The Best Way of Making Money on a Blog is Through Sponsorship
Your blog doesn’t get a ton of traffic.
Your blog doesn’t display great contextual ads. Or maybe you don’t want to use contextual ads because you feel it devalues the overall quality of your blog.
Now what?
Lots of people make money with contextual advertising, particularly with Google AdSense. But there’s way more people who don’t earn much of anything from Google AdSense or other advertising options like Text Link Ads and Performancing.
Mastering contextual advertising isn’t rocket science, but it definitely takes some effort. And there’s an insane amount of resources out there (some good, some bad) on how to maximize the success of Google AdSense and other programs.
Affiliate marketing works well for quite a few people, but there’s also a learning curve. It takes time to figure out, and there are a ton of options with companies like Commission Junction, PayDotCom and Click Bank.
The best way of making money with a blog is through sponsorship.
- You can hand-pick sponsors and build real relationships. With affiliate marketing you do get to pick what ads you show, but it’s not the same as targeting specific sponsors you absolutely want to work with and pitching them directly. Sponsorships also give you a chance to build actual person-to-person relationships. Those relationships can be of great value in developing your blog, finding other partners and growing your network.
- You can display sponsorships on your blog in a number of ways. A sponsorship can be almost anything - a link in your posts, co-branding on the site, an advertisement, special content, a contest, etc. There’s a ton of different ways you can execute a sponsorship, and that makes them very interesting. You can figure out what your audience really wants to see, and work with sponsors to develop content, advertising and ideas that make sense.
- You can negotiate payment options. Sponsorships can be paid for in a bunch of different ways: page views, clickthroughs, monthly, etc. The control and flexibility stay in your hands. For example, if you’re running an online contest, you might get paid for the implementation and during the life of the contest. I prefer monthly payments since they’re the easiest for everyone to understand.
- You don’t have a huge learning curve to deal with. There’s a minimal learning curve with sponsorships. Find a sponsor, decide on the type of sponsorship and negotiate the price. You won’t see a million websites selling you $19.99 info products on, “how to maximize sponsorship opportunities with your blog.” That’s because sponsorships are so flexible and open, and dependent on real relationships, you can’t develop a “best practices system for everyone.”
- You don’t need an uber-popular blog to get sponsors. There’s a lot of opportunity out there for smaller blogs to find sponsors. You might not get VISA or some Fortune 100 company involved, but lots of smaller companies could benefit from blog sponsorships. I’ve got a sponsor who I’ve very much enjoyed working with, and although I’d love Instigator Blog to be in the Technorati 100, I don’t think that’s going to happen! Still, with the right audience and reasonable traffic numbers, you can find a great sponsor.
Getting sponsors will take time. It’s not as easy as throwing up some contextual ads or affiliate marketing links. But just because you can put ads on your site in 5 minutes doesn’t mean they’ll make you any money.
The human element of sponsorships is key. Build relationships with people (which you already do as an extension of blogging) and sponsorships will return more than just monetary rewards over time.
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Picture by Martin Deutsch.
Hey Ben,
I think overall your assessment is right, but the human factor has it’s drawbacks.
Some Sponsors make offers that sound sincere only to forget about you and your blog and never respond to your emails.
Shame, really, some things fit like a glove, only sometimes it’s OJ’s.
Joe - that’s true, the human element adds…well, a human element. And humans are fickle folk. One moment they love your blog and want to throw money at you, the next…they’ve disappeared or changed their minds or who knows what.
Google AdSense is always there. It never complains, sends you email or asks for help with anything.
But I still like humans. At least most of them…
Thanks for the comment!
[...] There wasn’t a good fit in terms of doing any blog sponsorship but it was great to create and build the relationship beyond the PR person just pitching me. [...]
Hey Ben,
I’ve found that I am able to monetize my Blog and other websites quite well with LinkWorth. It is a contextual based text link advertising brokerage that has all the positives of sponsorships you spoke of in this post. The ability to hand pick who you accept as sponsors, the ability to set your own pricing, ease of use, etc… And you get paid on a monthly basis.
Check it out. I am quite satisfied with their service.
Ed - I’ll go check it out. Thanks for the reference.
Anyone else have success with LinkWorth?
[...] I was recently speaking with my friend Ben about blogs and sponsorship and I was inspired by Ben to write this post following a post he wrote about sponsors and blogs. I am taking his good advice and making it more on the extreme side of blog sponsorship. After all we all would like to make as much money as possible monetizing our blogs. When I began to think of this I saw my blog becoming the poster child of blog monetizing and having it look like the Blog 2.0 NASCAR of the blogging world. Sure we could put good quality content into each of our posts, but why not put a little money making scratch in alongside that good quality content. I’m sure the readers would not have any problem reading through my words of wisdom if there were the occasional logoed advertisement with perhaps a link or two here and there to direct them to the paid sponsorship of this blog. (Note: None of these companies have actually sponsored this blog post, and in no way is this a paid review of any of the companies listed herein in spite of what PayPerPost may be advocating after "full disclosure".) There appears to be a few spots left that I have not yet covered with logos, are there any other takers for the spots? [...]
[...] Sponsorships are the best way of making money on your blog. [...]
Great insights Ben. You nailed it. This is exactly what BlogKits models after.
Bloggers aren’t marketers, they’re bloggers.
Bloggers that blog about marketing are marketers, but I get your point completely Jim. Most bloggers are subject matter experts in something utterly outside the realm of marketing. And while it’s going to be beneficial for bloggers to become marketers or pseudo-marketers we all need help.
Bloggers do need to figure out how to brand themselves, more than they need to know how to become marketers. Developing a personal brand is important to blog success, cause it really helps identify people, make them stand out, and drive traffic/awareness.
Thanks for stopping by!
USuggest.com allow the bloggers to make some extra money through recommended products directly from within their blogs, and hopefully directing their readers to online retailers. As such, the respective blogger would receive a commission from any sales generated through referrals!
[...] Yoskovitz presents The Best Way of Making Money on a Blog is Through Sponsorship posted at Instigator Blog, saying, “I think sponsorships are the best way of earning passive [...]
Blogging Sponsorships are coming in the form of paid review now a days. I created a sort of a phone book for advertisers that are looking for content specific blogs and sponsoring those blogs. The website is called BloggingSponsorships.com and I have alreay gotten dozens of blogs to sign up that are looking to be contacted directly with sponsorship offers. It’s my beliefe that when blogs and advertisers talk directly, the placement is usually better for the advertiser and the price, and blogger gets an “off the book” sale.
I like the idea behind Blogging Sponsorships but where do you make your money off it if you’re not taking a cut? Or do you take a cut?
[...] The Best Way of Making Money on a Blog is Through Sponsorship [...]
Thank you for this posting, it came just at the right time when I am trying to figure out which way to go. I guess my only question remains how one gets or finds a sponsor… just visit the places one thinks would be good sponsors and pitch them?
@Marlyse - I think that’s a good option. You’ll probably get rejected quite a bit, but such is life in the world of sales!
You should also (on your blog) make sure to have clear spots marked off for sponsors - so they know where their ads, etc. - will be shown. And have a page about Advertising/Sponsoring - so they know what they’re getting, etc.
Great info! I hope I can use it to make some $$. In the past I tried a lot, but most things didn’t work at all. Thanks again!
@Jack: I wish you luck. Making money off a blog is extremely hard though, so I always tend to recommend that people do it for other reasons — building reputation, writing, generating leads, etc. Direct advertising / making money is tough because it requires a considerable amount of traffic and/or a very good niche. Best of luck!
well done