I have done a LOT of advertising on blogs over the last few years pouring hundreds of thousands into ad campaigns with mixed results. I am the typical advertiser on your blog: I get started and I see less than expected traffic from your blog in the first week then it trickles down to next to nothing and I don’t renew in month two. In this post I am going to show you how to attract and keep advertisers coming back to advertise on your blog and show advertisers what to look for to maximize roi on your ad buy!
In general most blog ad campaigns that you purchase directly from the blog owner are:
- sold on a flat rate for a 30 day run. Unlike typical ad networks that sell on a CPM basis blog owners find it easiest to manage ad sales on a flat rate for a given time period.
- typically the ad unit sold is a 125×125 ad unit. This has become a staple on blogs as it fits nicely into most templates. The biggest problem with the 125×125 ad that you purchase on a blog is that the visitors you are trying to reach rarely see them! They are tucked into the right margin of most blogs and mixed in with 4, 6, or 8 other advertisers vying for your attention.
- no way to reach the rss readers. Most ad campaigns don’t include a way to reach the rss readers of the blog as the website based banner ads do not show in rss readers. Typically the rss readers are among the most passionate readers of the topic of the blog and it is a must for an advertiser to get in front of these enthusiasts.
The result of a standard blog advertising campaign is very little branding and even lower CRTs and visitors to your site.
How to Fix Blog Advertising
#1 – Blog owners need to think like advertisers! This is the overarching rule. When it comes to ad placements and ad positions/formats you have to ask yourself: if I was paying to drive traffic to my blog what would that campaign look like?
#2 – The 125×125 isn’t going away but you must supplement it with “interruption sized” banner sizes and placements. My suggestion is adding in a 468×60 at the top of the site and a 300×250 at the bottom of individual post pages. Then once all three units are in place you need to ROADBLOCK the two larger ad units for the same. So for each page impression one of the advertisers would get their ad on the top of the site (468×60), an ad in the left margin (125×125) and your ad at the bottom of the post (300×250). All advertisers will get 100% exposure in the 125×125 section on the right margin.
#3 – A monthly sponsor thank you post. The sponsor post serves two purposes: a. reach the rss readers who don’t see the website based and b. get the advertisers exposure in the content area of the page where readers won’t miss them. Ideally the format allows the advertiser to add a logo and then a message that could be a description of their product/services along with a coupon code special for this site.
#4 – Creative creatives! The ad has to draw the visitor’s attention and entice a click. Adding a call to action like “click here” “get started”, etc, can help. It is important to try a number of different ads and test CTR to see what ads perform the best for you. Even when you think you have one, it will go stale over time and ideally you are swapping out your creative monthly but this is hard to do. Our most successful ad for TLA didn’t even mention our company name it was just this ad below run on TechCrunch:
The Blog Owner Cheat Sheet To Attracting and Keeping Advertisers (feel free to copy for your own blog!)
Advertising on XYX.com
Rates: $X per 30 day run
What you get: a 125×125 that gets 100% of pageviews in the right margin. A 468×60 and 300×250 that will be shown together one out of every four page views. Also* we will be doing a monthly sponsor post that will feature your products and services within the content area of our site and will reach our RSS subscribers!
What we need from you: three creatives: 125×125, 300×250, 468×60 (shown in order below)
Here is how to pay:
Send any questions, creatives to:
—
Hope this helps you as a blogger to make more money by attracting and keeping advertisers longer and helps advertisers see a better roi on their ad buys!
{ 6 trackbacks }
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
Thanks for the information on banner advertising – the sizes, frequency and information of adding the text from the ads to the RSS feed. I actually started working on this tonight as soon as I’d read about it and will be creating the script necessary to make the banners rotate out every certain number of seconds on each page to attract attention, increase visibility and create more impressions per page view.
Now “all” I need to do is learn how to be interesting and attract traffic.
exactly the tips I was looking for… working on a redesign and will implement these.
Excellent ideas.. We had already started adding adds to our RSS feeds using a slightly modified footer plugin to get our advertisers more exposure on a couple of the blogs I manage.. They are being clicked so it most have ’some’ value for the advertiser..
Just the advertising info I needed!
thanks.
I was just looking for this kind of post to pass a budget for advertising. Thanks Patrick. Big fan!
