For those of you that may not have heard of ScratchBack yet it is a new ad type service that allows the blog owner to sell text links via a sidebar widget. The concept is simple - click on a link in the widget and be transferred to the ScratchBack site where you enter in the URL of the site you want to advertise, a short one line title for the link and then on top of that you can add a short blurb about the site or service. Once you are happy with it you click the payment button and you are charged whatever the blog owner - not some ad network - feels a link on their blog is worth.

Sweet - simple and straight to the point for everyone involved.

One big question though which I just know will be on everyone’s mind is - how do you deal with spam type purchases. Well this is one of the sweet things from the blog owner’s perspective. Once some-one has purchased a link it is held in an approval queue and you the blog owner will receive an email notifying you that a purchase has been made. When you go to your ScratchBack control panel and look at what is in the queue you can decide which one’s you want to accept and which one’s you don’t. But here’s the kicker - if some spammer type has paid for a link and you decide not to accept the link there is no refunds. The spammer is shit out of luck - you have their money but they have no ad link to show for it.

Personally I love the idea for that point alone but I also like the ScratchBack idea as a whole because the sales process is strictly within your control. You get to set the price for your available links, the number of available links and you get to accept whether the tendered link meets your requirements. The only thing missing from the ScratchBack system is an affiliate program which I believe will be instrumental in it getting a wider foothold on blogs; but from what Jim Kukral the man behind ScratchBack has said - there is one in the works.

Below is what a potential purchaser of a link in the TopSpots widget will see when they go to purchase a link:

Like I said .. nice and simple and as each new link is added it will take the number one spot until another link is purchased. I like the idea well enough that I will be keeping the service around for a lot longer than most other methods of blog advertising I have tried. If you are interested just drop by the ScratchBack site and grab yourself your own TopSpots widget for your blog.

Now if you are interested in purchasing a ScratchBack link here on WinExtra you can either click on one of the links in the TopSpots widget in the sidebar or just click here. It’ll set you back $15.00 but I figure that’s a fair price to get your message out to a ever growing number of people and you’ll have my thanks for your support.

Update Dec. 29, 2007: I’ve stopped using the Scratchback - Top Spots - widget for the time being.

Listening to: Depeche Mode - Touring The Angel: Live In Milan - The Sinner In Me

Conversation Tags: ScratchBack, ad networks, blog advertising