Interview With Todd Garland – Founder Of BuySellAds.com – Online Advertising Marketplace

By: Michael Dunlop     Topics: Entrepreneur Interviews

Todd is the founder of BuySellAds.com and shares with us the benefits of using a middleman to sell your advertising, in a very short time his service has become the number one go to company for selling banner advertising on your website. He also shares some tips to sell more advertising on your website, a must see interview for anyone who wants to make more money from adverts on their website.First off – can we have a little background information on you Todd – Where you live? How old you are? (if you don’t mind answering) What motivates you? What inspires you?

Sure thing.  I’m 27, happily married, live in Boston, and we have a chocolate lab.  Life motivates me my friend – it’s actually really really cool to just be alive, healthy, and have a nice family.  As for what motivates me with

2) I am always hear about the next Text-Link-Ads and ReviewMe but they never manage to last because especially they didn’t have the user base. How did you manage to attract such popular websites and have them rely on you for providing their revenue?

Well, I think TLA and ReviewMe are still making some cash, so I can’t comment on their status, but I can say that BSA is very different from both of those companies.  BuySellAds.com is more about actual advertising vs. anything SEO related.  We managed to attract such popular website publishers for a few reasons:

1. We were solving their problem with advertising and saving them a lot of time.

2. We are bringing them more advertisers than if they were selling ads on their own.

3. We do good business – meaning, we’re trustworthy and reputable, pay on time, etc.

4. We take the lowest commission of any ad network.

3) What are the benefits of using Banner Advertising over other advertising techniques such as PPC and Text Links?

Interesting enough, you can achieve the same cost per click (or even better) with many BSA placements as you would see with AdWords, and there is also good branding value with display ads too.

4) You list 1000’s of websites on websites in your advertising marketplace, what would you say are the key points for a webmaster to successfully sell their advertising spots?

The most important point is to have your ads priced appropriately.  Sometimes this means letting your first couple advertisers in at a slightly lower rate, and then raising the rate up to where it should be once you have some advertisers in there.  The next most important point is to continue to write good content that drives people to your site.  You want to build up defensible traffic that produces good results for your advertisers that keeps them advertising with you month after month.

5) Do you think that entrepreneurialism is something that is in your blood? Or is it something that can be learned?

Yeah, I think some people have it and some people don’t.  Most importantly you need some guts, read this article: Taking The Leap: Don’t Just Be A Wannabepreneur .

6) Do you have any favorite business related or entrepreneur related books that you can recommend to other entrepreneurs?

I’m sure everyone has heard of these, but Founders at Work by Jessica Livingston and The Art of The Start by Guy Kawasaki have a unique way of getting me fired up.  I’m also an avid reader of Dharmesh Shah’s blog OnStartups.com.  It is honestly one of the first things I look at every morning when I wake up to see if there is a new article.

7) What is the best advice you have ever been given?

It’s a quote in an old looking frame that always hung next to my Dad’s bed growing up: “He who is afraid of making mistakes is afraid to succeed.”

8) What advice would you give to a Young Entrepreneur setting up their first business?

If you clicked away and read the article I posted above from OnStartups.com then I am going to sound like a broken record… just get it out there and get it live.  There is nothing more valuable than having users to give you feedback and having something live that you can iterate on.

9) How many hours do you work daily and what are your daily tasks for your sites?

Yikes, at least 12 hours a day, at least and I typically answer support emails from my Blackberry when not in front of the computer.  BuySellAds.com is the only site I work on now.  Part of the day is spent managing the site (support emails, proposals, etc) and the rest of the day is spent working on the new version of the site.  Once the new version is live I will be spending that second half of the day work on new features and improving the new version.

10) If the Internet had not existed – what do you think you would be doing?

Ooohh… good question.  I’d probably be homeless and miserable 😉

11) What do you like best about the Internet?

I like how efficient it can be and how it helps make the world a smaller place (for me anyway).

12) What do you like least about the Internet?

I don’t like the scumbags who do shady stuff and I don’t like the jerks.

13) Have you any plans (personal or business) that you can share with us about your future plans / goals / lifetime goals?

Well, I do have one lifetime goal I’ll share with you… I want there to be so many people at my funeral that there is standing room only.  What better goal exists in life?