Online Advertising – Project Wonderful

If you have been on the Etsy.com forums for a few weeks, chances are you have become familiar with “Project Wonderful” or “PW” ads.

Our team at HandmadeMarketing.org wanted to get the scoop on this type of advertising.  We wanted to give our readers a clear picture of what Project Wonderful is, what these ads may deliver, and help see if PW ads are right for your Etsy, Artfire, 1000 Markets, or other handmade shop’s advertising plan of attack.

Etsy seller Frenchell contacted us with her experience using PW ads.  She has a BA in business administration with an emphasis in marketing and entrepreneurship, so we were excited to hear her thoughts!  Have a look at Frenchell’s two Etsy.com shops LincolnChristian and ChristianHaylie.

“When I first heard of Project Wonderful,” Frenchell said, “I was really excited to have my ads placed everywhere at next to nothing. I had heard so many people on Etsy talking about how they were signing up and how it’s so easy to use, and all this ad space where you could put your ad. I really liked that you could pick and choose where you wanted to advertise your ad.”

As the Project Wonderful website says, the company is an online advertising broker that brings “fairness, transparency, and profitability to the advertising process.”

Our goal at EtsyMarketing.org is to provide ideas and thoughts of our readers – unbiased, unaltered, and to help Etsy sellers see success!  In this article, Etsy sellers will share their experience with Project Wonderful.  The purpose is to educate Etsy sellers about Project Wonderful advertising.

How Does Online Advertising Work?

Many sellers may not entirely understand how ads are bought and sold online.  This is the first step to deciding if online advertising is right for your handmade shop.

There are two popular ways to determine the payment for ad space.  One is the number of clicks by users (or “CPC” – cost per click).  Another is the number of total times the ad displays (or “CPM” – cost per mille.)  It can be easy to get confused when thinking about these measures.  To make it simple, our team likes to think of CPC ads as your Etsy shop going fishing in a lake.  Each time you get a tug at your line, or in this case a “click”, you have succeeded.  On the other hand, CPM means it costs you x amount for  a “mille”, or a thousand, views.  We like to think of this like a billboard on a busy highway.  Each car that drives by the billboard counts as part of your total number of views.

How Does Project Wonderful Advertise?

Project Wonderful uses a system called “CPD” – cost per day.  This means the ad price is determined by a cost per day.  Each advertiser says how much they are willing to pay, per day, to have their shop’s ad on the site.  You will be charged that cost per day as an advertiser.  As the Project Wonderful website example says, “If you bid $24 a day on a site and are the high bidder for a full 24 hours, that will cost you $24. However if you bid $24 a day on a site and you are the high bidder for only an hour before you cancel your bid, you’ll be charged only $1.”  This system is called an “infinite auction”:  you bid on an advertising slot, and for as long as you are the high bidder, your advertisement is displayed on the website.

What Should a Shop Owner Consider When Choosing PW?

Here are some things our team thinks your should consider before signing up for Project Wonderful ads:

• Website Traffic. How much traffic does the website get?  In the above example ($24/day advertising), is it worth it to advertise for one hour and pay $1.00?  Depending on the site’s traffic, this could make a huge difference.  Does the website you are thinking of buying ad space on do a drawing each day before 10:00 a.m.?  If that drawing is successful, you may see a drop off in viewers after 10:00 a.m.

  Frenchell has two Etsy shops (ChristianHaylie and LincolnChristian) and used Project Wonderful ads for both of shops.  “I had put my ads on very popular blogs and even on the front page sidebar of the Project Wonderful site,” Frenchell says. “I had 16 ads that I was working at different times for one shop and 8 for the other shop.”

  What was the result of Frenchell’s efforts?  “I got about 2 sales from Project Wonderful,” Frenchell told us.  “Project wonderful wasn’t so wonderful for me. I kept feeding money into my meter to be the highest bidder so that my ad could get the time I though it deserved on popular blogs and sites (even Project Wonderful!)“  Frenchell wasn’t alone. “After a while of advertising with Project Wonderful, and not having much success,” Frenchell said, “I started asking my fellow Esty members how it was for them. Surprise, surprise…it wasn’t doing them any favors either.”

  However, Etsy seller Jean-Marie Buxton, from Etsy shop DaisyCakesSoap has an approach to Project Wonderful ad space that helped make the most of website traffic.  “I try to make each Etsy shop advertisement specific to each blog offer Project Wonderful advertising space,”  Jean-Marie told us. ” Sometimes, it is the inexpensive spaces that pay off–the more specific you can get, and the more you target your ad to the readers of that blog, the more successful your click-through rate will be.”

