If you’re anything like me, you hate the idea of spending money on advertising because the idea of parting with $100-$2000 for the possibility of no return is almost sickening.

That’s why I recommend doing what I did in my early days of advertising – stick with cheap places and slowly work your way up to bigger splurges if the opportunity is right.

Here’s two great places to try advertising for just pennies:

StumbleUpon → Social browsing site StumbleUpon is a great advertising venue because you can pay just $5 to have 100 people view your website. Whether you want to advertise a really great blog post you wrote, your business service packages or the amazing pair of earrings you just listed for sale, by using the Paid Discovery platform of StumbleUpon, you’ll get lots of eyes for a minimal amount. While I personally love using StumbleUpon to secure new subscribers, the people viewing sites have a short attention span so you’ll have a high bounce rate from their visits.

Project Wonderful → Project Wonderful is a platform that allows different websites and blogs to host ad spaces and then users with something to advertise (that’s you!) can go on the site, upload different ad creatives and bid on spaces in your niche. Some publishers charge less than a dollar a day and as long as you target the right audience, you can expect those who visit you from the ad to show some good interest in what you have to offer.

{Featured Image via Lucky Lou Lou}