All true – but getting take up is going to depend on the desire of the bloggers themselves I’d imagine. Anyone primarily motivated by the joy of the medium who has just kind of happened upon making revenue through advertising might not really want to hawk out every available pixel to advertisers.
Plus, personally speaking as a reader of blogs I can live with/understand some low-key advertising (we’ve all got to make a living!) As soon as I start getting interruption sized adverts in the text I’m going to start wondering about the motivation of the blogger concerned – who do they care more about: their readers or their advertisers?
Finally, that kind of thing is going to be a shoo-in for anyone looking to report paid links to Google. Unfair, but there you go.
You are so right about the 125×125 blocks in the right side bar being so common place that bloggers are not paying attention. It is kind of like Adsense on blogs for bloggers, they have become useless because bloggers know what they are and are avoiding them. Thus, the 125 in the side bar is becoming the same thing.
Therefore, I like your suggestion to use the top banner and block after the post. That is a good idea to rotate them as well. Makes everything better for the advertisers. Also, I love the idea of doing an advertisers post at least once a month to give them some added exposure and incentive to keep advertising on your site.
One of the hidden benefits is an additional back link to their site.
Glad I stumbled onto your post and will be checking you out in the future.
Thanks for sharing!
I am just starting to explore advertising on my blog so finding this from Twitter was serendipitous. One thing that I worry about is turning readers off by having too much advertising. I don’t want my blog to look like the highway of South of the Border billboards on the way to Myrtle Beach!
Great Ideas Patrick, especially for blogs starting out offering ads, every blog I have bought slots on that sold me the month to month 125×125 I cancel after the first month.
#4 is the most important, by far. If I could add a #5 it would be: Land the user on a good landing page. And if I could add a #6 it would be: Don’t try to advertise a product that sucks
I wouldn’t say that putting up more banners on a blog or making the banner more creative is the answer. Banner blindness is here and most readers do not even notice banners, not even to think about how few click them.
I like the idea of a thank you post, it is more in line with how we should be thinking. More personal endorsement from the blogger as that is more trustworthy and will get much more attention than another 468×60 or 125×125 banner.
But then again there should be a fine line there as we saw in case of Chris Brogan’s sponsored article backlash last month.
Marko
http://www.howtomakemyblog.com
@#3 – A monthly sponsor thank you post.
I am not really sure about this. I subscribe to a lot of blogs, and the ones that have thank you posts usually get scrolled over. I can’t even tell you what some of the companies are that have been featured in these. If it is a free placement, then sure, go for it. But I would be weary of actually paying to be placed in a sponsor post.
Wonderful Post! I’ve been trying to find ideas to snap out of the normal way of advertising on my blog! These are some wonderful ideas!
Thanks,
Eric
-www.sizmmarketing.com
Great post. I totally agree. These changes would definitely influence my decision to advertise on a blog.
You make great points.
I am already doing similar on my Yorba Linda blog.
I am using RSS Footer plugin which I can then insert Text ads into the footer of every post and I also have it setup to rotate diferent businesses.
I am also implementing the Sponsor monthly Thank you post and then I also offer sponsors to provide content for posts (max 1 per month) that allow them to advertise upcoming specials or events they are holding.
Loren
If your blog covers a niche topic such as online advertising, seo or search marketing or even weddings you are more likely to have an ‘engaged’ reader. An engaged audience is more likely to spend time on your website and be aware of your advertising. Your audience wants information.
If you are using a ‘packaged’ blog such as Blogger or Wordpress there is likely a download that will enable you to place advertising on your website. Its important that the advertising widget for blogs will allow for several ads to ‘rotate’ so you don’t serve the same ad constantly. For maximun revenue you want the ability to serve multiple ads, even if it’s just affiliate ads and google ad sense.
Hope this was helpful – Susan – littlefishinbigpond.com
Great article. Thanks for posting link on Twitter. I’ve heard both sides of the coin that advertising on blogs does and doesn’t make money for the blogger and advertiser. Recently I’ve heard it does (Dooce.com featured on Oprah- makes 40k/ mo. ). As a result I’ve poured more ad spots into my site. I think I might have gone overkill. Requesting feedback on twitter @renewbie . Thanks in advance !
This was very helpful. I’m hoping that I can grow my blog enough so that I can offer advertising. It would be a nice addition to my site.