Shameless Self Promotion

I have never once said there has ever been a time when my primary concern wasn’t making myself look good. If I had, it wouldn’t have sounded very sincere, since I’ve had a blog now for quite some time, and there can’t be anything too much more vainglorious than a blog.

But it’s true: As a single dude, I had to sell myself to potential spouses. (Don’t worry, I didn’t turn into a slob as soon as I married.) As a teacher, I have to sell myself–almost as a personality, I like to imagine–to my students, both to command authority and to be interesting enough to learn from. As a musician, I need people to enjoy me and my music so they will buy recordings and leave tips (and so they will enjoy themselves, too).

Anyway, you know those ads that show up along the side of your Google searches? Let’s say you type in “generators”; an ad for “Vainglory Generators, Inc.” might show up on the side. I confess: For a time, I became one of Them.

See, Google mailed me a first-time-user promotional code worth $100 to start using Adwords. The deal was that my ad would run alongside results for searches using keywords that I would select, and each time the user clicked on my ad (thereby visiting my website), a small amount would be deducted from the $100. When my money ran out, my ads would slurp to a stop.

I quickly put together an ad for my band’s cd, and now, about two weeks later, I have 28 promotional cents left. My ad showed up 438,624 times, netting me 397 clicks. Website page views skyrocketed. Sales…well, the jury’s out hanging on that one. iTunes and Amazon don’t report their sales to our distributor, CD Baby, for like millions of weeks, so maybe the band’s made it big on those sites but I just don’t know it yet.

As for sales from CD Baby, which reports immediately, we’ve had none since the campaign launched.

But as M often sighed when I gave her website traffic updates, “C, does any of that really matter?”