GOOD ADS grab your attention, even if you find after a cursory examination that you don't have an interest in the service, product or site being proffered.

What's make you click on a text-link ad? What makes you pay attention to any ad?

A compelling message. Content that connects.

We found ourselves clicking on many good ad, such as:

You Grow Girl Not your grandmother's gardening site... ---------d----

Raider Hater Gear Hate the Oakland Raiders? Let the world know! ---------d----

Robot Street Gang Remember your first quarter? A fresh look at video games. ---------d----

Prepare to Be Boarded Nothing says "be my Valentine" like Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition. ---------d----

Donuty All donuts, all the time... ---------d----

Mark And(erson) no frills book lending library ---------d----

Diary-X journaling has never been this easy ---------d----

1. Go to Adfarm.org
At the top of Adfarm.org, there's a large banner which reads "Make an ad for $10." Start creating your ad by clicking the associated link (or you can just click here).

2. Sign Up
Fill in the short form to create your account.

3. Create Your Ad
Create a snappy headline and short description (if you want tips about how to advertise, check out the right-hand columns of these pages).

Important: Do not include "http://" when you type in the URL. If you do, potential viewers will just get an error page.

Pick the number of impressions you want. Currently, the going rate is $10 for 4000 impressions, and $2.50 per 1000 impressions.

4. Select No Apologies! Press
Unless we suddenly become yesterday's source of third-rate comedy -- which we won't -- NA!P should be listed alphabetically under "Large Sites."

Whatever you do, do not select more than two or three sites -- otherwise, your ad will be spread thin and you'll be out of impressions quickly.

5. Save your ad
The Save button is at the very bottom of the ad creation page.

6. Make payment
Make payment via Paypal (at this time, at any rate -- alternatives may be provided by Adfarm in the future).

If you don't already have a Paypal account, you can create one through Adfarm.

7. You're done!
Within hours of submitting your ad, it will begin appearing on NA!P and any other sites you have chosen.

8. Need help?
If there's a problem with the ad itself, you'll probably want to contact Adfarm.

But if you need further help, feel free to contact us.

MULTI-SITE CAMPAIGN? BEWARE
You aren't going to be happy if you spend $10 on an Adfarm ad campaign and don't get results. And then you won't spend another $10 on another campaign later. And that'll make Brent cry.

Following are some tips that will help you get the most out of your investment.

Important: The following presumes that you've already targeted your ads and created compelling copy.

First, we suggest that you advertise on NA!P exclusively. "Of course you do" is your first reaction. But really, we have good reasons for doing so.

But let's assume you want to do a mult-site campaign. In fact, there's a button on the Adfarm ad creation page that lets you advertise on all ad hosts.

DON'T. First, you won't be targetting the interest readers you want. And even if you have an ad that's interesting to all people, your ad will only get five or six impressions per site -- your click-thru ratio will be non-existent.

That's not to say you shouldn't push your product on two or three sites, but going beyond a certain number will hurt your click-thru ratio.

Okay, say you want to advertise on NA!P and two other sites. Say you've picked those other sites -- before you commit to them, check their impression/click-thru ratios. (and check ours as well). If they have low numbers, there is a reason -- perhaps the ads are:

a) at the bottom of the Web page

b) have small fonts, making the ads hard to read

c) designed to blend into the site, rather than stand out

d) placed on less-trafficked pages, away from the index page

There're all kinds of ways other sites can mess up your ad.