This post is by Ashe Mischief
When you begin to monetize your blog, you need brass balls. Cajones, testicles, whatever you want to call them– as a predominantly female community, we genetically don’t have them. Why do we need them? As bloggers, we’re a minority, and a minority where the rules and guidelines have yet to be defined. This means that marketing and advertising companies see us as uneducated, uninformed, and–sadly– willing to do anything for a buck or a product.
In a tough economy, you want to stay afloat and look lucrative to advertisers– it’s harder and harder to attract them right now, so saying “no” when they come around feels like a silly thing to do.
One of the first things I did this year was put together my media kit. In it, I established rates for various forms of advertising I accepted on my blog, including sponsored posts, text ads, and banner ads. This helps because when a potential sponsor contacts me, I have a handy PDF that explains what I offer, what the rates are, and what discounts I have as well.
In the past two weeks, I’ve been approached by advertisers who have frankly tried to low-ball…. here’s how, and here’s the unabashed facts about my site & them.
Advertiser #1:
They contact me about getting a link on my site. Very simple email that doesn’t address me by name or mention my site. I write back,
“Rates for links are $20 per month, and appear under the “Friends Of” sidebar. There is a discounted rate for links purchased in 6 & 12 month increments. If you’re interested, please let me know.”
They respond within the hour, with the reply:
“Can you do a hundred dollar gift certificate for the year to SITE for a sidebar link? We just want a text ad, not a banner ad.”
The problems with this:
- The advertiser clearly didn’t research my site at all
- The advertiser was expecting a $140 discount for advertisements on my site, when we didn’t have any relationship together at all.
- They assumed I would want store credit to their site.
Advertiser #2
Contacted me with the following email:
Good day! We came across your site today while searching for quality sites to help us gain additional exposure in the fashion community. Our SITE has been helping students pursue fashion design & merchandising education since 2005!
With that being said, we would like to be considered for a link under your favorite reads section: http://www.mischiefmydear.com/dramatispersonae/ Here are the details of our site to add. To match the other useful links you could say.
We could offer you a one-time donation of $250 to help with this via paypal.
Please let me know either way to confirm or deny this request.
I responded to them with:
Thanks for getting in touch with me about a text link ad. Currently, I do not sell Text Link Ads under the “Favorite Reads” section of my sidebar, as those are for blogs I regularly read. I believe that selling links there compromises my reader’s trust in trying to find other blogs who I read.
However, I do sell links on the other side. Right now I work primarily through Text-Link-Ads.com (which reads “Advertisers” and will be ending soon), but do also sell them individually. For individual links, I place them under the “Friends of ” banner in the second column.
Rates are currently $25 per month for a text link, but I could do a reduced 1 year rate for $250. Then at March 1 next year, we could discuss whether or not you’d like to continue to purchase link space on the site.
If this sounds good to you, please let me know and we can make arrangements to get your link up and for payment.
I received 1 more follow up reply from them that said:
Hi, thanks for getting back to us. Unfortunately that option won’t work for us. If you’re interested we could provide a guest post on fashion design education, that is our other option.
I politely told them no thank you.
The problems with this:
- They clearly had no respect for the fact that I was unwilling to compromise my reader’s trust in where I placed my advertisements. So much so that they were willing to do a guest post for me!
- They had no respect for the work I put in to my blog or the fact that I have rates.
- I knew if I had accepted their offer of a guest post, they would have snuck text links in there.
- Why wasn’t I interested in a guest post? Here’s why:
- My Alexa ranking is: 270,295 with 207 incoming links.
- Their Alexa ranking is: 1,762,390 with 28 incoming links. (With Alexa, it’s important to know that the lower the score, the “better” you’re doing.)
- Their guest post would have increased their incoming links and overall score, and what would I have gotten out of it? I wouldn’t have gotten a mention on their blog, as they have none. I wouldn’t have been financially compensated. They would have been using and abusing my audience and the 2.5 years of hard work I’ve put in to building my blog for their own gain.
-
While these both happened to be instances were a company was wanting to increase their SEO profile, it can happen anywhere– it can happen with indie designers who want a super discounted rate or coverage because they’re “independent,” or a big company trying to bully you in to accepting lower terms and rates for banner ads, because you should be grateful that they approached you.
