We all know what banner ads are, we've seen them around, and sometimes they can be a little obnoxious. But they are an option for both monetizing your own comic, and cross promotion around other comic sites. So today we’re going to have a short jam to talk about what they look like, what they were, what they are, and what your options are.

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Episode Release Date: May 29, 2024

Episode Credits:

Ally Rom Colthoff (@varethane) - she/they, chirault.sevensmith.net wychwoodcomic.com

Christina Major (@delphina2k) - she/her, sombulus.com

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The Intro "DO IT (feat. Shia LaBeouf)", and the Outro "It's Good To See You Again!!", both by Adrianwave, have been used and modified in good faith under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Licensed. Edits include: Fade IN/OUT, and a repeat added to the beginning of "It's Good To See You Again!!". For more information on this creative commons use, please reference https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.

Transcription

This transcript is auto generated by our recording software.

00:00.00

Delphina

Hello and welcome to Screen Tones, where we talk anything and everything webcomics! Today we're going to be talking about banner ads! I'm Delphina, I use she/her pronouns, and I make the webcomic Sombulus.

00:13.98

Varethane

And I'm Varethane, I use she/they pronouns, and I make the web comics Chirault and Wychwood.

00:21.96

Delphina

Yeah, ok! So we're doing a little jam today about banner ads! We all know what banner ads are, we've seen them around, and sometimes they can be a little obnoxious. But they are an option for both monetizing your own comic, and cross promotion around other comic sites. So I just wanted to talk about what they look like, what they were, what they are, and what your options are. Because there are a couple of things to make them a little less obnoxious and a little more helpful for you as a comic maker. Correct me if I’m wrong, but Project Wonderful was kind of the first thing out there as far as viable comic…. a place to put your comic banner. Is that right to your recollection?

01:11.57

Varethane

It wasn't the first, necessarily, because there were a lot of others. So Project Wonderful was a banner ad network that launched in 2006, and prior to that there were other advertising spaces. Like I think Google ads might have already been around, and there were a few other like privately run advertising networks that were mostly used by corporations and stuff. And a lot of webcomic artists in the early 2000’s would use those networks, and they would have banner listings on their pages, and some of them could make like a ton of money. Like those early web comics could make like hundreds of dollars a day on advertising, because the really lucrative corporate networks had not really figured out what kinds of websites were out there displaying their ads. And there is this big, I can't remember if it happened before or after Project Wonderful came around, but there was this big crash in web comic advertising banner use. Specifically because right around the same time, all the other networks started realizing that these web comics were hosting their ads, but were not really displaying them to people who were going to buy their product, and they started restricting their ads. And preventing web comics from being on it, usually by introducing rules, like that the page that the ad was hosted on could not have a lot of other images dominant. Like they mostly wanted to be presented on news websites like ABC or whatever. They wanted to be displayed to people who wanted to buy a car or a fancy razor or whatever, and these comic nerds were looking at their ads and just being like ‘lol’ and not paying attention because they were looking at these big graphics.

02:56.60

Delphina

Yeah, the normal type people have sexist it (?) of all the nerds.

03:15.33

Varethane

So the the first way they found… well, maybe not the first way, there were a lot of different things that they used to gradually push out more and more webcomics. But the big one was the image requirements, like the ad had to be the biggest graphic on the page. And obviously if you're a webcomic, this means that you're disqualified. So people started looking around for other options. And Ryan North, who is a web comic creator, he did Dinosaur Comics, he's doing a lot of things now. He launched Project Wonderful as kind of a way to bring together the webcomic community and give people another option. And it was pretty much tailored expressly towards webcomics specifically, and almost all the users of that network were webcomics. And basically people could apply to host a banner, and they could also apply to publish a banner on someone else's website wherever it was hosted. And it became this very like… it felt pretty like community driven, because you'd see all these comics advertising on one another back in the day and the ads were usually not too expensive, except for like the really really high profile comics that got millions of hits a day.

