Do you use a stripe advert across the top of your site? I was sent a copy of MaxBlogPress Stripe Ad for review. This is a plugin for those ads you see at the top of the screen with a special offer or in my case an offer to subscribe to my email list. For a long time I’ve been using Hello Bar but the free version is limited and I’ve been looking for an alternative.
The plugin is easy to install and set up. It adds a menu option under Settings that has two sections as you can see from the screen shot above. “Home” is where you can see your ads and create new ones. “Analytics” shows a nice graph of impressions and clicks and also a table to show click through rate by day.
Adding a stripe ad is easy, just follow the wizard-like interface. You get a letter count to show you how many characters will fit on your ad and you can easily select the link text and if you want to open it in a new window.
The Formatting tab allows you to change fonts, sizes and colors for the text and button. You can then set where on your site you want to display the ad – so you can have different ads on specific pages if you want, or leave it to randomly show an ad on all pages.
If you have more than one stripe ad you can weight the advert to appear more frequently if you wish.
The final feature is great is you have a specific time relevant promotion – you can schedule the advert to only appear at a certain time.
Overall MaxBlogPress Stripe Ad is very nicely done, it does the simple things well, provides great control and covers all the features I think you need from an advert like this. Until midnight (EDT) May 24th 2013 there is 30% off MaxBlogPress Stripe Ad here. So it’s only $45 for lifetime on as many sites as you want, with a 60 day guarantee. Soon it will go up to $67.
Thanks Joel, I know little about plug ins but this seems user friendly and I will save it for future reference.
I appreciate the useful tools you post about.
Anne
Thanks Anne, this might not be for everyone but certainly for some people.
As you know i am not very technical, but you make this sound very friendly to use and set up. It never does hurt to try something new to see if it works a persons blog. Thanks Joel for more great info.
Thanks Debbie. There are many solutions but this is one of the easiest I’ve come across.
Joel,
A good aprpoach. Perhaps test out the ‘Hello bar’ first and if you are getting clicks then upgrade to this premium plugin.
I suspect certain niches would get clicks and others wouldn’t.
Andrew
That’s a good idea Andrew, though I’ve found this gives me more options to experiment. You’re right about different niches though so before spending money you’re right, the free way is a good start.
Hi Joel, I had excluded stripe ads because they remind me of insurance salesmen. But your post causes me to reconsider – they might work if used to draw attention to content rather than to Click Here To Order buttons. I might just give it a try.
They can be used in any way you want Beat. Linking to interesting content is a good idea!
I used it once. However, I don’t get much results out of it. So I dump it.
It’s a great concept BTW. Just that it doesn’t work for me.
I’m pretty sure it works for others. 🙂
If it doesn’t work for you then there’s no need to use it, it doesn’t work for everyone. Thanks Raymond!
This looks very impressive. But a bit out of my depth. I think I will have to leave this to the more technical people around.But certainly looks useful.
Hi Wendy! It actually requires very little tech know how, that’s the beauty of it. No code to add to your site, or code to write, just install the plugin and set the text and options you want to show and it works.