Archive for May, 2007

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What Should Sponsored Reviews Do About PPP?

Thursday, May 31st, 2007

Tricia of Tricia’s Musing’s wrote a post describing PPP Direct, and, interestingly, got a response from Jarrod of Sponsored Reviews.

Tricia posts reviews for both Pay Per Post and Sponsored Reviews, and Jared is concerned that advertisers at Sponsored Reviews will check her blog out, notice she accepts reviews for $20 and then negotiate directly through PPP direct. He then wonders:

We spend a lot of money promoting the blogs in our system and sending you guys work.

Any suggestions? am I crazy to think that we should not continue sending you advertisers?

I thought about this for a bit, and I have to say: I don’t think Jarrod is crazy.

I think Sponsored Reviews is threatened by the existence of PPP Direct. Advertisers will check out a blog before accepting bids, see that a blogger also uses PPP Direct and try to negotiate that way. Advertisers will do this because it’s in their interest to do so.

So, Jared really does have something to worry about. But, this is what happens in the free market.

This means that Jared needs to figure out what to do and rather quickly.

However, the correct response is not to deal with Tricia, or any individual blogger, personally. The correct response is to talk to his legal reps and figure out whether or not to change his TOS. Likely he can change them to prohibit bloggers from posting “hire me” type advertising on their blog. He could require them to display Sponsored Reviews advertising. He could do any number of things including keeping the TOS as they currently are: That is, permit bloggers to post PPP direct badges and still participate in Sponsored Reviews.

But the deal is this: Whatever he does, he need to put this in his TOS and require it of all participants.

Of course, whatever Jarrod does, Sponsored Reviews’ TOS will make his program either more or less attractive to both bloggers and advertisers. If the new TOS prohibit PPP Direct, each blogger will then need to decide whether they prefer PPP Direct or Sponsored Reviews. Which program they select will depend on both how much money they think they can make with either program and how easy the programs are to use.

Honestly, I don’t know what Jarrod should decide about his TOS. If he prohibits bloggers from posting PPP Direct ads, he risks losing lots of bloggers; if he permits it he risks advertisers going directly to bloggers. These are risks he’s going to have to weigh and decide.

It’s a tough call.

But, strangely, I do have two cents for Jarrod, and they have little to do with his TOS. Here’s my two cents: Jarrod should imitate PPP and regularly offer opportunties for bloggers to post reviews about Sponsored Reviews. He would gain two things this way: 1) He’ll get feedback on whether or not the system is convenient for bloggers and 2) The blog readers will learn of the existence of Sponsored reviews. Some of those readers are advertisers- some are publishers. Jared needs to get the word out to both.

One of the big reasons PPP is winning is they are getting a huge number of Posties on board and the Posties are describing the program because PPP periodically advertises using their own system: PPP. It happens that many posties are happy because they joined, landed an opp within a 24 hour period and they actually got paid less than 32 days after they first joined. These happy posties are sharing information voluntarily and also because PPP periodically advertises themselves using their own service.

In the long run, Posties talking about PPP will also bring in advertisers who otherwise would never have heard of PPP. Bloggiers posting about Sponsored Reviews would bring similar benefits to Sponsored Reviews. But if Sponsored Reviews is advertising, I haven’t seen the ads- and I suspect I would because I read blogs that post for Sponsored Reviews.

Jarrod needs to demonstrate his confidence in Sponsored Reviews by using his own service to advertise Sponsored Reviews.

Posted in Monetize, PayPerPost, SponsoredReviews | 3 Comments »

PPP Direct: Setting a Good Price

Wednesday, May 30th, 2007

Pay Per Post came out with a new “PPP Direct” service recently. Loads of Posties signed up immediately- and for good reason. It seems like a handy way to get around problems using the opportunities board at PPP! But no a problem arises: How do you set a good price?

This question sounds easy, but it’s obviously tricky. If you set your price too high, you won’t get any sponsorships. In that case, why waste space on your blog displaying the PPP direct button?

If you set your price too low, you’ll get offers, accept them, fill your blog with sponsored posts but make less than you should given your blog quailty. Moreover, if you post too many sponsored ads, Google is going to figure out you pretty much just post links for money; that will make your blog less attractive to advertisers. (Not to mention, too many sponsored posts tend to bore the heck out of readers!)

