Comments on: How I Got Some Paying Sponsors Without Really Meaning To

By: Eilene Luka

Eilene Luka — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 18:44:36 +0000

Great! Generally I in no way study entire content but the way you wrote this details is simply amazing and this kept my interest in reading and I enjoyed it. You have obtained great writing skills.

By: Zach @College for 10k

Zach @College for 10k — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:31:20 +0000

Hey Josh,

I used your post as inspiration for my own contest.

Readers – If you are interested in helping me out, click my name above and it will take you to a contact page to get some free advertising.

(Edit – The last one was a mistake. Wrong url…)

By: Website Builder

Website Builder — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 22:09:28 +0000

Very nice and inspiring piece by Josh. Creativity does take you a loooong and some times, pleasantly surprising way. Keep up the good work, Darren.

Amy Cameron
BuildMySiteforFree.com

By: Aglolink

Aglolink — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 15:50:19 +0000

Darren, I really love with all of your post! Thanks inspiring me for criteria.

By: investor business daily

investor business daily — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 12:28:53 +0000

Its a long article but I enjoyed most..Thanks for sharing it here..

By: Raihan

Raihan — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 16:21:59 +0000

very useful information for newbies. Even I too want to experiment this with my work at home blog. Thank You.

By: Naveen Reddy

Naveen Reddy — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:55:55 +0000

good content.Every blogger have to follow these steps

By: Bob

Bob — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:37:04 +0000

This is very interesting. Im going to try this for sure.

By: Your-Vitamins

Your-Vitamins — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:36:40 +0000

I just found this Blog today and I find it great! This post gives me some hope for monotizing my site. Thank you!

By: Raffy

Raffy — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 05:28:47 +0000

Interesting and awesome. Its sounds difficult but once you get there attention, its worth it. thanks for sharing

By: chris

chris — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 00:07:13 +0000

Very interesting. I have been trying to make it on adsense alone, but maybe I can try my luck at this. Adsense really isn’t panning out to be much for me. Thanks for sharing.

By: Marcie Hill (asnotseenontv.info)

Marcie Hill (asnotseenontv.info) — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:26:35 +0000

This is excellent information. I just announced the revamping of my blog and planted a few ads to entice others. I am going to give this a shot in the near future. Thanks for this.

By: mizzFIT

mizzFIT — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 23:13:58 +0000

Wow, loved this guest post! I’m going to try an experiment of my own. Truly brilliant. Bravo, Josh, and thanks for sharing!

By: Josh Hanagarne

Josh Hanagarne — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:53:16 +0000

You know what? I actually mispoke a little bit. I went back through my stats and I was averaging between 400-700 visitors a day. so I was off, sorry about that. The fact remains: those are not massive numbers and offering something free was the big point anyways. Whoops!

By: Josh Hanagarne

Josh Hanagarne — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:35:11 +0000

I was only getting 150-200 visitors a day at the time, and most of them didn’t stick. I don’t think the traffic matters. Everyone’s looking for exposure. You putting my link on your blog doesn’t hurt me just because your blog is smaller than mine. The more the merrier.

You sell yourself short when you say “My blog’s too small for that.” For what? For free advertising? Very few things are free, and the fact that your blog doesn’t get much traffic doesn’t make it unappealing for me to sponsor you if it’s FREE.

Most of you are overthinking and underacting. If you try something and then it bombs, then you win the debate. If you decide something “just couldn’t work for me right now,” and you don’t try, you’re right. If you try something new, you might fail. If you try nothing, you have already failed.

@For anyone who has asked about ad rates and formulas. I have my own evolving views, but here is the broadest stroke: you are worth what someone will pay.

By: Josh Hanagarne

Josh Hanagarne — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:27:53 +0000

Hey gang, sorry I’m late. I just back from a trip and saw that the post was up. I’ll be going through the questions for the of the afternoon during Super Bowl timeouts:) And for those of you that have sent me emails, I’ll respond to them all. Thanks for the great response so far.

By: pamela wilson

pamela wilson — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 22:14:20 +0000

Josh,

This was a very inspiring post. I am glad to hear how that experiment panned out for you. (I entered at the time.) The only reason I can’t take up your advice, however, just as I can’t take up any other similar advice is that I have no idea how install ads on my website. I read all these posts about getting affliates and sponsors, but because I have no idea how to actually set ads up on my site, I can’t move forward.

Can anyone actually advise on how to go about this?

Secondly, Josh, you mention your readership wasn’t huge when you started the competition. Exactly what was your readership at the time? 100 per day??

Thanks,
Pam

By: Tracy @ Hall of Fame Moms

Tracy @ Hall of Fame Moms — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:51:42 +0000

Josh, how do you figure click-through rates for advertisers? I need this info, knowledge. I really don’t know how to read my cpanel stats very well at all.

By: Markus

Markus — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:42:57 +0000

Josh, thanks for sharing this. I’ve never tried to reach the attention of the sponsors, but now I will. Thank you.

By: NobodySharesAdRates

NobodySharesAdRates — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 20:38:32 +0000

Okay, I actually found some info which may be of value to other readers. Here is an Adify report on CPM ad rates in the last year.

This seems to be a good basis. For example News related ad rates have been between $10-12 cpm in the last year (all verticals seem to be in a decline, with the exception of food).

Given cpm, it is easy to set your asking price for both cpc (use your AdSense ctr as a guide to convert cpm to cpc), and flat-rate monthly fees (based on your monthly traffic, and accounting for growth, and including your intentions to rotate vs. keep static). For example, if you get 10,000 visits per month on your blog, the asking price for a front page static ad should be nearly $100 for a news blog. If you offer cpc and your ctr is 1%, then you can expect 100 clicks, and you can ask for $100 again at $1 per click.

This, of course, is a gross average benchmark source. It is not clear whether 1000 impressions in a huge site are worth the same as 1000 impressions in a small site. It is also not clear how your asking price should vary based on the different positions you offer.

There is a need for an advertising rep for bloggers, who will do all the negotiations for direct ad sales and pick networks etc. for a % of the cut. I would gladly outsource this whole damn business because I don’t want to have to learn it.