Display ads versus in-post link ads

I am getting into this particular debate because I have been privy to both sides of the argument recently - actually, just this past week.

I saw a post by Ted Murphy - of Izea and PayPerPost fame - about how two streams of advertising expenditure, each worth $3,000, showed that in-post ads with a link or two to an advertised product on many low-ranked blogs was a much better deal than a single-position display ad on a big-time trafficked website.

Of course, and ironically too, there was data from Google Analytics to prove this theory. Ironic because I expected Izea Tool Kits to be able to do more than just rank blog sites registered in its system.

Anyway, I think I recall at least one comment in which someone said something about the product being the real issue and not really the method of advertising.

The point above made quite a lot of sense to me. If a product is not popular, spending money on it would probably make its flaws more prominent.

A point about the ad method chosen is quite relevant at this point also. A display ad, in my opinion, would do very well if the product is popular because people browsing the website would usually take a note of it either mentally or on a notepad/bookmark for future action or reference.

Now, when it comes to a battalion of bloggers writing about and linking a product for a stipend, the product marketing rules change for several reasons.

For one thing, the blogger has an inducement to heap praises on the product. That strategy may backfire or lead to indifference, depending on how good the review comes across to the blogger's visitors and how good the blogger's skills are.

Secondly, unless the blogs on which the ads appear are segmented based on not only traffic but purchasing power and/or need, the marketing plan will fail to deliver any dividends at the end of the campaign.

Lastly, as I mentioned somewhere else last year, it becomes quite easy for a big search engine to identify such run-of-the-mill blogs and to demote their search rankings en masse.

In the end, it appears that the small blogger loses because all the algorithms do not favor him/her and it seems also that it is mostly advertisers who do not wish to spend on big-money display ads who opt for the pawn-blog approach.

The small blogs are really the pawns because they seek to make some money to keep their blogs online and yet it is the same process that causes their blogs to be victimized by the search engines, which consequently deny them their potential future earnings and the raison d'etre of their blog existence by ranking them poorly - or not at all - in search results.

Catch 22 at its best? For example, if a pay-per-published-post advertising company insists that payment to bloggers will be made only through PayPal, which excludes, say, Nigeria from its approved-country list, why are Nigerian bloggers invited by the PPPP company to accept advertising opportunities by listing Nigeria on its sign-up page?

How will those Nigerian pawn-bloggers - or ploggers, as I have christened them - be paid? Even when other reliable modern payment options, such as Payoneer, are available there is still a reluctance by some paid blogging websites to use such alternatives.

What else do these companies want any reasonable person to think but '419'? Add to that the fact that PayPal regards the act of merely logging into its system from an 'unapproved' country as a huge violation of its Terms of Service, which could cost an account holder his/her financial reputation.

So, there are countries from which a PayPal account holder cannot access his/her funds even to save a life in dire need?

For example, an American citizen in Nigeria cannot access his/her funds in a PayPal account without the account being "limited" ASAP.

Is all of that a conspiracy against pawn-bloggers and tourism development in their host countries or what?