the Sam Jackson College Experience

I have been making a few changes around the site in the last day or so and just wanted to alert you to them and ask if anyone is experiencing any strange bugs. First, I have installed a new archives page! I know that the archives page has been broken for some time, so I put in a pretty new one which should be great and helpful and generally all around wonderful. Please check it out.

Secondly, I have overhauled the way that the site displays advertising. Instead of hardcoding in ad code into widgets, I have put in some dynamic javascript (to be replaced with PHP later when I have time to work out bugs, likely this weekend) tied to an OpenX ad server I just installed. This means that I now have a better ability to track and analyze the clicks / impressions on the ads of our amazing current advertising partners, Campus Explorer and The University Review. In any event, I saw that this was displaying weirdly on some old versions of Internet Explorer but not too many of you use that so hopefully things should look OK. But let me know if there are problems.

Also, with the new OpenX installed I can now display advertising on a CPC or CPM basis… though I think I will just continue to offer monthly slots. As usual, let me know if you are interested, and check out my advertising page.

More tweaks to come in the near future! I am confident of this because I have a huge amount of work and tend to do wonderfully constructive web design and backend stuff when I really, really shouldn’t…

Hello everyone! I just made a nice direct advertising page. Please consider advertising on the site today. You’ll support my college education and the site while getting great exposure. I’ve taken down the Google AdSense ads (yay!) but want to replace that revenue… with direct ad sales! They could look like the sample unit you see in the sidebar, or something entirely original! It’s really supporting a good cause, because college is really expensive.

Here’s what the new advertising page (http://www.samjackson.org/college/advertise) looks like. If you are interested, please contact me; if you know someone who might be, let them know (you can click the “share this” link to e-mail, facebook, etc)!

Are you interested in advertising on the Sam Jackson College Experience?

If so contact me either through this form or by e-mail @ sam [at] samjackson [dot] org to discuss rates. You can spend a little or a lot! Many advertising units are possible for your campaign, but conventional banner sizes like 160×600 and certain buttons like 160×160 are especially easy to implement. RSS ads are also possible (reach a regular readership of 150+ readers), as are sponsorships in general or of specific posts.

I’m also looking for people and organizations looking to help co-sponsor a scholarship; contact me if you are interested.

You should advertise because it will help you to…

Feel good knowing that you are helping to support my college education! It’s really, really expensive. Really.

Reach thousands of unique visitors each month! Strong organic traffic also means that many visitors are looking for resources that your advertisement could provide; the blog is automatically available in 14 different languages. More opportunities to drive traffic to your site!

Reach highly targeted audiences!

• Many current and prospective students read my blog, forwarding articles to friends as well and posting them on Facebook, College Confidential and other similar sites. The same people looking to hear about my take on college applications and Yale University might be the ones you want to recruit.

• Interested in reaching higher education marketers, admissions professionals, teachers, and other players? My blog is respected and well regarded in the higher ed blogosphere:
  • Andrew Careaga calls it “a service to all of us in the higher ed marketing business.“
  • Christian Long says it has “dramatically inspired college admissions folks to take notice“
  • Bob Johnson says “I like [it] because I agree with so much of what he says.” and that “Paying attention what Sam writes will let you focus more closely on students who will actually attend your school.”
  • Karine Joly says my witty and fresh style “offers a rare glimpse at the mind of our elusive prospective students“
  • TargetX calls my blog “good reading” and me “wise-beyond-my-years.”
  • I’m also on the radar of Michael Stoner and too many others to list!

    
    These students, experts and professionals value my blog for my insight, commentary, and the same expertise that brought me to present at the College Board Forum in New York City in October 2007 and to create a webinar for Higher Ed Experts this past summer.

Still not sure if you want to advertise, sponsor, or otherwise support me and my site?
Contact me and we can discuss some options which might work out well for you!

One thing I have always wanted to do is make good use of my split audience. There are students and admissions officers / higher ed professionals–why not have them both work together for mutual benefit? What would really be great would be if the latter group pitched in to co-sponsor a scholarship, which would be awarded to someone from the first group of readers after a public contest which would solicit student opinions about the college admissions process. A promising student gets some money for college applications / college costs, sponsors get good PR, and everyone gets to learn from the exchange.

