Subscribe
Previous Post
I’ve got a special treat for my readers today, an interview with Patrick Gavin, the President of Text Link Ads Inc. I’ve written previously about my (and others) success with Text-Link-Ads as a way of earning money from your blog, however there were still questions yet to be answered. Others had also contacted me asking questions such as “why was I rejected?” or “what determines the price of a text-link-ad?”
Your questions have been answered.
WorkBoxers: Good evening Patrick, thanks for taking the time to do this interview.
Patrick: James, thanks for this opportunity and great work with your blog.
WorkBoxers: Getting straight down to business, I’ve had a few people come to me with tales of rejection from the TLA publisher program and I’m guessing this comes down to a number of factors such as traffic, back links and Page Rank. Can you confirm this theory? Is there a minimum PR that sites need before being accepted into the TLA publisher program?
Patrick: Yes it is a combination of: traffic (derived from Alexa data), back links (from Yahoo’s site explorer), and the theme of your website. PR is not a factor in our algorithm but link popularity is a factor and can cause new sites that don’t have much to not be accepted right away. We do re check sites that were denied in the past every couple of months and invite sites that meet our requirements back in.
WorkBoxers: Honestly, I think TLA are brilliant and a great way to monetize if a site is doing poorly with contextual advertising, however I fear that growth could kill it. There’s obviously more publishers than advertisers, is it possible that in the future, there will be so much choice when buying links that publishers could suffer?
Patrick: TLA’s biggest growth obstacle in 2005 was the lack of publishers. 
We launched our independent publisher program in February of this year and it has been very successfully in signing up new publishers. The blogosphere has helped tremendously in helping the publisher program to grow virally. Now we are focused on bringing in new advertisers. We are doing this by shifting much of our ad spend away from attracting new publishers and instead advertising to potential advertisers. We think we can continue to balance the equation for the foreseeable future.
WorkBoxers: In a discussion with Yaro from Entrepreneurs Journey, I once mentioned that the 50% cut was a hell of a lot. Yaro replied with, “Yeah but TLA sell ads better than I do”. How exactly does TLA market their services? I see a strong adwords campaign, anything else?
Patrick: We have over 10,000 affiliates and run an aggressive banner campaign on many top websites. We drive a lot of eye balls to our sites and work hard with our site to educate the visitors on our product to give our publishers the best chance of selling ad spots through our marketplace. We do believe most sites can sell more spots by using TLA than flying solo. We do automate the ad delivery and payment process which takes a lot of work away from the publisher which is the key to our service.
WorkBoxers: In terms of pricing text-links, my hunches are that page rank has a HUGE impact. Am I close?
Patrick: No. The days of pricing by PR are long gone in my opinion. Buyers pay premiums for quality placement on niche sites. Theme plays the biggest factor with many of the finance, travel, real estate, and law sites drawing the highest prices. Link popularity is a factor but it is not taken from PR.
WorkBoxers: In my opinion, text-link-ads aren’t the type of advertisements that people click. Compare a single text link to Adsense or graphical banners, there’s no comparison. With that said, I see people buying links purely for search engine optimization purposes, is this the bulk of your buyers are doing?
Patrick: This is where we have seen the biggest shift. There is no doubt that even 6 months ago the average client was coming to TLA with a search marking mindset but since we launched our independent publisher program and brought in thousands of niche sites that is changing. You are right that many of the text links are not going to bring in the same volume of traffic as a large banner but the key is they are a fraction of the price of a large banner so you can afford to purchase text link ads across a number of relevant sites and the cumulative affect is some nice targeted traffic.
WorkBoxers: 10 links vs 6 links. Does the price change? If so, can you delve how much? :)
Patrick: This is not exact but it would change about 15% up if you dropped to 6 so in many cases it is best for the publisher to use the maximum 10 link spots for sale.
WorkBoxers: You do realize that Google could change their ranking system any second, and all of a sudden backlinks may not be as important. Is there a possibility of this happening or do you think backlinks will ALWAYS be in demand?
Patrick: I think link popularity will be at the core of the major search engines for the foreseeable future but that being said our focus is building a niche publishing network that can send our advertisers targeted traffic at a price that works for everyone. Our goal is for our ads to send enough targeted traffic to justify the ad cost and any search rankings benefit is just gravy.
WorkBoxers: Anything ultra secret that you can reveal for the future of TLA?
Patrick: We have a big new product launch that should happen in the next two weeks. You will be able to use it to additionally monetize Workboxers.com, more details real soon ;)
WorkBoxers: Thanks for your time Patrick and best wishes for the future.
Patrick: Thanks James, it was my pleasure.
Hi Martin, thanks for sharing the interview with owner of TLA, I am new, and would like to ask how do we increase our revenue from this TLA, what parameter is used, based on Alexa and Google Page Rank??please advice anyone from this forum
Very nice article, I’m considering using them for advertising.