I suggest setting your lowest asking price based on the fees you can easily collect every single day using other monetizing services or practices. Here are the guidelines I plan to use:

  1. Don’t accept less than $5 under any circumstances. You can easily make $5 a post using PayU2Blog and Blogitive. Blogitive permits you to review open offers and accept or reject those you don’t like. PayU2Blog sends offers by email and gives you tons of time to fill the offer, but you are required to accept the offers extended.
  2. Join Loud Launch and find out how much they’ll pay you. My PR 4 knitting blog rates $7.50 under their system, so I won’t take less than that from an advertiser who contacts me directly.
  3. If you have a blog that qualifies for V7N Publishing don’t take less than $10. Just join V7N. They permit you to include extra links of your choice in a post, so it can be easier to compose a post to your liking than with a PPP post. However, you do have to take offers they extend.
  4. Don’t accept less than you can easily obtain every single day at PPP without making any ridiculous compromises on blog integrity. On any given day, I can visit the PPP board and get a $10 post at for a PR4 blog while still refusing posts about credit cards, loans or anything I happen to find truly wretched; I usually take only $15-$20 opportunities on a PR4 blog.

Based on this, I’d set my minimum price for a Pr4 blog at $10. That’s the minimum, and I would negotiate higher if the advertiser wants something more than a 50 word text post with one link.

Eventually, I’ll figure out whether I can ask for more or not. What if I found I got no bids after a month? I’d take the PPP Direct banner down! I can easily make more posting ads less frequently using the other services.

Posted in Loud Launch, Monetize, PayPerPost, PayU2Blog, V7 Network | No Comments »

How well does Kontera work?

Tuesday, May 29th, 2007

Tricia asked me how well Kontera works. The short answer is: I don’t really know.

However, now I’ll give some details so others can judge whether or not this method of montetizing a blog is worth a try.

To test out Kontera, I signed up for the service and then installed the javascript on my very new diet blog which gets very, very little traffic. We’re talking maybe 40 hits a day at most (and most of those are me.)

I installed Kontera on 5/5/2007. Between 5/5/2007 and 5/27/2007, I’ve had 760 Net Impressions, 15 clicks and made $1.70. So, based on the data I have I’d expect to make $2.24 per thousand impressions.

Is this good or bad?

Well, obviously, $1.70 in 22 days is chicken feed. However, $2.24 per thousand impression is enough to make running Kontera ads worthwhile for a hobby blogger who mostly wants to cover the costs of blogging and maybe buy a few beers a week. And that’s what Big Bucks Blogger is all about! (Yes, I should be chicken feed blogger, but who wants to call their blog that?

Ok, so why is $2.24 per thousand somehow “pretty good”. Well, my knitting blog currently gets over 2000 impressions a day. About half are regular visitors; half are sent by search engines.

Anyway, with over 2000 a day on the knitting blog, one might guess I could get $4.50 there — assuming that Kontera works as well on a knitting blog as on a diet blog (which it probably doesn’t. )

Ok, but do I really expect to make $4.50 a day on a diet blog? Actually, I anticipate being able to make more — possibly $10 a day. :)

Here’s why:

Given the interest in dieting, I suspect I should be able to eventually get at least 2000 impressions a day. So, that would mean $4.50 a day. Maybe.

But, the reason I expect more than $4.50 is simple: Right now a huge number of Kontera impressions are … me! And I don’t click on the ads.

In fact, I suspect I create over half the impressions because I always view the blog after clickiing publish plus I create impressions when WordPress displays my blog in the editing window! Given how often I save and reload a page before clicking “publish”, or check pages after adding something to the sidebar, I’m probably responsible for at least 20 impressions a day- that’s is over over half the 40 impressions a day.

So, when I get real traffic, the click rate should double and I expect $10 a day. Maybe.

Is that good, bad or indifferent? Well… I guess that depends on how much you think you want to make on a blog! As for me, I’m communicating with Kontera to see if I can add “bigbucksblogger.com” to my Kontera account. I’d like $20 a day even more than I’d like $10 a day. :)

Posted in Dreams of Money, Kontera, Monetize | 1 Comment »
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