Pixel advertising is an increasingly popular form of online advertising. The publicity surrounding a pixel ad site created by a British university student who needed to raise money to pay for his education led to a huge interest in this type of ad.
The site, called the Million Dollar Homepage, has earned its creator, Alex Teo, hundreds of thousands of dollars since launching in August 2005. Teo’s homepage is a grid divided into a million pixels. Pixels are sold to advertisers in blocks of 100 pixels, each measuring 10 by 10 pixels. Each pixel block becomes part of a colorful mosaic of advertising on the website. At $1.00 a pixel, when the page sells, Tew will have raised $1 million for his education with this creative advertising technique.
Can your non-profit organization, club or group raise a million dollars by selling small ad pixel blocks? It is possible. Anyone can create a pixel advertising website and Million Dollar Home Page has inspired many companies and organizations to create their own advertising campaigns. Your organization may already be selling advertising space in your programs or other printed materials. Selling pixel ads is just like selling any other form of advertising except the ad appears on the World Wide Web as long as you maintain your own website. That millions of people can see their ads, for a year or longer, is a great selling point for advertisers and donors.
What do you need to get started with fundraising for pixel ads? If your organization already has a website, you can set up a pixel ad on a page from your existing site. Or you can buy a new domain name and just build your own website
Pixel fundraising. You will need a web hosting account for your site and pixel advertising software. You can purchase software online and install it yourself or have it professionally installed. Your organization will also need to set up an online payment processor, such as PayPal. When your website is set up, you will need someone in your organization to manage and monitor the program. You will be able to sell all online ads through the software as well as process online payments.
Does trying to raise a million dollars seem a little unrealistic for your organization? When setting up your software, you will be able to set your own selling price for pixels. Therefore, your organization must decide how much money you need to raise and what your advertising website is about. If you want to raise fifty thousand dollars, you will sell your pixels at five cents a pixel. This would make a hundred pixel block cost only five dollars. You can also change the minimum number of ad block purchases required. If the required minimum number of ad blocks is a thousand, then the minimum ad block would cost fifty dollars per ad space quite reasonable. You will also have to sell a thousand ad space just to make fifty thousand dollars. Even if you sell your pixels for a penny per pixel, you can still make ten thousand dollars from a single pixel ad page.
How can non-profit organizations use pixel ads? You can sell the pixels and donate the money to a charitable organization such as The American Red Cross. Or set up a pixel page to raise money for a specific project like building a playground or a spring school trip. Pixels don’t have to be sold just to businesses. The school group can sell the pixels to alumni or parents of graduating students. The grad class can set up a pixel page and raise money for prom night.
The fundraising possibilities through pixel advertising are limitless. A well-designed pixel-promoted ad campaign has the potential to raise money and awareness for your organization. This form of advertising fundraising is worth considering as part of your organization’s fundraising strategy.