Every time I accept an offer from an advertiser.
How to prevent this from happening to you:
- Know Your Stats: Check up regularly on your rankings on sites like Google Page Rank and Alexa. It’s great to be able to type in the website that’s approaching you, to see if how close (or far off) they are from your own scores. If your own site is more lucrative then theirs, then you’re the only one with anything to lose by accepting their offers.
- Set Up Guidelines & Rates: By setting up your own guidelines for advertising and your rates, you have no reason to feel guilty when you say “No,” or counter their offer. You have set these up with consideration to how much work goes in to your blog, how many hours you spend writing each post, marketing yourself, and frankly, you deserve what you ask for!
Why You Should Care:
- You work hard on your blog, whether it’s full time & professional or hobby. You deserve to be treated with respect and compensated in a fair way.
- You’re part of a community at large, and when you devalue your own work, you’re also devaluing the work of your favorite bloggers.
- Nobody likes to be taken advantage of– and that’s what these companies are doing. They’re taking advantage of you.
- We all like money– but would you take up a boss on a sketchy side business proposal that broke company policy or the law? Is the money worth compromising your own views, your reader’s trust in you, your blog authority, your own page rankings and scores?
While I’ve said “No” to both advertisers and won’t be doing business with them, they’ll just move on to another blogger. That blogger could be you– and they may not offer you the same rates they offered me. They may not even offer you compensation at all. And you have to ask yourself– is it worth it?
Image by vigilphotography / CC BY 2.0
I work in advertising, primarily in the tv + print field and I was floored by the amount of unprofessional ‘advertising’ requests I received since I started my blog. I realize that smaller companies can’t afford to spend thousands to millions of dollars on traditional media, but I also don’t think it’s too much to ask, for a company to at least research the concept of a blog, address the blog editor by name and draft a somewhat professional offer where both parties involved would benefit from a partnership. Unfortunately starting or running a successful business involves investing in a little marketing. I don’t know when people suddenly decided this should come for free.
I don’t even bother replying to most of these requests, because it’s just obvious most advertisers want to boost their SEO without paying even a small fee. The whole ‘link exchange’ excuse is getting lame and I get at least one email a day requesting me to write a sponsored post about a company I’ve never heard of and that’s completely unrelated to my blog concept.
I’m really glad this was posted, as it’s easy for new bloggers to get excited about companies contacting them and they think posting random links on their blogs is the right thing to do. I hope this raises more awareness as to how selective bloggers should be when it comes to picking a suitable ad partner.
.-= HauteWorld´s last blog ..UMA MIY (Hong Kong) =-.
Hello i`m new to blogging, the is a very useful resource right here, all to many times people try to low ball online especially newbies. Thanks for the tips you have offered and various ways to peep game on the bad guys. Alot o work does go into espcially for more pupular blogsites, should’nt make it easy for the others to cheat you out of your space or idea’s…etc these are you blogs if the next person does’nt like it then tell them where they can get off! Thanks for taking a stance for what you believe in surely its helped others by reading what you wrote here….its put something on my mind for future refference with my blog. Now I do have a question whe it comes to add sites such as Text-Link-Ads.com how is a newbie to know where to set this up at legitimately? There to many sites that “claim” this that and the other then they turn out to be a scam or a waste of time.
Amazing post! Thank you so much for putting it out there. It’s so hard to stand up when you feel you’re the only one doing it, but integrity is the absolute most important thing here.
I have shared this article with fellow bloggers, thank you!
Vanja
.-= Vanja Stace´s last blog ..Thursday night jazz with Ensemble Satsang =-.
Oooh, interesting post.
I think I was approached by your second one, but when I suggested an alternative location they agreed.
I do think it’s really important to remember your worth and your integrity and that THEY approached YOU, you don’t owe them anything and it’s your site at the end of the day.
I turn down “link exchanges” with “relevant sites” all the time, as half the time they are really not relevant in the slightest, and people generously offering to write content for me that I can post for free is getting more common too. A genuine advertiser will be open to discussion about locations and type of advertising I think.
.-= Retro Chick´s last blog ..Links à la Mode 25th February 2010 =-.
