogs using other content management platforms to join. The main requirements are your own domain name, a minimum of a 250 pixel wide sidebar, and maintaining a high-quality blog. Sometimes we work around the sidebar issue in special cases, but generally adhere to these rules.

How does the advertising widget effect the speed and efficiency of a site?

Our widget opens in an i-frame, so won’t ever slow down the rest of a site from loading. In addition, we host the bottom image locally, further speeding up the process.

What has been the overall perception of the widget so far?

Reception has been great. The first day we announced our network we sold 25,000 impressions as well as numerous high-quality blogs looking to join the network. Many curious bloggers have taken notice, along with a few advertisers.

Do you see yourself in competition to Entrecard or merely using some of their ideas to create a stand along advertising network?

We don’t see ourselves in competition with Entrecard or using their ideas. We took twenty well-respected blogs and made an ad network out of them. Now because we are active in the Entrecard community it was only natural that these twenty blogs were discovered through Entrecard. One blog has since left Entrecard and we welcome that, as well. A good blog is a good blog, Entrecard or not.

What measures are you establishing to provide the smoothest growth possible?

To ensure smooth growth, we are only letting in a fraction of the blogs asking to join. Each step of the way we have checked to make sure all issues were addressed before moving on to the next phase.

Conclusion:

I think this network has some great potential to develop into a full service advertising network. I don’t know how often they will be accepting new publishers, but I would make admission highly selective, more on the prestigious side. Say it only has enrollment every two weeks and only X number of new publishers will be allowed in during the beta stage, kind of like Gmail was invite only for the longest time. This would help in the beginning to have controlled growth of all the system resources preserving the quality of the network and service by not having a bunch of down time.

I really enjoy when people go out on their own by mixing and matching various different ideas to produce a worthwhile product. Time will tell how things play out, but I would again encourage you to head over to CMF ADS and check it out for yourself.

This is a guest post brought to you by Shaun Connell, webmaster of Make Money, a free resource for those who want to make money online and think outside the “money box.” Find out what the money box is by visiting the site. If you would like to be a featured guest poster go to the guest poster page to learn more.

Every once in a while I stumble onto an analogy that just sticks in my mind. The analogy illustrates a concept or technique so well I can’t help but constantly refer back to the analogy.

For a perfect example, Seth Godin’s analogy in The Big Red Fez did the trick. I can’t think about internet marketing without instantly thinking of his illustration that demonstrated how you can get your visitors to do exactly what you want them to do.

So what was this amazing analogy? Before we discuss it, let’s do some internet marketing 101 for a refresher.

Back to the Basics

We’ve heard the basics a billion times and there’s a reason: mastering internet marketing is found in mastering the basics. Internet marketing tricks and “secret strategies” can be helpful, but they must never be seen as anything but compliments to the two “make money online” basics: writing great content and building links. Everything else is just icing on the cake.

Building the links is for generating traffic. Writing great content is for getting your traffic to take the actions you want them to take. Traffic without content that convinces your visitors to take action is simply a waste. Unless your visitors click ads, sign up for newsletters or check out your sales page, you might as well have never had the traffic. Unless your traffic takes action, you can’t make money.

Keep it Simple, Stupid!

So, what’s the easiest method of getting your traffic to do something? By making it hard to not do it. Your website/blog design should be showcased around the fundamentals of what your visitors should instantly do.

Remember, this is a business. Any page that doesn’t directly make money through readership is nothing more than a “squeeze page,” with its entire purpose to:

1. Build Trust
2. Funnel Traffic

This brings us back to the analogy by marketing genius Seth Godin. How should you organize your design and content? Simple:

Think of your visitors as a bunch of monkeys. These monkeys are at your website for a reason: they want a banana. If you want them to find the banana, just give it to them. On every page it should be obvious what the banana is.

So What Do You Do?

The Internet provides marketers with the greatest opportunity ever known to marketers: the ability to literally hand an eager audience information that they can monetize. They’re coming to you, so feel free to offer them relevant information that you can monetize.

If you want your visitors to subscribe to your newsletter, consider putting the opt-in at the bottom of every post. (Better yet: think about having your website store special cookies so that only those visitors who haven’t already signed up for it will see the opt-in field.)

If your main monetization strategy is AdSense, put it up under the left-hand side of the title, with the text wrapping around the ad.

If your main monetization strategy is an affiliate program, wrap up every post and article with a relevant affiliate link.

In the end, just think about what you want your visitors to do in an ideal visit. Now make sure they can do what you want them to do. Give the monkey a banana, and make money while you’re at it.

This is a guest post written by Shaun Connell, the webmaster behind the free internet marketing resource “Make Money“. That link is the banana. Click it. You know you want to.

I’ll tell you. About two years ago, these signs started popping up all over Fargo as a new and convenient way of marketing. I have to say that the very first bright, neon signs I saw like this did catch my attention and cause me to stop and read them. The problem was that after a little while, others thought they would make some money with this new and successful advertisement and set out to replicate the success of the originator. I am not sure exactly how much it costs to put one of these signs in front of your business. I believe about $150 / week. As you can see, it would only take about two weeks to recover the cost of the materials used to make and alter the sign’s message, then pure profit.

The major problem now is that the novelty of these signs wore off and now they are just like all the other billboards in town begging to interrupt our lives in the hopes of selling us something. The bang for the buck advertisements these signs once had is now gone. They only attract the people who were already looking for whatever is being sold. What are people to do now when they want to get their message out about a new deal or gizmo? Doing something different works for a while, but that requires lots and lots of change to stay ahead. How does this relate to online advertising?

