Here we are at the Selling Advertising on Your Blog session featuring Cheryl Phillips moderating, Victoria Haller and Dawn Schnee.
Thanks to WorldWinner for sponsoring me at the Type-A Mom Conference!
Google AdSense isn’t a big money maker for most [mom] bloggers. GoogleAds pay based on keywords, and parenting blogs don’t often have the big money keywords.
Networks like BlogHerAds are really easy to set up. Talking about CPM/CPC/CPA advertising and what it means. Make sure you read your ad network contracts to see what you’re giving up. (Re: BlogHerAds and product reviews, etc.)
Ad placement is directly related to how much you’ll get paid for an ad. Ads placed above the fold on the left side usually pay the highest because that’s where people’s eyeballs go.
Cozi decided not to run any network ads because they wanted complete control over the ads that show up on their site. They only work directly with advertisers that they want to work with.
Try to sell an integrated sponsorship program to a handful of targeted advertisers. Put together a complete package to leverage your Web site, your blog posts, your Twitter profiles, etc. (Need to ask him exactly what he means by that.)
Knowing Your Worth
Look at how many pageviews you get per month. Multiple by .003 and figure out how much you could charge for a 125×125 square ad on your site for a month. (Distinguish between pageviews and impressions.)
Advertisers don’t want to advertise on a blog that has 30 ads on a page because they won’t have the same exposure. But all advertisers are different. Some advertisers want the logo recognition, some want top billing, and others may just want the link. Some “advertisers” will be very unhappy if you nofollow their links. (I have to throw up the warning flags here. Make sure your advertiser isn’t a shady SEO company that will screw up your PageRank by getting you involved in a “bad neighborhood.”)
You may want to pad your advertising rates to allow for negotiations. If you want $100 for your ad space, ask for $120 so they can bargain you down. Have the advertisers cover your PayPal fees.
If you have a hyper-local blog, you can command far more money for your ad space because local targeting is very valuable for advertisers. We all undervalue ourselves because, with parenting blogs, our audience is the most valued demographic out there.
Traditional magazines can earn between $80-$120 per subscriber per year from their advertisers. We should be trying to command
An integrated sponsorship program combines all of our assets into a single offer to a company. For example, it would include a certain number of reviews written in a month, tweeting about products a certain number of times per day, run a contest for the advertiser, offering exclusive media coverage on your site for that month – no other ads on the site. (That sounds exactly like the sponsorship pitch I gave WorldWinner!) With 1,000 readers, you could honestly command $1,000 per month for an integrated sponsorship program. Brands are doing creative stuff. More brands would be willing to go for this than we may think. Figure out how to leverage your audience. You’re selling your audience, not your impressions.
Companies are paying big bucks on TV, radio, and newspaper ads… even small businesses. These companies have the money. They can pay, and we should be able to command the respect as we provide the targeted audience they want to reach. We can deliver the goods. We should be compensated.
Putting ad rates on your site isn’t good enough. Advertisers want the metrics, too. Differing opinions. Cozi doesn’t want metrics, he wants to know the specific story, why you are the perfect match for the advertiser. Quality is important, and numbers may be irrelevant to advertisers.
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God bless the live bloggers. Thanks for this great info! Appreciate it!!