“I Want Advertisers on my Blog! – OK, So now what?” – Updated
Posted on 29. May, 2007 by Chad in Online Advertising
OK, you’ve worked hard, blogged hard, have great traffic, a solid reader base and now want to earn some real money for your efforts. So how do you get advertisers? This is the single most common question I get. Where do I find advertisers for my site? Well the question is simple, but the answer is not. The truth is, no matter how much traffic you get: 100,000 uniques a month or a million a month, you may never get any company to advertise on your site. It boils down to your niche. ‘Technology’ is a category, ‘Cell phone covers’ is a niche. Business is a category; ‘viral marketing’ is a niche. If you are blogging about very general stuff, your daily life or everything under the sun, it may not be specific enough to attract a potential advertiser.
The questions you need to ask yourself are:
1) What’s my niche? If you can easily answer this, give yourself one point.
2) Do I really know what I’m talking about? I mean do people really want to hear what I have to say? Yes, add one point.
3) Are potential advertisers already advertising on similar blogs to mine? If yes, two points.
4) Am I ready to get my hands dirty and contact the companies? If yes, add one point. If NO, deduct three points.
5) Do I have any real traffic? 300 visitors a month is NOT real traffic. If you have 50K+ a month, you should be able to attract some advertisers. (Rule of thumb. The narrower the niche your site is in, the less traffic you site need to attract advertisers.) 50K+ add one point, 500K+ add two
6) Do I have the ad spots already displayed waiting for clients? If no, deduct one point
7) Do I have an ‘Advertise with Us’ section on my site? If no, deduct one point.
OK, add up your total.
· Less than 3 = make some changes or it will be a tough road
· 5 points or more = congratulations, you are well on your way to ad dollars!
Want to see the blog that inspired this post today? It is Emily Chang’s site ehub. This is the correct way to start attracting advertisers. She has the ad units up and ready to go, a few sponsors already in there, and an advertising information section. Nice work Emily.
Another example is Brian over at CopyBlogger and also a site that b5 sells advertising for on his behalf. So if you’d like to snatch up one of the last sponsor spots, please email me 
***Updates***
So here is the hard part: Where to look?
Step 1: This is the obvious one, but have a look on other similar blogs to yours and if you see boxes or banners that look like they may have been purchased, click on it, and find the contact email and shoot them a quick email asking if they’d be interested in advertising on your blog as well.
Step 2: Have a look at your own blog. There are people advertising on it already. Yes, odds are you have Google AdSense running on your blog in a few places, so take a look at the text ads that Google is already serving up for you and contact them. Why not cut out the crook that is stealing all your money and go direct to the source? P.S. Click through from your own site, why not, everyone else does…
Step 3: Have a look at blogs in general and start taking notice of who advertises where. Companies who already advertise on blogs are going to be a lot more open to advertising on your then companies who have not yet dipped their toes into the great big world of blogs. A lot of the ones that have not yet tried it out still think of the word blog as ‘person at home in their pj’s complaining about their sick cat’
Step 4: Search on Google.com for companies buying keywords in your niche. Heck if you are already buying similar keywords yourself then you already know what some companies are paying for keywords in your space.
Step 5: Well this is the hardest one. Make a wish list of every company you would love to see advertising on your blog, and start contacting them. You’re gonna get a lot of NO’s, but just like girls that shoot you down at a bar, one of them is going to say Yes…
Here is a great blog post with some additional great information over at Daily blog Tips
Good Luck.
11 Responses to ““I Want Advertisers on my Blog! – OK, So now what?” – Updated”
Elvis
16. May, 2007
So, DarkNinja, uh I mean Chad, is there a link to the b5 media kit? What would a media kit for a niche site with at least 50K+ visitors look like?
John Wesley
16. May, 2007
Chad,
What is the best strategy to attract advertisers if your site doesn’t have a clearly defined niche? My blog covers a ton of topics, but they’re all generally related to self improvement and creativity.
I’m getting around 90,000 visitors a month and I’d like to monetize the traffic, but Google Ads haven’t been profitable. I think my readers are too smart to click them as my demographic is very web savvy (80% Firefox users).
Thanks for the great info on advertising by the way. You are helping a lot of bloggers.
Chad
16. May, 2007
Hi John,
Great site there, one thing you can do is see what types of Advertisers show up in your Google Adsense and start there. Contact a few of those companies. Also do some keyword searches on http://www.overture.com to see what type of companies are paying for the keyword, ’self improvement’. Sites like yours might also do well with an Amazon affiliate program and recommending books you like?
Chad
16. May, 2007
Hi Elvis,
For your media kit include traffic stats like impressions, uniques, demographic info like Male female ratio, country % etc.
If you don’t currently have that info, Alexa will give you rough estimates on country and you can do a poll for Male/female.
Amanda
22. May, 2007
what about sponsors or partners what do you say about those?
John Wesley
27. May, 2007
Thanks a lot, Chad. I was actually considering adding some Amazon affiliate ads beneath the post. I’ll certainly check out Overture too.
Kristen
27. Jun, 2007
I got 5 points or more so I am ready to go. Great tips! Thanks
Jackie
16. Aug, 2007
This is some great info on guys. I am a photographer and would love to draw more people to my site to see their photos and purchase them.
I have one website that I am trying to update but it’s really hard and time consuming. I have to be more committed before anything. My score was more than a 5 but I still lack a lot of things.
Once question I would like to ask is how do you know what to charge a customer if they want to advertise on your site/blog?
Amit Dixit
16. Aug, 2007
well, Everything you have said in this post make 90% sense,.. beside that you should not suggest people to click on their own Google ads and contact the advertiser directly….its a policy Violation…you know it but the people reading your post might not….. Whatever bad experience you may had with adsense.. don’t misguide people……this makes all your right points useless.
Anyways Nice Reading your blog!
Good day!
Othon
08. Jan, 2008
Nice…
Tommy
27. May, 2008
I have an idea for an ad network that I feel is revolutionary(I know you probably heard that one before) I just need some advice on how to go about it because I’m not a programmer.
1) Do you know any outsource firm where I can find qualified programmers who specialize in ad network creation?
2) What is the first step in getting advertisers?
Thanks, feel free for anyone to comment please.