Remember when the fold down ad corners popped up online and everyone went crazy to stick ads in there because people were intrigued? Well, that novelty has worn off and pretty quick I might add. Or how about Google Adsense? It is no wonder Google always has to invent new ways and places to stick ads in order to keep up ad generated revenue. Ads in video, ads on the sidebar, ads in email, ads on their own version of Wikipedia now named Knol, ads on cellphones and the list will go on.

What if, and I mean a big what-if, you took all of the money you planned to spend on advertising and interrupting people’s lives and used that money to better your service or product. You would probably end up with a product that people will start talking about because it has become truly useful or over the top in a way that will separate itself from anything similar to it. It would be like spending the time to run a free clinic to get people interested in a sport or new hobby. The end result could be more sales of your product for helping others get involved, or perhaps more recognition as an authority on the subject increasing your demand.

A funny thing happens when your demand goes up, so does your salary. This will never happen overnight, but it will eventually happen as you increase the value you contribute to others. In other words, you separate yourself from the pack and distinguish yourself or product, allowing for people to talk about it openly. When was the last time someone was ecstatic about the McDonald’s dollar menu and told you about it?

edit* If you don’t have these signs in your town yet, you could make a lot of money by being the first to start.

Whats new at the Unconventional Marketing Blog?

Well last week I did a featured series for a blogger appreciation week, where I made mention of those who wanted to be recognized. I believe I got everyone. If you slipped through, send me a message and I will make up for it. Here are the posts:

• AlmostFit.com takes the stage
• The Big Bald Blog, a Big Pappa creation
• The MLM’s best friend, John Leonard
• Four blogs worth checking out featuring…
  • That’s Great PR
  • Down On Our Luck
  • It Might Be Love
  • The Blue Workhors

Overall I feel it went very well and I really enjoyed talking and sharing some of my reader’s blogs with the rest of my readers. From time to time I really like to give back and make a mention the best I can for those who help support my blog. I wish I could shower you with lavish prizes and tons of cash but not quite yet ;).

Guest Posters

I have offered up guest posting in the past and have not received much attention until out of the blue Shaun Connell stepped up to the plate and shared his thoughts on Google Adsense. I would like to thank Shaun and welcome him to guest post anytime.

Also, you might have noticed a new guest poster page at the top of the blog. To encourage some more guest posting and share a little more about those who do guest posts, I created a page to show off a mug shot and brief bio for all to see. Shaun is lonely on that page and is looking for some more company. If you are interested, feel free to use the contact page to let me know of your interest to join Shaun.

Goals

I am a big fan of goals for both this blog and my personal life, and this month was a great month for goals on this blog.

Here were my goals:

Page Views : 70,000
Alexa: under 125,000
Technorati Rank: 30,000
Technorati Authority: 200
RSS Subscribers : 250

Here is what I got:

Page Views : 106,953 Unique Visits 53,000
Alexa: under 122,000
Technorati Rank: 26,138
Technorati Authority: 193 (just missed)
RSS Subscribers : 308 (last day of the month)

As you can see, I made all but one of my goals of the month with which I am really pleased. I didn’t meet all my goals in the last two months and so I did not set July goals as out of reach as the others. I also was not anticipating all of the new subscribers to the blog but would like to welcome all of you. Seeing that I just missed the Technorati goal by a few, if you would like to add my blog to your favorites to help me meet my goal, I would be eternally grateful. Heres the link.

This is a guest post brought to you by Shaun Connell, webmaster of Make Money, a free resource for those who want to make money online and think outside the “money box.” Find out what the money box is by visiting the site.

Don’t get me wrong, AdSense paid me my first check. For doing that, they’ll always have a special place in my heart. But unfortunately, most bloggers rely on AdSense as their primary way of earning an income for their main blog. AdSense is fantastic, but should it be your primary source of income? Let’s do some casual number crunching to see.

This is Why I Hate Algebra

Let’s say you want to make a $100 a day with your primary site. To find out how much it will take to get there, you’ll use a super simple formula that looks something like this:

[AdSense cpm]*[x traffic]=100

If the AdSense CPM is $10, your formula will look like this: 10*[x]=100 which means this: 10*[10]=100.

This isn’t just gibberish. The “x” stands for “thousands of impressions,” meaning if you make a whopping $10 per thousand visitors, you’ll need 10,000 impressions before you make your $100. How many impressions do you serve? This is a vital question for understanding potential AdSense earnings.

How Many Baskets do You Have?

That’s nothing to sneeze at. It takes a lot of work to generate a constant 10,000 impressions a day, but the fact is that most websites, even by the pros, won’t generate that much. So what to do? Just remember the age old advice of financial planners:

Always Diversify.

Day traders always argue that you should diversify, never putting all of the proverbial eggs in one basket. If you diversify, it’s harder to get wiped out, and even if most stocks go down, at least some will go up. It’s just safer.

The same concept applies to internet marketing. Diversify. Sell ads, sell an affiliate program, just diversify. AdSense is a great supplement, but compared to the other monetizaton strategies, it simply shouldn’t be your primary focus.

Look at it this way: Let’s say you are selling an affiliate package worth 100 bucks, and when you make a sale, you get 50 bucks. You get 10,000 impressions a day from 5,000 visitors. Of that 5,000, only 1,000 end up clicking through your affiliate link. Supposing you get the typical 1% conversion rate, you’ll make 500 bucks, which means you’ll be making well over a 100k per year.

Last Words

In light of the above numbers, a lot of people have turned AdSense off all together. I decided to take AdSense off my main website, even though I wouldn’t go as far as Chris Pearson when he said, “[AdSense] is quite literally the worst monetization service of all time for people who don’t have millions of pageviews per month.”

AdSense is helpful, but it should only be a small part of your earnings. Do the numbers, and figure out how to launch your traffic into an income. Test the waters, try out programs and increase your earnings.