I’m fifteen. I barely know anything about advertising, and this article has really helped me. I have sold some links within my site, some posts also, and now I’m trying to limit that number.
What really gets to me now is ‘Partner Programmes’. All you recieve is one item, AND you have to review it and keep a banner up on your sidebar. I said yes to someone who contacted me about a partner programme a while ago, and have been waiting for the product for a month, and contacted the woman who offered it to me a fortnight ago. Still no answer.
The thing is, I’ve had their banner up on my site for a month too. So I’ve been giving them free advertsing all along.
Your article really inspired me to not stand for it anymore. I have worked for my blog, for a year now and these companies are taking advantage of me because of my age, my inexperience and my readers. I do not want to be a victim of this, and I just emailed the woman back telling her I want to pull out of this offer. I’m taking the banner down.
Its right. I deserve to be treated with respect.
Thank you for this article!
Top TOP post! I get asked these questions so often by other bloggers, and I’m sad to say that I get approached by advertisers like this all the time! Often I am so offended by the lack of respect and lack of reseacrh that I don’t even respond.
One company in particular has annoyed me greatly by not only asking many times for something for nothing, but then continually spamming me with their links via my comments and Twitter to try and get themselves place on the blog! Talk about a snowball’s chance in hell.
Bloggers need to know that their blog is their own space. They have both rights and responsibilities, and one of those rights is to be able to say no. It is important to know and understand you worth both for the hard work you put in, but also because if you don’t value your time and skill you cannot expect others to.
So very well said Ashe, I’ll be directing lots of lost bloggers to this post.
excellent post and great comments not much more to add so i will just reiterate that..
anytime you decide to turn your blog into a business, which in essence is anytime you add any kind of monetizing component, you need to treat it as such.
and these are great points to remind you of why.
.-= Goody´s last blog ..New York State of Mind.. =-.
It’s wonderful to read a blog post and have nothing to add!
I swear these guys think everyone is stupid and naive! However saying that I really need to sort my site out to start making me a few extra pennies!
.-= Louisa´s last blog ..Can Aloe Vera Help You Lose Weight? =-.
Fantastic article, Ashe! It really covered a lot of good points about advertising & your blog. Lets just hope that some of the advertisers who are out there trying to reach all of us bloggers get a chance to read this and see the error of their ways!
.-= Ginger´s last blog ..If you’ve got it, Flaunt it =-.
Great post! Totally agree with your views on this. The non-relevant link exchange requests have got to go!
.-= Andrea´s last blog ..Today’s Don’t Miss Designer Sales – 3/1/10 =-.
I’ve got balls!
Great article. I’m constantly suprised by the lack of research done by advertisers. I’ve got an ‘Advertise’ page here if anyone wants to check it out for an idea of what to put together and the various options you could have – http://www.smartgeezer.co.uk/advertise/ – I’ve avoided a PDF media pack so people can see it straight away and not have to request it.
Any requests I direct them here with a standard email I have saved as a ‘signature’ so it’s easy to reply with no hassle. Most dummies fail at this hurdle.
I would say knowing your own worth is very important and one way to know this is to know your traffic. Use Google Analytics (PageRank is something different) – http://www.google.com/analytics/ – plus use QuantCast – http://www.quantcast.com – it’s free and allows potential advertisers to see your traffic and the breakdown of that traffic without giving any vital info away. I’ve got a little Quantcast widget thing on my advertise page so users can see whats going on.
Just the other day I was asking my husband to help me come up with a way to deal with these types of requests as they are getting more and more prevalent. Thank you so much for the advice!
XXX
Suzanne
.-= Suzanne aka Punk Glam Queen´s last blog ..More Original Retail Price Gouging at Beyond The Rack =-.
Wow thanks for that it’s good to know I’m not alone. I’ve had almost the identical situation happen as in the case of Advertiser #2 several times trying to get into my “favorite sites” category. I basically told them the same thing you did , with a similar response from the advertiser. I find it difficult not to respond back harshly when they dont’ understand that just because you “flash” money in my face you should be allowed a space in an area of my site that is for sites that are ACTUALLY my favorite sites.
.-= Kasey´s last blog ..Contest Alert:Carlos Santana’s Supernatural Grand Prize Giveaway =-.
Ashe you rock! Did I tell you?
