Jerry D. Russell

Is the recession affecting paid blog advertising?  It looks like it, at least from my perspective.  Where once there were 80 to 100 opportunities to chose from at PayPerPost, there are now 30 or 40. Other services such as LoudLaunch are seeing a decline in the number of offers available as well.  Prices at SocialSpark are dropping even lower than normal (and that is truly depressing) as bloggers jump at the chance to take a low paying opportunity rather than to forgo any income at all.

Newcomers to the Advertorial Arena are also serving to drive prices down.  With each new company offering Paid Advertorial post, the market becomes more competitive and offering prices are reflecting this. There is no reason for an advertiser to pay top dollar for bloggers from one network when the bloggers on a different network are more than willing to take an opportunity for half the price. It’s simple supply-and demand economics at work.

If you are an A or B-List blogger you may not notice this trend as quickly, simply because advertisers are still quite willing to pay out large amounts of money for someone with a readership of 10,000 per day.  If you’re like the rest of us, the crunch is already here, and there is little that we can do about it until the market stabilizes.  When this will happen is anyone’s guess at this point.

I’m not an economist, I just play one on the Internet

Markets Fluctuate

There will be those that say that the lack of good opportunities and higher-paying jobs is simply a market fluctuation, and that everything will be better as the Christmas Season approaches.  In many ways these people would be absolutely correct.  Holidays are most definitely a driving force for advertising budgets in many markets.  As we move towards major shopping holidays there is sure to be a flurry of activity in retail sectors that will translate directly into higher paying opportunities for advertorial publishers. unfortunately, I doubt they will be as frequent as they were in the previous two years.

The issue isn’t the willingness of advertisers to spend their dollars.  The issue is that with rising fuel prices and a related drop in sales, the advertisers just don’t have the budget that they had last year.  For the manufacturer to stay competitive in their respective market, money that they were spending on advertising last year is now being diverted to transportation costs, or in some cases to aiding communities that were affected by the recent flurry of natural disasters all across the United States.

High Fuel Cost + Community support efforts = fewer advertising dollars

So what’s a blogger to do?

For now, I would suggest looking in to as many revenue streams as possible.  It is highly unlikely that the Advertorial market is going to pick up to the same level we’ve been used to in the next 12 months.  The Freelance writing market is a god place to look if you feel that you have the skills to write 400 to 1,500 word pieces that companies would be willing to pay for.  This market doesn’t fall to economic pressures as rapidly as technology based industries do, though there has been a slight dip in offering prices in some sectors.  There are however, many freelance opportunities for travel writing and the advertising budget for that industry is actually increased at thimes when people are staying at home more often.

Blog advertising networks and direct advertising may also help to ease the crunch.  If you have not looked in to these options yet, now is most definitely the time to do so. Even if the overall amount earned from having ad-network ads placed on your site doesn’t equal what you could make for posting a few advertorials, it will still earn a consistent income, and it’s something you only have to do once.  From there it simply continues to earn you money, allowing you to focus on content and traffic.

Direct advertising can be trickier, since it requires you to manage the statistics and amounts you charge.  The upside is that you don’t have to pay a fee to a third party company for this type of advertising. The profits are all yours, and you determine your rate.  Go look at other popular blogs that accept this type of advertising for a few hints.  The topic is far to broad for the scope of this article, and I will revisit it in my next post.

Don’t Jump Ship Just Yet

I don’t think that the paid post industry is going anywhere, at least not for quite awhile.  It will take time for the market to stabilize in the face of economic challenges, but in the end, this will drive smaller companies out of business and leave the true industry leaders sitting at the head of the class. These services will have what it takes to both provide advertisers with valued services and to provide their subscribed writer base with a decent payout for their efforts.  At that point I believe things will go back to a very close semblance of “normal”, though they may never go back to the rates we once saw.

Just hang in there, diversify and grow your opportunities as they come along.  This is a business, and businesses survive by being able to adapt to changing economic models and customer dynamics.  It’s the way itt goes in a free market.  So get to adapting!

(Edit: As I was writing this, SocialSpark presented me with a rather extensive list of opportunities at over $10.00 per.  These were from financial companies, another industry that increases advertising in times of recession.)

There’s been a lot of talk floating around the blogging community about ePerks and company founder Ben Behrouzi’s newest venture iHype.  Mr. Behrouzi has managed to bring himself a lot of negative attention over the past few months, first with an apparent use of questionable if not downright shady marketing tactics for ePerks that included adding company generated comments to paid posts that were bought by the company. This was then followed by a series of all-out attacks and threats of legal action against bloggers who wrote negatively about the company once it became obvious that the firm was not delivering on what it promised.