  For example, if your Etsy shop sells items aimed at a very targeted market, Project Wonderful ad space my be right for you!  “I had one Etsy shop advertisement for my hockey puck soap last fall placed on a hockey stat blog,” Jean-Marie said.  “It was $.02 per day, but resulted in a lot of sales of hockey pucks! The secret was posting a gift item appealing to the regular readers of the blog.  I did a skyscraper ad for my coffee soap on a coffee blog around gift-giving time–again, with good results.”

• Other Avenues. What are your other sources for advertising – and do they have better prices?  You may be able to find a great blog that charges $5/month for ad space – saving you the worry of bidding on space throughout the day.  Some advertising is free – think press releases and blog features.  Project Wonderful is not your only option.  Our team has many other advertising and press ideas from Etsy sellers in our Etsy Shop Press Tips section.

  Frenchell gives an example of how a typical advertising session using Project Wonderful would go.  “You find a place that fits exactly where you want you ad, then you bid on it, and realize it’s $0.60,” she says.  “Then, you find out you have been outbid.  So, you bid again and again to get your ad in the only decent visible spot on the website.  Before you know it you are at $2.12 per 1000 page views. That does not even include the cost per click you have to pay up. I was draining my PayPal account so fast, and not getting any results or Etsy sales.  Instead, I was gifting away my money to all those websites using PW ad space.”

  Frenchell agrees, “I believe a lot of Etsy sellers end up advertising with Project Wonderful because they believe it is cheap.  The thing is, it isn’t!  I don’t know how much you have to spend to be effective, but I spent a lot of money on Project Wonderful.”

• Personal Appeal. Do you personally click on Project Wonderful ads?  Not all online outlets you choose to advertise will make you personally want to “make the click”, but this is something to consider when picking any advertising route.  Frenchell states it plainly, “A bunch of ads on the sidebar won’t get many hits. Why? Because it looks unattractive!“

  Have you ever looked at Project Wonderful from a potential buyers point of view?  That’s what Frenchell did in order to evaluate the effectiveness of ads on the visitors to the websites.  “I visited tons of places that had Project Wonderful ad space,” Frenchell says.  “I tried to see things from a buyer point of view, instead of a marketer. All that junk of the side bars or at the very bottom of blogs and websites doesn’t do anything for you.  There is nothing appealing about a bunch of adds.  You have some that are blinking and they are cluttered together and pushed to the sidebar of the website.  It just made that area look congested.  Some ad spaces were incredibly far down on the sidebars or even on the very bottom of the page!  My ads were not placed in appealing spots. It was almost as thought my stuff was buried under all the other ads.”

• Tally The Results. Keep an eye on the results – and know when you are having success or slipping.  Just because a site gets a lot of traffic, doesn’t mean that number translates into high sales for your Etsy shop.  Don’t rely solely on the numbers given to you about traffic, get an idea of which online advertisements give you the most bang for your buck by tracking your own results.

  Frenchell told us about her experience and the results she was getting using Project Wonderful.  “I set up a Project Wonderful advertisement on a site with 1,810 views in a day and I only got two clicks!” she said.  “Another very popular blog had 3,006 page views.  I only got 4 hits.”

By taking a look at these four evaluation areas (website traffic, other avenues of advertising, personal appeal to you as a potential buyer, and results), our team thinks handmade sellers can see if their advertising, including purchasing ad space through Project Wonderful, is effective.

“Just because something seems cheap, does not mean in any way that it is effective or that it will equal sales,” Frenchell says.  “To me, Project Wonderful slowly drained a lot of my money, and I allowed it to.  I wanted to be the high bidder to have my advertisement displayed.  Personally, I think there are more effective ways to advertise and spend those hard earned bucks.”

However, success may be in how you approach Project Wonderful ads.  “I think “targeted” when I think Project Wonderful,” said Jean-Marie.  Paying a penny per shop advertisement at 100 random websites and blogs may not give your shop sales, but a single $0.25 ad on the right page may produce successful results.

Thank you for the insight into your experience with Project Wonderful Frenchell and Jean-Marie!

Have you purchased advertising space through Project Wonderful?  How did you like this method of advertising?  What were your results?  Have you tried other ways to advertise your shop, like advertising with Google or contacting a blogger directly?

We want to hear your Etsy marketing tips!  Tell HandmadeMarketing.org what you think of our Project Wonderful review and other handmade shop advertising avenues.  If our editors like your idea, we will feature your tip and cite you as the source.