PiXELWiT

Shortly after writing my previous article Text Link Ads Needs Improvement which documents my poor experience with Text Link Ads (TLA) I received a generic e-mail from them which explained that, as a current member of TLA, I was invited to try their new ad program. A new ad program? I guess they thought they were doing so well that it was time to branch out and repeat their failures in new markets.

Anyway, the thing I found most interesting about the e-mail from TLA was that it was signed by the president of TLA himself AND it listed his e-mail address. Hmmm… maybe the President would like to hear about my less than stellar experience with his company. So I wrote him a letter…

Patrick Gavin,

Perhaps you should consider improving the system you currently have before branching out into a new area?

This blog post…
text-link-ads-needs-improvement

…sums up my experience with TLA and shows how a general lack of information is hurting your business model.

I’d like to try out your advanced services, but not until your standard services are GREATLY improved.

-Sean

I didn’t really expect to hear anything back from Mr. Gavin, maybe it was my way of venting, or maybe it was a last ditch effort to rectify the situation. Either way, it was a great surprise to hear back from him within an hour’s time…

Sean, sorry to hear that, I will check out your post, thx again.

———————-
Patrick Gavin
President

Well that is definitely commendable. Mr. Gavin apparently pays attention to his business.

Patrick,

Thank you for your response.

I look forward to hearing from you once you’ve read my post in its entirety.
text-link-ads-needs-improvement

Thanks again.

-Sean

Unfortunately that was the last correspondence Mr. Gavin and I had. He never got back to me but I did notice something. If you currently go to TLA’s site you will see some new additions to their “Get Ad Code” section.

Most notably, they have added a link to a text file (apparently they don’t have time for HTML formatting) explaining how to install the TLA WordPress plugin. It’s a pretty concise and accurate description of the process and it helps clarify what the plugin does (I initially thought the plugin might add a button to the WordPress Post Editor allowing you to place ads in individual posts). Besides, I never really had any problem installing the plugin, my trouble was getting it to work with Post Level Ads.

TLA has also added this brief line of info, “If you are using the sidebar widget, you will need to drag the “Related Links” module into your sidebar.” Yay, at least now they tell you the real name of the widget as it appears in your WordPress admin panel.

Although these are definitely steps in the right direction there is still a lot of room for improvement. When TLA asks “Do you plan on using our sidebar widget?” they offer you the following tip…

Sidebar widgets are an additional WordPress feature that allow you to easily manage the content of your sidebar by presenting you with a drag-and-drop interface of widgets.

The problem with this is:

1. Widgets are no longer an “additional” feature as they’re now integrated into WordPress.
2. They define “widgets” using the word “widget”
3. They don’t tell you what their sidebar widget does.

What does the “Related Links” widget do? Will it always be in my sidebar even when I don’t have any ads to display? Does the widget work with Post Level Ads? Does the widget show up in my sidebar site-wide even if I only want ads on my front page? This would have been a prime opportunity for TLA to provide some relevant information but they drop the ball instead.

Oh well, at least all of this has had some positive outcome. Not only have they added a bit more information to their site but my posts are finally being added to their Post Level Ads index. And it only took 10 letters to Tech Support, 2 letters to the Sales Department, 2 letters to the President of the company and 2 very long-winded posts on a blog.

Determination trumps inertia today.

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