04:35.26

Delphina

Yeah, you could just spend like a couple dollars or a couple cents or something and be on a reasonably mid-tier webcomic site, so it was totally viable to say “Okay well, I'm going to throw $10 out there, I'm going to go ahead and and put my webcomic out there” and you would be on a another comics page. You would know that you were advertising to comic readers, and I mean, that's kind of where you want to be in terms of advertising, instead of just throwing yourself out to random people who don't read comics.

05:12.61

Varethane

Yeah, yeah, like where am I going to find people who are going to be fans of my own work? If I'm going to put a banner ad anywhere, it would be on another comic that has a similar target demographic as mine, like shares genre or shares some cool themes or tropes, or, in a pinch, is just extremely popular and has so many hits that surely out of the millions of people who are looking at it, a few of them are going to dig my stuff. And some of these comics people would have strategies of building campaigns, which was something pretty cool that Project Wonderful would let you do, where you could kind of set filter parameters, and you could be like “I'm going to pick all the comics that are fantasy genre”. It's getting hard to remember, because Project Wonderful has been closed for several years, but I think they had a tag methodology. Like I could filter for tags like elves and stuff like that, and advertise on all comics that had that.

06:11.29

Delphina

Yeah, yeah.

06:22.30

Varethane

And I could set a cap so it's like, “I don't want to spend more than like $5 a day and just share share my stuff wherever it's available”, and some comics literally had banner listings that cost like $0, or were like a penny a day. So you could potentially get a lot of hits by doing these campaigns.

06:44.19

Delphina

Yeah, it was super nice. I think all of us were just kind of sad when they shut their doors, because like it was very useful. The stats, like you could get so much nitty gritty into how many people clicked your ad, how much it cost per click, and start to really plan a campaign and a strategy around that. And they did eventually close their doors which was a little sad. But then Comic Ad came up, their url is comicad.net, I believe. And you could go there and it doesn't have quite as many features. I think Project Wonderful was a little more robust. But you could still go and search for different webcomic sites, it very much was, or is because it still exists. By the time this episode goes live, who knows…

07:42.15

Varethane

Don't jinx it!

07:55.32

Delphina

I'm not going to jinx it, I'm sorry! But yeah, so I'm using Comic Ad right now. And I put up a couple little banners, I got to choose where the banners go on my site, so I decided I wanted to have 2 small horizontal banners under the navigation where you look at the page, and then one rectangular banner that is in my footer. So you just go to comicad.net, you make your little account, you pick which sizes that you want to go on your website. And then they spit out a little code for you. You do have to have at least enough coding knowledge to put that code in your site or your Wordpress theme or whatever and it does have to be-

08:35.69

Varethane

Well the important thing isn't even necessarily coding knowledge because that's important, but you have to have the ability to edit that.

08:46.73

Delphina

Yes, yes that was my next point, you also have to be hosting your own site. So unfortunately, Comic Ad is not an option for Webtoon or Tapas or some of the other kinds of sites where you can't really get into the back end of your code. But if you can, it's fine. And you can set up as many or as few ads as you're comfortable with, which I really like because I don't want my comic to be overtaken by ads, I don't think anybody wants that. But then, you set up your genres and what people are going to search for, and they find it, and they place bids. You can say “I only want a minimum amount like of six cents on this thing, you have to pay at least six cents to be in this position”. So that's kind of nice, if you want to kind of cull some of the people who are you know, just throwing out a million different ads and they didn't really care what genre they're going for. They're just kind of taking the spray approach. But yeah, that seems to be working out for me. I like the fact that you could also…. I have it set to where every single ad that comes across my desk, I have to personally approve.

10:19.64

Delphina

So I get an email every time somebody wants one of my ad spaces, and I go into my Comic Ad account, and I say “yes or no”, and so sometimes I say “no”, if it's like “oh that doesn't really fit with my tone or or whatever”. But if you don't want to deal with that (because it is kind of a hassle), you can just say auto approve everything, and whoever bids in that space can take it. So that's a little load off.