1912 days ago
[...] I really like Text Link Ads, although one of my 2 sites was rejected too. They are very picky about which sites they accept. Read this interview with the founder of TLA, in which he explains the factors of their algorithm. The reason I like TLA is because my blog is doing very good with it! Currently displaying 4 links, making me at least $44 for november. That’s probably about 10 times more than what my blog could make from adsense! Btw, there are other ad brokers, like Performancing, which are not so picky… __________________ Dark Moon Software My Blog: Bubblomania Extreme Makeover & Screenshots Speeltijd – Dutch site for kids [...]
1921 days ago
[...] So I stumbled upon something the other day, a new link in my Text-Link-Ad control panel called Feedvertising. Curious and armed with the knowledge that TLA was about to release a new goodie as per my interview (click ), I proceeded with glee. [...]
1951 days ago
[...] A while ago, I discovered the Earner’s Forum, an very popular forum with a massive amount of information for people who want ot make, or are currently making, money online. An interesting place to hang out… It pointed me to an interesting interview with Patrick Gavin, president of Text Link Ads, the system I use to monetize this blog. [...]
1954 days ago
[...] So I stumbled upon something the other day, a new link in my Text-Link-Ad control panel called Feedvertising. Curious and armed with the knowledge that TLA was about to release a new goodie as per my interview (click ), I proceeded with glee. [...]
Good interview, and down to earth.
I have a few sites with TLA, http://digilondon.com and a few others which were accepted straight away, (they’ve been active projects for a while), but when I launched a new project http://diginewyork.com it was rejected. I assumed it would as it was only a few weeks old and after asking TLA I was told so.
Straight forward company, straight forward answers.
1966 days ago
[...] Workboxers has THE interview with Patrick Gavin, explaining everything, including how signing up for a Text Links Ad will help put my son though college. [...]
1967 days ago
[...] WorkBoxers – Making money online since 1891 .. an interview with Patrick Gavin, the President of Text Link Ads Inc. (tags: advertising money textlinkads ads) [...]
1968 days ago
[...] Over at college-startup, there’s a fantastic new post about a kink (loophole?) in the Text-Link-Ad system that allows high ranking sites for a low cost. The idea behind it is that Text-Link-Ads don’t update their pricing after Google has their PR update. I think what David (the author) doesn’t realize is that PR is NOT A FACTOR when it comes to price, as proven by my interview. However, he is right about one thing – a blogs worth is improved over time, how do TLA keep up to date? (Should have been one of my interview questions eh?) Many new publishers submit their site to TLA as PR4 and PR5 sites. The value of their links is usually assessed at less than $25. But, if the blog or website is continually updated with good content, its overall value tends to increase with time BUT this is not reflected at TLA. [...]
How do new websites like mine that has a lot to offer to consumers , great products at affordable prices, get put on any lists to be found?
I am a 50 year old woman that is disabled for the rest of my life , I have had 15 operations and looking at 2 more thids year for my back.I am just looking for a supplement to what I get now , which is not much at all.
I cannot afford $200 here and there to publish my site.
I was told a different story all together now that my site is published.
I wass even turned down for anyone advertizing on my site. Whoa is me what do I do now.
If anyone has any answers out there please let me know. My webiste is http://www.ronniesgiftsanddecor.com
If anyone has any hindsite of what I need to do to make this work please e mail me justronnie@ronniesgiftsanddecor.com
1968 days ago
[...] WorkBoxers – Making money online since 1891 .. an interview with Patrick Gavin, the President of Text Link Ads Inc. (tags: advertising money textlinkads ads) [...]
1969 days ago
[...] WorkBoxers: Revealing all about Text-Link-Ads [...]
Great interview, James. I always find that sites with PR4 or greater automatically get accepted even though Patrick says PR is not a decision factor.
Thanks everyone, I felt privledged to interview Patrick as he’s just such a down to earth guy. Besides, TLA is paying a good portion of my living expenses – how could I ignore them? :)
Interesting interview.
Keep up the good work, Jamsi.
1971 days ago
[...] If you’re curious about how people are making money with advertising on their web pages, then you should read this article from Work Boxers. I’ve been interested in this topic for a while, but always figured you had to be selling something in order to make money on the web. That was until I found out about people like Darren Rowse and Steve Pavlina and many others who are making a living from their blogs. [...]
1971 days ago
[...] Revealing all about Text-Link-Ads Has anybody gotten approved for Text Link Ads? Anybody? (tags: blogs money web advertising) [...]
1971 days ago
[...] Patrick Gavin from Text Link Ad’s was interviewed and states his Text Link Ad’s are great as an alternative to banner ad’s. (Which are over priced in terms of direct results but are still popular) [...]
1972 days ago
[...] WorkBoxers – Revealing all about Text-Link-Ads [...]