I have found this to start to become quite cumbersome, as I usually work with share a sale and google ads and blog her…
I need to get to work! Another to do for me!
.-= Marie Denee´s last blog ..Fashion your curves with Evans Fashion Fix =-.
Very useful thank you !!
I don’t know how to put those links and i don’t have a lot of audience … hahahah
I think this allows me to avoid these problems in a way !
Frenchie
xx
.-= Frenchie´s last blog ..PHILO – SOPHY =-.
A very insightful and help blog entry. Thanks for sharing your experiences Ashe Mischief it will definitely help myself, as well as other fashion bloggers move forward to developing our sites.
.-= Kimberly´s last blog ..Erdem’s fall/winter 2010 collection brings life to the cold winter months =-.
This is true, and if you’re supplying free links and free services to advertisers (Just like wearing the Gap brand across your chest in reality) you’re making it harder for those who actually monetize to do so. You’re also making it harder on yourself when you decide to actually monetize. Not many people realize that by putting up free links, they’re keeping demand for paid links down.
It’s like why buy the cow when you can get the milk for free over here on this website? That analogy sounds slightly disgusting, but it’s true. If you don’t work for money it’s hard to get people to start paying you, and right now “You” is all of us fashion bloggers.
.-= Birdie´s last blog ..Invest In: Quality Time =-.
This was a great article. I linked it on my blog and was happy that I was already doing some of what you mentioned. Very helpful. I love this place.
This is such a great post, thank you!
http://wonderwool.wordpress.com/
.-= wonderwool´s last blog ..Longchamp Gatsby Bag =-.
Awesome post. I have been working on my blog for about a year on and off, but just recently have I gotten more into it. I have joined different communities and became more active on other blogs….I have not monetzed or well actually started making money off my blog yet…but I hope to in the future .. so .this is great reference for the future …clears things up …very good
thank-you !
The Lost Generation
I tried to search for my Alexa ranking but apparently it’s more than 100,000 therefor my data is not available!!! Is there any way to find out my Alexa ranking even if its higher than 100,000? Or should I just show possible sponsors my Google Analytics data?
Thank you!
Great post by the way, very helpful
-Maristella.
.-= Maristella´s last blog ..Small Packages =-.
I’m so, so glad that you wrote this article. Such great information! I’m in the research phase prior to starting a blog, and am grateful that you broke this down into explaining the problems with both approaches. (And am surprised that they would come to you in the first place with those bad pitches! Jeez!)
i get ridiculously flaky offers for link trades and i go and look at their site and they won’t even have a link area. pretty ridiculous. real offers and offers not worth thinking about do look miles apart in their approach. it’s so funny, don’t they know how generic and irrelevant they look in their impersonal “offers”. ugh.
.-= SwanDiamondRose´s last blog ..pale yellow & pink & blue & SWANclothing sock garters & me [8] =-.
I have been checking these post all day and i love them! I am a new blogger ( blogging since Aug 09) and since I have been approached a few times be PR people and others but I often turned them down because 1) I wasn’t sure how to respond and 2) I had an innate feeling they were trying to get over one me.
It is so nice to have a site such as this that provides great advice from established bloggers to beginners. Thank you so much everyone for your input and feedback! ~ Jenn
.-= jennifer´s last blog ..The Art of Travel by Louis Vuitton: “Chile, Behind the Scenes” =-.
thanks for the amazing post!!
.-= vinda´s last blog ... =-.
I’m a fairly new blogger. Thanks for the informative post. It’s great that you stuck your guns.
.-= Mary´s last blog ..90s Love =-.
Thanks for this great post. I am new at this as well so it’s nice to have an idea of what is going on in the minds of companies looking for ad space right now. I can’t believe one company had the gall to ask to be in your Favorite Reads section!
This is so incredibly true! I’ve just had to “fight” with an advertiser about what they wanted, and what I was willing to give on my site. In the end, they settled, but I might have felt intimidated and backed down if this site and these resources were not available.
Some really useful tips on here. I have a really minimal layout on my blog and so I don’t have links and people still contact me asking me to ‘link’ them. It’s flattering and so sometimes you feel you have to link them but I guess sometimes you do have to say no to protect your blogs integrity!
