After my previous post about working with clients in many time zones, I was wondering in just how many different parts of the worlds they are. So I put some markers on a map, and here is the result:

Time Zone Check shows the time zones on a pretty map

Since I started my company, I’ve worked with many people from all across the globe. Five or ten years ago, this would have been virtually impossible, or at least extremely expensive. My telephone bill would have gone through the roof. But today, with e-mail, instant messaging and Skype, it’s easy and affordable to communicate with people everywhere.

So now that distance and communication costs are no longer an issue, I’ve found that there is a new challenge: finding the right time to talk. With clients in many time zones, this sometimes takes a lot of calculating and planning. Fortunately, the web offers nice tools to manage this too. One of the prettiest I know is Time Zone Check. This site shows me a map of the world, with my own current local time. Then, when I point my mouse at the location of someone I would like to talk to, the map shows me what time it is in their part of the world. I can even search for cities by name if I don’t know the exact location.

The map also shows me where it is night and where it is day, the places in the world where they’re currently enjoying daylight savings, the abbreviations of the time zones and the time difference between those time zones and my own time zone.

Moving to cost per action advertising

In the first article in this series, I discussed switching from CPM to CPC campaigns (see that article for an explanation of these terms). In this second article, I’ll go one step further than just getting paid for clicks, by introducing conversion tracking.

Advertisers don’t buy a campaign because they like the site’s publisher. Their business goal is to increase sales. While there is a place for just raising brand awareness, ultimately it’s all about bringing in potential buyers, presenting them an attractive offer for a product or service, and completing the transaction.

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