10:46.94

Varethane

Mine is set to auto approve, I have no bottom limit. It's like zero. So the ads do usually actually make at least one cent, just because people will bid against each other like it'll be at zero for a while. But then if somebody else wants to go in, they have to pay a cent to get above whoever is currently bidding at zero, and so on. And sometimes it can still go up pretty high despite having no minimum.

11:19.53

Delphina

Yeah I like the auction mechanic of that, because then they can just kind of build on each other, and you don't have to do anything. It's like ”Okay well if you want it, you got to pay more than the next guy!” and that's all automated, I don't have to control that. So yeah, it just puts the ad that is winning on your site automatically and dumps money into your little account, which you can then pull out to your bank account or Paypal. I don't… is there a threshold? I don't remember.

11:51.60

Varethane

That's something I have to look into as well, because I have not yet withdrawn it, the main thing that I do with the money that builds up in my Comic Ad is that I eventually go on a spree of pledges bidding on other comics. So that's kind of the main thing that I do with it.

12:03.19

Delphina

Yeah.

12:08.70

Varethane

Just feed it back into other creators.

12:11.98

Delphina

I like the fact that you can kind of just bank it all there. Because sometimes like… I don't set a. budget for myself for ads, or you know, going in and placing ads on other sites. But I do feel like it's a good thing to do, just to kind of reach outside the people that you're already talking to on social media, and just be able to reach new audiences sometimes. But having that little bank of $20 there to say “Well you know, you could pull it out, but you could also just really easily spend it right here, right now!” Which is I'm sure what they want? But yeah, it's kind of nice. I think Comic Ad isn’t exactly what Project Wonderful is, but it's close! I think there's a lot of comics that use it, and you can kind of get some traction. Because I feel like when it was first starting out, it was not very widespread yet. And I don't think it's quite as widespread as Project Wonderful used to be, but I think it's a solid option, honestly.

13:30.87

Varethane

Yeah I think it came at sort of an odd time for webcomics as a field, I guess, because Project Wonderful…. there was a gap of a few years in between Project Wonderful went down, and during that interval, that was when we started to see the rise of these big, big platforms like Webtoon and Tapas kind of moving in, and like little indie like ad networks like Project Wonderful and like Comic Ad are not really on the radar of those sites at all. I mean, as we mentioned earlier, people who are on these platforms can't host their own banner ads, period. So that whole kind of little ecosystem is sort of not… they don't really relate to one another except in that of people who are reading or creating like Webtoons, presumably they also read some things off the platform and they might come across these ads in ways like that. It's two different circles.

14:35.25

Delphina

Yeah, but you do have kind of options with Webtoon, I think? Where you can monetize your comic and they'll put ads somewhere on your site? Is that right?

14:47.52

Varethane

Yes, so the ways of getting ads that you can profit off of on Webtoon or Tapas is a little opaque. They don't make it something that is immediately accessible to somebody who's just signing up for that website. Basically, you have to have made your comic, and keep it going long enough to get to a certain threshold of page views and subscribers, before the platform will sort of allow you on to their ad network. Which again, is mostly like somewhat corporate ads, like you'll see ads for like mobile games and stuff like that on Webtoon and Tapas, and not really so much ads from other comics. Ah, which like that functionality of cross-promo and discoverability is something that at least the platforms do kind of try to fill in on their own side, like by having the sidebars where other comics on the platform will be linked. It's just very much out of the user's hands what gets displayed on their page. Like your comic will appear, and whatever Webtoon or Tapas has decided to put in the sidebar today is what's there, and you don't have a say in that.

16:12.29

Varethane

So depending on how much that matters to you as a creator can be a factor in where you choose to host it. I’m on the ad network on both Webtoon and Tapas. And it's kind of nice in terms of how absolutely hands-off it is, and knowing that my comic will be displayed in so many different parts of their websites, without me needing to lbe there kind of managing it. There's a positive side to it, which is that it's less work for me. But if I wanted to promote someone else's work on mine, I don't have as many options for it, which is a little unfortunate.

