Sublime Ads

616 commits for Sublime Ads as of today. This week alone I added 32 haha…

Guess I’ll work on Gluon tomorrow then… was instead working on a few bits for Sublime Ads. I think I managed to shave off a few milliseconds of loading through the main sections (especially concerning stats). API for embeds should be faster too 🤪. Blog update tomorrow.

Aren’t these the sexiest ads you have seen in a while? I know, I know… ads… urgh. But I’m proud because they look nice and are served by Sublime Ads straight into Gluon.

Just putting it out there — Sublime Ads is built 99% with server side rendered HTML with a sprinkle of Javascript. It’s the only way and you still can have fun! ✌️🧘‍♂️ I’ll do a write up of the "stack" one day (might be vey short though!).

I’m allowed to self promote my self promotion, right?

So, this is what I had in mind for Gluon… and that’s the exact reason I built Sublime Ads! Of course these can be turned off in settings if you don’t like it — just want to show it off 😋

Deployed a small update to allow you to add a tag to your ad. This can be very useful for displaying alongside your integrations — for example if it’s a "Podcast" you can set that as your tag and display it nicely. Here is an example one set up…

(You can see the tag underneath the Edit button)

I want to show some featured podcasts in an upcoming version of Gluon, so I wanted that feature as perhaps a "category" might not be enough.

Next up is the "accent" colour. This is actually the same as the previous "label colour" but has now been re-purposed and renamed.

Both of these values now come through via the API Ad object. Check out the documentation concerning the ad object and for general info on adding an ad.

Also made a few minor UI tweaks and some wording tweaks.

I love developing for the web, because I can work on small features and just get them out there — no review process, no gatekeeper!

Well, after nearly a year of on and off development, Sublime Ads is finally ready to open the doors to everyone that would like to. Hurray 🥳

Before I get into it too much, I want to give a huge thank you to everyone that has used it since I opened up the private developer preview last year! Thanks for your kind words, feedback and for giving it a try. If it weren't for the nice comments I wouldn't have gotten this far yet.

Sublime Ads is an itch I wanted to scratch, with a need to get some content into this very site and also into my apps, namely Gluon. I was always on the lookout for a solution like this, but couldn't find anything. I also only wanted my own approved ads/content to go into my own stuff — I couldn't trust a third-party solution to just add random, probably terrible, ads into my life's work. No thanks!

I looked at apps like Overcast and other podcasts players, each with their own custom solution. They sell their own ads to display in their apps. So I started building my very own solution... which I could also offer to any other developer, blogger or person that might have a need for the exact same thing.

It took some time, but it's totally worth it

Last year in April I wrote about a little MVP project, that I wanted to complete within just a few weeks. How wrong I was, but all for the best reasons!

It took until the middle of June to send out the first invites, for the developer preview. Not too bad!

After that time, I took a few months balancing client work together with some other things. Over the course of this I managed to add some features like statistics graphs, multiple API keys and so much more. Not to mention working on allowing an easy embed script to be placed on a website -- pulling in your ads/content.

There was also a lot of content to write for the documentation, which has taken me until now as, again, I am balancing everything. Development, client work, taking stock, writing… etc (sleep).

Who is Sublime Ads for

For anyone that wants to get their own ads/content/promotions/affiliate links and so on into their own apps, sites or whatever you can think of.

There are a few use cases in the documentation, so check it out. But it's certainly not limited to those.

If you sell ads and want to distribute these to your users/audience/people on your blog or app, Sublime Ads is the answer if you don't want to write your own solution (or if you hate your solution and are looking for something great!).

It's incredibly flexible and easy to use.

LAUNCH

Did I mention it has launched today? Yeah, that's right! There was a lot of gravity from my end to just pull the trigger early, but I stopped myself. I was working on a few things I found and also some more wording and features that I thought were important.

Don't stop reading now, but you can sign up right now here: https://sublimeads.com

There is also kick-ass documentation! Find that here: https://docs.sublimeads.com

Pricing

Sublime Ads comes with a 14 day trial on sign up, which gives you unlimited use of the API. You can subscribe at any time, which would mean the world to me. Subscription costs $7 per month (plus taxes if in the EU).

If you don't subscribe, you will be downgraded to a "Basic" plan. That will give you 1,000 API calls for every rolling month, which resets every 1st of the month. 1,000 is a good number, after some trial and error on my part. It should cover most sites that are just blogging, without a huge following. If you host on Micro.blog, or are active there, give me a shout after you sign up, and I'll upgrade you to "Basic+", which gives you 3,000 API calls per rolling month.

And yes, whilst not ready just yet, there will be a Micro.blog plugin so you can embed your ads straight into your blog ✌️

I am reluctant to give away too much for free as I really want to grow the business (and feed my little family), so I may change this down the line. However I won't ever force anyone to upgrade. That means if you're on a free plan now, you will be able to be on a free plan for as long as you want.

There is also an optional "custom" plan. That's more for bigger companies and/or clients that need a little extra hand holding and management, including custom domains. If that's you, you can email me: [email protected] and just let me know what you need. Those will be custom quotes and don't run on the normal billing through the site.

What now?

Sublime Ads isn't finished, it's still in a very MVP state. However it's ready for anyone to use, without me stopping anyone to sign up.

There are many things I still want to do, and I will. This won't go stale. It's also my hope to be guided by feedback.

At the state it's now, I can happily integrate it into more of my own things. In fact, I'm already using it on this site since many months. Just look at the sidebar 😋

As always, with pretty much anything I do, you can follow along on the development blog. I do it for pretty much every single project. Here is the dedicated page for Sublime Ads. You can also subscribe via JSON feed in your RSS Reader app of choice. Oh and btw, that's another great place to embed your own content served by Sublime Ads!

Support

Support is incredibly important to me! So never be afraid to send a question to the email on the site or, if you signed up and logged in, into the help form.

All support goes to me personally and I will usually answer within a short time. Think about it like Basecamp support, it's epic, run by many people. I am only one person, but I look up to them!

Where can I sign up?

Awesome question! You can sign up right here: https://sublimeads.com. BOOM!

Thanks

Thanks for reading. I am excited to open up the doors.

Whilst I don't expect anything, it's nice to have it out there for anyone to use. It works for me, I learned a lot and that is the most important. It gave me purpose last year, when life just threw nothing but lemons and banana peelings.

To the future!

✌️❤️

— Vincent

Oh look what button exists now "register now"… 😋

I have pre-written the launch blog post for Sublime Ads, so I don’t have to do it tomorrow haha. I really don’t expect much and I’m just happy it works for my use cases… however I am nevertheless super excited!

I’m slowly sending out emails to every single one of you that has been on the developer preview for Sublime Ads… taking me a little bit longer than I thought though 😋 Two emails done, more to go as the evening progresses ✌️❤️

Sublime Ads is launching on Monday, February 1st, 2021. More details to come tomorrow and as I go.

Set the date in your calendar app of choice, make a sticky note... write it on your... hand (or head... whatever works).

Excited ✌️❤️

New logo for Sublime Ads! I love the purple and pink combo. Just gives it more life and also follows the colours I use on the site. Let me know what you think.

Worked on a little stats counter, that increments, for all API requests to Sublime Ads. As I only know about this month (I didn’t keep any past months), I decided to start it as of this year. Just tinkering, but was fun.

63% faster… 😂