Paid Blog Posts: Use a Service or Sell Them Yourself?
It’s been a little while now since paid blog posts have emerged as a somewhat popular income stream for bloggers. Paid posts really aren’t anything new though… they’re just the blog version of the print advertorial in a sense. If you offer paid blog posts of any kind on your blogs, do you prefer to work through a service like ReviewMe or Pay Per Post, or do you prefer to sell posts independently (leaving all ethical debate aside for right now)?
I currently only post sponsored posts on one of my blogs. They’re a large part of the reason that blog is earning $1500-2000 per month, and other blogs of mine (including one with more traffic, comments, and better reader metrics in general) are earning very little in comparison. Personally, I don’t have a problem with paid posts as long as you’re transparent and not selling “positive reviews” (I believe that if you’re selling reviews, they should still be honest ones).
What I do have a problem with is pay per post-style companies charging way too much to advertisers, while paying a far too small percentage of the sale to the blogger doing the work. As such, I sell my posts myself, and pretty successfully even with minimal effort. Because I know how easy it is to sell posts when you have a direct line of communication with your target advertisers, I really don’t see how those sites can justify their huge cuts, when much of their system is automated.
To be honest, I did sign up with both companies for various sites. I just couldn’t bring myself to ever post any of their sponsored posts, so it wasn’t long before I ignored them completely.
So how do you feel about paid posting services for bloggers? Do you really think you couldn’t do a better job of selling ads yourself? Are you too lazy, busy, scared, (fill in the blank), to try? What model of selling sponsored blog posts do you prefer, and why?
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One Response to “Paid Blog Posts: Use a Service or Sell Them Yourself?”
By StkDude on Sep 2, 2007 | Reply
Need of hour is ebay for selling direct. The only issue with going direct is unless your site is well known and traffic stats are known for your site, it would be hard to justify the premium being asked for.
Companies like ReviewMe and PayperPost are making money primarliy by bridging that gap and providing confidence to buyers that the sites have been reviewed for worthiness.