Strangely enough, the ePerks website is still up and running, even after the firestorm has begun.  I wonder if the company founder realizes the kind of impact that having such prominent bloggers as Andy Beard and Trace Richardson taking the time to identify such negative practices can have on his company’s performance. When A-List bloggers start to say negative things about your business, you had better be a marketing genius and a master of debate if you want to pull out of a slump, and Mr. Behrouzi does not seem to have that capability.  He instead has gone taken the route of hiding behind attorneys and making threats, rather than engaging in a direct debate with his naysayers, something which could have shown him in a positive light if done correctly.

So what does this have to do with iHype?

iHype is the Ben Behrouzi’s latest venture.  With it he is hoping to enter the extremely profitable world of paid post blog advertising. The iHype concept should be familiar to anyone who has looked into paid blog advertising.  Advertisers pay the company to advertise opportunities to bloggers, who in turn write a short post about that company for pay.  It’s simple, elegant and effective if all parties handle it correctly.

Companies like PayPerPost and their parent company Izea have proven that this model can generate huge revenues and massive amounts of venture capital if managed properly, and Mr. Behrouzi seems to want to get in on the game. Unfortunately, iHype is falling into the All-Hype category after having missed its announced launch date by over one month.  In fact, the startup now has no published launch date at all, nor have I been able to find a public statement from the company anywhere that has addressed their failure to launch on time. (As a matter of fact, searches for iHype lead me to a lot of Apple news…)

In spite of obvious issues, the company is still investing in paid advertising that leads people to believe that iHype is already a working company.  As a matter of fact, it happened to me. I ran a quick search the other day for paid blogging opportunities and found an advertisement for iHype.  At that time I had not been keeping up with the goings on in the bloggosphere, so I clicked the ad and was taken to what appeared to be a fully functional site with the option to sign up for an account.

I’m never one to turn down a revenue opportunity, so I went through the sign up process, right to the point where it asked for my TAX ID number. The page was not secure, so I didn’t give it, but even without it, I was prompted to complete the sign up, which I did.  It was only then that it became obvious that I was not working on an active site.

Now that’s what I call shady.

Let’s look over the implications of this.  The first would be that I should have paid more attention.  I’m no novice on the Internet and the fact that I missed the “beta” in the address is my own fault. I will not, in my own case, blame this on the company. I paid no attention to the “beta” marking on the site’s title graphic simply because several of the services I frequent state that they are in beta, even though the sites are fully functional. But what about the case of a less experienced Internet user?

In that case, it is very possible that they would have seen the ad, gone to the beta site and signed up, giving away all of their personal financial information over an unsecured connection.  Would they notice that the very few opportunities available were not legitimate, or would they begin writing posts for these opportunities at a promised $10.00 each?  How will Mr. Behrouzi’s company handle that issue?  Will he pay these people for their effort?  It is my opinion that he should, since the signup process is already being advertised “in the wild” so to speak, and we all know that there are a lot of people on the Internet today that will do nearly anything to make a buck or two, sometimes without bothering to consider the implications.

Having determined that I had wasted precious minutes of my time, I filled out their support form with a request to be immediately removed from the system.  I checked to make sure that i had not been abrupt, and I clicked submit.  Then I let out a string of explatives that I cannot repeat here, because the contact form is apparently one of the “beta” features of the site.  It doesn’t do anything.

Some might say that the contact form is not a priority for a site of this nature.  I have a radically different opinion.  I base this opinion on over 20 years of computer experience and 16 years of professional Internet design experience when I say emphatically that the contact form is the single most important item on any business website.

With this one omission, the site owners have already told me where they stand on matters of customer service.  To them, it’s an afterthought and that attitude is something that I cannot tolerate.  I have moved my business elsewhere in the past because I did not feel that customer service was a priority to the a company I was doing business with.  I have refused to work with companies that had poor service for the same reasons.  I will not be associated with them.

In the end I leave the decision of iHype’s future to you.  It is ultimately your choice as to whether you choose to use this service or to leave this one out of your monetary toolkit. I cannot say whether this will be a boom or a bust at this point, or whether Mr. Behrouzi will listen to the comments floating around the bloggosphere and alter his business practices in a positive manner.  If so, iHype could stand poised to go up against PayPerPost and Sponsored Reviews in the paid posting arena.  If this is the case, I will have lost out on a lucrative income stream, but my mind is already made up.

I would suggest doing your research before joining any company.  In this case I failed to do so and it has left me with a bad taste in my mouth.

As a final note.  I may or may not be following up on this topic.  For the moment, I have no intentions of doing so.  I have stated my opinion.  I have backed that opinion with both reference links and my own experience.  I have given this subject all the time that I feel it needs.  Unfortunately, the more I look over the topic, the more I see that I may be putting myself under fire by the owner of ePerks.com and iHype.  If so, I will post a rebuttal when necessary.  if not, hey, this post can simply live its merry and short Internet lifetime in the archives.