Anyone interested in contributing? Drop me a line through the contact form or sam [at] samjackson [dot] org. If we could get just a few sponsors– individuals and/or companies or websites could donate $50-100–that would be a nice $500-1000 award right there. (Believe it or not, I had been sitting on this idea for a while and only just today came upon AdmitSpit’s plans to have a sponsored scholarship — I originally started this post only planning to talk about my blogging revenue situation, but figured I’d go one step farther!)

The real income from blogging comes indirectly. This blog has helped me to gain exposure and net great job opportunities. It’s hard to quantify all that. Still, I make a little on the side from the ads that I run. I wish I did not have to run them, but sponsorship offers have been few and far between and. The last major offer that I received, in 2006, would have amounted to the total revenue I made for 2007–in about one month. But I turned it down because I saw it as a conflict of interests and wanted to maintain good integrity (so I could get those other indirect opportunities–right?).

I’m often asked how much money I make blogging, and my answer is usually “enough to support the site’s expenses, with a little left over [which I save for college].” Sadly, my meager revenue comes no where close to paying for college. It wouldn’t even cover books from these past two semesters. Let me put it this way: My total blogging revenue for 2007 represents approximately 1.6% of my total cost of attendance here at Yale for the year, less Yale scholarship. My most profitable month on record (this past January, 2008) occured when I hardly posted at all, so advertising revenues are clearly tricky. My blog is very niche which makes it tricky to connect with advertisers, although I think I do have a pretty awesome niche with some great readers. Short term goal: ditch AdSense and replace it with some sponsorship blocks. Oh well! We continue to hit records for subscribers and readers (and ad revenue) so by the time I graduate who knows where we’ll stand?

Advertisers, sponsors, readers–thoughts and feedback from everyone is welcome, here or by e-mail.

Registration for my Higher Ed Experts webinar ends tomorrow night at 8pm EST; sign up now while you still can! Alternately, wait until later and then buy a recording. Remember, you get not only me but also Nancy Prater of Ball State University and Ben Jones of MIT in the three part series.

My section of Admissions Blogging 360 is described below:

July 31, 1PM-2PM ET
Meet the (Prospective) Student: What My Generation Expects to Read on Your College Blogs
Sam Jackson, a 2007 high school senior at Phillips Exeter Academy and a future freshman at Yale University, studied and analyzed on his popular blog the numerous marketing tactics he encountered while applying to colleges. Sam will explain what his generation expect to find on your blogs and how you can make them better.

Remember that not only do you get a really neat three part learning experience, you also get the fuzzy feeling of supporting my college education, since that’s where my proceeds are going–towards my burgeoning debt, woo! So what are you waiting for? Bust out your Visa / Mastercard and get to it. And, to all you higher ed people out there who aren’t interested right now- sign up for HEE anyways, since it is free and has some nice social networking features just for higher education people.

I know I mark myself by saying that I just got this from Slashdot, but… the BBC reports that Google is going to soon drop ads from agencies which sell essays and papers online. I had a personal scuffle with this just a few days ago when an online paper selling organization asked to buy an ad through Text Link Ads on my site. My credibility can not be sold for so little, you’ll be happy to hear, and I denied the ad… looks like Google is at least still not doing evil some of the time, too.

BBC reporter Sean Coughlan writes:

Google is to ban adverts for essay writing services – following claims that plagiarism is threatening the integrity of university degrees.

There have been complaints from universities about students being sold customised essays on the internet. The advert ban from the Google search engine has been “warmly welcomed” by university authorities. But it has angered essay writing firms which say this will unfairly punish legitimate businesses. From next month, Google will no longer take adverts from companies which sell essays and dissertations – and the internet company has written to advertisers to tell them about the policy. [more]

Hooray! If you are not an essay-selling company, but are interested in advertising on the site, feel free to contact me. If you want to buy some Text Link Ads, head for that link here. Plus, you can feel good about sponsoring this site, since tuition continues to rise faster than inflationandthe consumer price index.