We have a contest winner!  CMF Ads is proud to announce Erin from Thirty Something Blog as the winner of the CMF Ads Logo Contest.  We changed the colors and added the word “Ads” to her submission, but it was her choice of font that earned her first prize.  (or perhaps an anti-turnip bias from the other judges)  We think it looks great!  Her prize is $20 worth of free advertising and the pride of seeing her logo used on the network.  Congratulations Erin!

Of course announcing the contest winner means that the CMF Ads network is opening itself to the public on Friday, January 23rd.  (7:00 am EST says Ben) Things have come a long way since Stan and I first created CMF Ads.  On October 2008 we launched a 20 person private beta, then in January 2009 Ben Barden joined the team and launched a second private beta.  Finally it’s show time!  The entire process other than approving blogs and paying publishers has been automated.  Some things are still best done manually.

I think advertisers, publishers, and bloggers looking to network will find value in CMF Ads.  For bloggers, we have one of the most helpful support forums for blogging in general, a friendly active group of regulars, and plenty of opportunities to network yourself.  Advertisers aren’t forced into maintaining some farce of a blog to run their ads.  They can run the ad they want and let the publishers decide.  Advertising cost per day can be less than a penny a blog, but the average is about 4 cents.   Publishers have a method to convert their blog real estate directly into dollars, or promote their blog using 100% of the credits earned.  It’s win/win for everyone involved.

How it works:

(a more detailed guide can be found on the website)

1. Sign up at the CMF Forums
2. Once you’ve registered and logged in, go to the Control Panel and add your website.  All blogs are approved manually.  If you don’t have a blog, but want to advertise a non-blog site or just run ads, you can do that there as well.  You will receive an email saying your site has been approved.
3. Now click on the control panel to set up your account.  Add an image, set your ad price, and get the widget code.  Each credit costs an advertiser $.25 to advertise on your site.  So the default ad price of 5cr will run an ad on your widget for 30 days at a cost of $1.25. Multiple advertisers can buy the same ad spot on your site.  Adding a second widget, as you see in my right sidebar, runs the same ads, but makes the spot more attractive to advertisers.  You will have to experiment to find the sweet spot.
4. Add the widget code to your blog and you are finished!

When someone wants to advertise on your site for 30 days, you will see a notification in red on the CMF site, as well as receiving an email.  Since the credits are worth money, approving the ads are in your best interest.  You can accept blog ads and non-blog ads by checking a box in the control panel.  Non-blogs ads can be anything that aren’t considered scams, whether merchandise sites, affiliate ads, or services.  So be extra careful if you accept them.  The decision is yours.

Earning credits:There are two ways to receive credits, buying them and earning them. Advertisers can buy an ad on your widget and you will receive the credits in 30 days.  You keep 100% of the credits earned.  If you want to convert those credits to dollars, we will buy them back for 50% of the purchase price.  If you want to use your credits to advertise your blog or something else, they are yours to do so without us taxing them.  The second way to get credits is to buy them.  After opening an account, you can purchase credits using Paypal.  We sell 40 credits for $10.  At the default 5cr price that’s enough to buy ads on 8 blogs for 30 days. 

Now go participate in the forums and be creative how you use your credits.  Spending credits wisely is how to play the game.  While you can’t give credits away, you can offer to buy an ad on someones website.  Contests, top commenter prizes, those who sign up for an offer, provide blog help or services are all possibilities. We just ask that you don’t spam our promotion section with fake offers, offers against other site’s terms of service, or anything illegal.  All promotions will be held in moderation to keep the forums a friendly place.

On Monday, January 26th 2009 I will be holding a new CMF Ads Launch contest.  Signing up now will allow you to enter that contest much easier.  If you need help with anything, ask here or on our support forum.  Let me know what you think.