Victoria xxxx
Excellent advice! I too get link exchange offers and often when I visit the site, there is either no link exchange list or the site is so poorly produced, I don’t want to associate it with mine. I also once said yes to a seemingly legitimate blogger who wanted to guest blog on my site. The content he provided was useless and was cribbed directly from another site. Needless to say, I didn’t use it. As a new fashion blogger – but with years of experience as a fashion writer and editor – I have the utmost respect for my reader and try to provide original content that’s useful and entertaining. It IS harder to figure out how to monetize the site, but it’s information like this post that encourages and educates. Thanks again.
Wow, it is great to know this. I knew that there are people who don’t care about the readers, but in that obvious manner?..
Thank you for this post. I just received my first request for a text link post and used your guidelines to respond. I would have been lost without this.
This was a very insightful post. For one, I didn’t know at all about Alexa ratings. Also, I didn’t know there were so many forms of advertisement (and that random companies would email you with such unprofessional requests!) I just started my blog two days ago so I’m a long way away from even needing to monetize it; after all it costs me nothing other than time and why should I bomb my blog with ads when I haven’t even proved my content is worthy!
but I’ll definitely keep this post in mind if I were ever to consider advertising a company on my site.
You’ve got balls. Thanks for sharing your insight and experience. Your article was a pleasure to read, you definetly ARE a blogger worth more than offers like those. Thanks again.
This actually happened to me recently. I’m a brand new blogger, and it was for 15% off for my readers. Now I wish I would not have posted the blog. But, I’ve learned, and now I know. I’m going to put together a media kit, and be stubborn next time. I really like Ben’s idea.
I enjoyed this post. Even though I just started the path of monetizing my blog, I’ve still said no to more advertisers than I’ve said yes too.
To me, if we’re going to work together we both need to research each other and know about each other. So if they don’t take time out to really read my blog & know what I even talk about then I’m not dealing with them. I feel the same way about PR people. They constantly send me these ridiculous pitches and expect me to just write about it for whatever reason.
Thank you so much for this article! Really! As a new blogger,I was curious how the advertising wheel gets started..this was super informative and good to know for the future.
Merci mille fois!
I have these same problems on a daily basis.
Thank you!!! Someone finally came out, speaking up about how we are all getting taken advantage of. I will not do any work for businesses that want free advertisement. Some of them will not even offer a discount to my readers, or add my link. It is ridiculous. We are providing a great service, at a fraction of what they would pay otherwise.
What a great article! It all sounds rather overwhelming as a new blogger. There’s some really interesting things to think about in your article.
Thank you.
Great article -ofcourse- anyways, also got an offer and I also turned it down- it didn’t felt personal and I didn’t support the site.
x
Great post! I recently refused to provide with the pictures from my blog to one social media company. They wanted it for free – while I spent 2 days on putting that post up. Let’s value oour own work dear bloggers!
It’s great to see that the advice in this post is still relevant a year after it was first published, it’s just a shame that businesses still haven’t twigged that bloggers work hard to build their websites and deserve remuneration for leeching off their work.
It’s great to see that the advice in this post is still relevant a year after it was first published, it’s just a shame that businesses still haven’t twigged that bloggers work hard to build their websites. What I don’t understand is why companies think they should get something for nothing.
Thanks for the post & helpful tips! I never knew companies/other sites could be so selfish sometimes about selling links! It’s just like in the YouTube beauty guru world these days, with everyone getting paid to review products they hate just for the money!
Thank you so much for this post. I don’t have much experiences in this ‘area’. It opens my eyes..
Interesting post.. I never knew about any of this, I’m definitely going to look into advertising via blogs, thank you!
Fantastic post! Great read. I will certainly take this advice on board for when I decide to monetize my site. Thanks
x
Thanks for the tips – although I’m not at the point yet that I need to worry about all of this as I a newish blogger, your post serves as a reminder that there may be others out there who may very well take advantage of my ignorance..!
As a blogger who is just recently becoming open to the idea of selling ad space, this article is so helpful. Thanks for linking to the media kit article as well!
Thanks so much for posting this, there were a lot of really interesting and important tips. I am a new blogger and have not been approached by advertisers yet, but in the future I would like to have advertising on my site. Thanks again!