Mr. Behrouzi, I am not a minion.  I am a disgruntled prospective subscriber to your service.  That is all.

The most common question I’m asked about how I make a living online is what tools I use to get paid, and I do get paid, each and every day. For those who might be skeptical of that statement, let me assure you that it is the God’s honest truth. The only reason I might go a day without seeing money deposited into my account is that I was too lazy to do something on a given day. I was paid yesterday, I’ve already seen payment today, and I’ve got several payments slated for tomorrow. I’ve gotten used to it, and it’s not something I want to live without any more.

Is it simple? To be honest, sometimes it is, at other times I end up feeling like I’ve moved mountains to get a check for the day, either way I push through and make sure that something that will make me at least a few dollars has been done. And folks, if I can do it, so can you. There’s no reason in the world that you can’t make at least a hundred dollars per month from your own hosted blog. (It may be a lot more difficult if you’re using blogger or some other hosted service.)

OK great, you get paid. Must be nice, but how do you do it?!?

Actually I use multiple streams to make an income through my blogs, and you should too. To rely on any one system of monetizing greatly limits your ability to bring in a regular paycheck and can, in times of difficulties with a given service, render you unable to make any money at all for days or even weeks. Spreading your efforts over different income methods provides not only the knowledge that there is something else you can look into on any given day to make a bit of cash, but at least for me it gives a sense of security. I know that if one of the services or companies I contract for goes under tomorrow, I’ve still got other avenues out there.

The methods available to make money through your blog vary in both type and in the amount of income they generate. Some methods are great for adding up to a hundred dollars a day to my account, while others accrue revenue more slowly over time. I use as many methods as possible, but they really break down into two categories, passive monetizing and active monetizing.

Passive and Active monetizing, my definition:

Passive Advertising:

Passive advertising is any form of advertising you “set and forget.” The most recognizable version of this type of monetizing is the venerable Google AdSense Ad. You simply set up an account, generate some code to add to your blog and forget you ever did it, while hoping that one day they will send you a check. This type of advertising also applies to ad networks such as BlogHer, TextLink Ads, Chitika Mini Malls and a wide variety of other services. The one that will work best for your blog depends heavily on your niche, bit it’s a good idea to look into as many of these services as possible.

Payment for these kind of ads varies depending on a variety of factors and the amount of income that they will generate for you is dependent largely on your audience and the sheer volume of traffic your blog receives. In a nutshell, the more traffic you get, the more likely these methods are to make you a good bottom line. There are rare cases however, where ads are so perfectly tailored to a site’s content that they generate a good deal of money even in low traffic situations.

Your mileage may vary, no warranty is expressed or applied.

Active Advertising

Active monetizing methods is the kind you actually have to put effort into each and every time you want to make money from it. The most profitable type of active advertising in my case is the Advertorial, or Paid Post. The most known companies offering this type of advertising dollar are companies like ReviewMe, SponsoredReviews and Izea. The premise here is that you write an article for or about a company that wants to generate traffic or awareness of their site in and around the bloggosphere and they pay you do do it.

There are a lot of people in the blogging community that feel this type of ad is the equal of selling out, or that posting this type of ad somehow dilutes the purity of all blogs everywhere. I disagree with this line of thinking. Advertorials are a part of every-day life whether you’re watching TV, listening to the radio or surfing your favorite blogs. They’re here to stay, and I’m more than willing to cash in on the method.

Crossover methods

Some types of advertising can either be active or passive, depending on how they are used. The most notable variety here is affiliate advertising. If you just slap some affiliate links in your sidebar, then you are using it as a passive method. (Say you toss up a few links to Amazon products.) You’re hoping that you made a good choice, and you run with it for a while, checking your stats from time-to-time.

If you’re adding affiliate links into your posts and comments, then it becomes an active method. It requires your time and attention a lot more frequently than it would otherwise. This method will generally give better results, since you can tailor what your readers have the opportunity to click on in direct relation to what they were interested in reading at the moment.

So what is it you’re using?

All of the above. If you look over my blog at Cooking, by the seat of my Pants!, you will see all of these methods in use after a few minutes of browsing around. I do a good job of keeping some of these ad types pretty subtle, but they are there nonetheless, and they’re making money.

My other blogs use different mixes of all of the above as well. some rely strictly on in-post affiliate linking, others that aren’t updated as often rely on AdSense and other passive methods, and still others make the entirety of their income from advertorials. It depends on the blog and how much work I want to put in to it.

I’m not going to tell you exactly who I go through, at least not yet. I’d rather cover that information on a company-by-company basis. It gives the opportunity to give the Pros and Cons of each on its own merit, and these companies and services deserve that courtesy. They are paying me, after all.

This overview should put you well on your way to finding a method of monetizing that works for you. Try doing a Google search for Blog Advertising Networks. It’s a good place to start.