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CMF Overview

CMF Ads is a new advertising network that I have just come across.  They only started at the end of January and have grown quite well since then.  Ive decided to test them out on RecipeMobile first and then use them on my other websites.  They are great for smaller blogs as:

• They let publishers keep 100% of your credits
• Instead of cashing in your credits, you can choose to buy more ads.  This helps avoid transaction fees and helps market your blog or website without paying money out of your pocket.
• Unlike Entrecard, you can manage multiple websites from a single account and so share all your advertising credits to spend them efficiently.
• If you have more ads playing on your blog than you have advertising space, the ads automatically rotate while still giving you the same number of credits per month.  Therefore, even if you have set your ad price at $1/month/ad, your actual earnings will be more if multiple advertisers place their ads on your website.  This also avoids advertisers having to wait in line to advertise on your website (unlike Entrecard).
• Also unlike Entrecard, all credits are bought by real money so the economy is stable.

Overall, its an interesting network that has a lot of potential.  Here are the steps to go about deplyoing it on your blog.

CMF Registration

CMF requires you to register on their forum to install their ad widget on your blog

Register at the CMF Forum

Goto CMF Forums and click on the register link.  The registration form is relatively short and asks only the basic information.
Once you have registered goto your control panel.  You will see a welcome message and another saying that you don’t have any sites in the blog directory.  Click on Add Blog (Publisher).

Add your blog

Under the New Publisher screen, enter your site name, URL and a good descripition (Pay attention to this as it will help attract advertisers), the appropriate site category and the Ad price.  

Enter your blog's details

I would suggest putting a low price for your first few ads as advertisers coming from CMF primarily rely on your advert stats in your CMF profile and you need to run some ads to build these statistics.  Running some ads at a low price initially helps to increase your advertising value which in turn helps to market your site better on CMF.  CMF suggests you do not price ads at more than 5 credits as that is the default rate for most members.  Lets try to generate some interest by placing ads at 4 credits.  

Now you have to wait for your site to be approved by the CMF Ads team.  In my case,  the CMF team got back to me within an hour with an approval.  That too on a Saturday night!  Its good to know that their support responds so quickly.

CMF Deployment

Once you are approved, goto your CMF control panel.  You will see your approved website there.  Under the approved blog, click on the Get Widget link.  You will reach a page with multiple size options with widgets. 

Choose Widget Type

Click on the size you want and it takes you to a page where you are provided with code to add the appropriate widget to your  website with customized code.

Widget Code

Imp:  Each website will have its own unique code so make sure you copy the appropriate code for your website incase you have submitted multiple websites to CMF.  

Advertise Link Code

Also, some of the widget sizes do not have an advertising link.  If you want advertisers to be able to link to your CMF profile from your website, copy the Advertise Link code included on the widget code page and paste it somewhere on your website.

If you have a self-hosted wordpress blog like Recipemobile, CMF has a handy plugin that can make installation and maintainence of the widget easy.  CMF does not include a link to it from the Get Widgets page, but you can get it here.  Update:  The widget is listed on the Get Widgets page now, above your site id.

Configure the CMF plugin

Download the CMF-Ads-Widget, unzip and upload to your wp-content->plugins folder.  Goto the plugins tab and activate the plugin from there.  Now goto the Apperance-Widgets tab and you can add the CMF widget from there.  Click on the edit tab and enter your CMF site id (if you do not know your site id, goto the CMF control panel, click Get Widgets and you will see your id near the bottom of the page) and choose Ad style.  I would recommend clicking the ‘Show Advertise with CMF link’ checkbox so that advertisers coming find an easy link to advertise with you. 

If you are including the Advertise with CMF link somewhere else on your website (on the Advertising info page for example), leave this unchecked. Save the changes.

The CMF ad on RecipeMobile

Thats it, check your website to see that the widget is displayed correctly.  Also, your CMF control panel status should show the Widget as enabled (If not, click Reset Widget and wait for some time).

Check if the widget is active

To get the most out of CMF, you should participate in the forums to increase your visibility before you get your first ad.  Here is a short guide on how to add your blog to your forum signature at CMF Ads.

Update: My first CMF ad has been approved for Recipe Mobile.  Thats great as now the CMF website can start collecting statistics which will help attract more advertisers to my website.  I have also added this blog to CMF now but am still awaiting advertiser interest.

Note: Please let me know if you find any errors.  If you find it useful, please twitter or stumble it.  Thanks!

Do you use CMF ads on your blog?  How has your experience been?  What are some comparable/better ad networks?  I would love to hear your views.

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