16:58.13

Delphina

Yeah, I mean, you always do have the option as like a community, if you can come together with your friends or whatever, to do a cross promotional exchange. It's not like money-related but it can be a way to get your comic out there and get new readers, too. So I feel like that's always an option that works with pretty much any place you're posting a webcomic. Because especially in the Webtoon and Tapas ecosystem, where people are subscribing to multiple comics on that platform, you can really kind of do a little “Okay this is our collaborative episode. Everybody's going to contribute a banner or we're all going to put a banner at the end of our episode. Like this week is we're going to be featuring this person, and the next week we're going to be featuring the next person” and getting those personal recommendations. I think a lot of readers will really appreciate the fact that another comic is endorsing something else. I think your opinion as a comic creator matters a lot if you say “You know what? Go read this comic, I really like it!” And it's good to take advantage of that, and it's good to get coordinated and organized with other creators to make those opportunities happen.

18:24.75

Delphina

I know there's a lot of Discords out there. where people might plan something like this, I think the Webtoon Discord might coordinate these things based on genre or whatever. I know Spider Forest collectives, for our members, we do a lot of these sorts of things at least one a year where we talk about different people's comics and say “Hey go check them out, and here's their banner, and a little sample of their art.” And that's a little more organic. It's not as automated as a true banner ad network. But it is accessible, and it is a way to get your comic in front of more people.

19:04.25

Varethane

That's true, and it is something that is still available to people who were on like Webtoon and Tapas. I participated in a collab episode on Webtoon a few years ago. I haven't really been as active in looking for opportunities for things like that. But I think it was in like 2020. It was a back to school episode that went up in September of that year, as kind of like a “Wow. It's been a weird 2020 year but like, schooling is still a thing that's happening”. So all the creators who were participating did a little illustration of their characters, and it all got assembled into one long episode that each participant would all upload on the same day. So the same kind of strip of multiple comics went up on like, I think it was like 20 or 30 different different comics on Webtoon. And readers could scroll through and see all the illustrations around the same theme or some of them were even like one-page comics,they would have little speech bubbles and stuff. And at the very bottom of it there would be banners (just text banners because you can't have hyperlinks on Webtoon) but it would show like a little thumbnail and the title of the comic and the creator's name. So if readers liked the look of any of these things, they could type it into their search and find the comics that way.

20:32.70

Varethane

It doesn't seem as elegant as being able to have a link because of like platform restrictions, but like I went and looked around at everyone else's listing as well as my own, each one had a bunch of comments from readers who were like “Oh wow, a whole bunch of new comics for me to read, great!” So It's really nice to see that people can still have that discoverability and help each other out. I think the the collab episodes are a pretty cool way to do it on places like Webtoon and Tapas, although Tapas does let you have hyperlinks, which is very cool.

21:03.60

Delphina

Ooh, okay, I didn't know because I thought both of them didn't, but that's good to know that Tapas still does. And just kind of reaching out, I think it's just so fun to do things as a community and see what you can come up with together. And you could come up with some really cute themes like the Back to School thing, or whatever. But just kind of get yourself out there and get people looking at your art and reach out to new audiences! I think it's always worth the time, every time I've tried to do it at least, to just see what happens! Put yourself out there!

21:48.65

Delphina

So yeah, I hope this has given everybody a little food for thought, about different options if you want to pursue them. I think that's a Chicken Salad Caesar Wrap! I have been Delphina and you can find my webcomic Sombulus at sombulus.com

22:04.42

Varethane

And I've been Varethane, you can find my comics at chirault.sevensmith.net and wychwoodcomic.com.

22:12.93

Delphina

And if you want to reach out for banner ads, you know, we both run them!

22:20.60

Varethane

Browse around Comic Ad, it's a lot of fun!

22:12.93

Delphina

Yay banner ads!

22:27.30

Varethane

Woo hoo.