How To Get Advertisers Or Sponsors For Your Website

I liked the spots about not owning your own domain and nobody visiting the site but you. Nice.

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meethere Reply:
September 9th, 2008 at 7:44 am

I dont think email thing @yahoo/msn is a necessary criteria
Others are definitely well explained.

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TYCP Entertainment Magazine Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 6:54 am

You must be kidding. Having a professional email account is a must. You will be taken far more seriously this way.

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Digital Photography Tutorial Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 9:27 pm

I agree and disagree. If you are a startup blog on a free setup and don’t have your own domain yet per se, I don’t think having a gmail or yahoo account will necessarily hurt you. If you have your own domain, you need to have an @yourdomain address for anyone to take you seriously.

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Ryan McLean Reply:
September 9th, 2008 at 9:33 am

I ran a blogspot blog for about a year before I ever stepped into owning my own domain. Owning your own domain is one of the key ingredients to getting advertisers.
Also I took your advice about “Just Start With Anyone at Any Price” because my blog is getting about 3,000 uniques a month and I am selling advertising for dirt cheap at $2 a pop….I might put it up soon though

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Jewellery Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 4:11 pm

3k uniques isn’t loads but it should be selling for more then $2/month.

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I think these are very good tips. Most of the hit home on my first blog and I like to think that I took care of most of them.

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Excellent advice. I’ve approached a few companies with a definitive plan for them along with examples of past campaigns and have met with decent success. I appreciate those top 10 issues there and saw a couple I need to take care of like my e-mail address. I never thought of that before.

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Melvin Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

actually in my experience approaching a company isn’t really a hard thing as what many people think and its maybe because they are always receptive…

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mrkbsm Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 10:49 pm

I would agree with that - I think a lot of people are afraid to approach others when they’re starting out. Confidence goes a long way in those situations. Shooting them a good deal and taking the time to work for their best interest should get you the rest of the way.

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nice post, easy to get the point. I am doing a little contest too.

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A.C. Slater Baccarat Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 3:41 pm

It’s hard to get that first advertiser… Free 125×125 spots here!

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Louis Liem Reply:
September 9th, 2008 at 9:04 am

3500 Entrecard credits here!

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Jewellery Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 4:35 pm

Is that being offered on the site your name is linked too?

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Being in the UK certainly does suck! come on UK advertisers - get in the game

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Jewellery Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 4:35 pm

UK advertisers are in the game. I’m from the UK.

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Tushar Dhoot Reply:
September 14th, 2008 at 12:45 pm

Contary to what you’d think, being in the UK, Canada, US, and Australia is actually much better than the other 99% of the world.

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Hmm. I’ve never thought about it that much before. Thanks for the post.

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I’m curious about this one: 9) The whois information about your site is anonymous (or in your case not yours)

Why is that a no-no? Does this make you seem shady?

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web hosting rebates Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 10:57 am

I believe so. The advertiser might think that you have something to hide.

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MarketingWicked Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 2:11 pm

I don’t think this is a huge no-no if you are established, but when you are new, and there isn’t anything to prove you are who you say you are, then the whois is the only (mildly) verifiable form of identity.

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Shae Reply:
September 16th, 2008 at 7:45 pm

I disagree with this point in the post. I’ve seen home
addresses on Whois and I don’t think that’s particularly
safe. Many bloggers are home based and that’s okay.
You could always ask for a letter/email from your hosting
service.

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Ari - Laberinto Social Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 11:26 am

exactly. i agree with you on this one too. whois should never be left public.

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It is still difficult to get the advertisers to your site though.

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You have already written this on your blog before. Please, get some original ideas or take a break from blogging. Things are getting a little tired around here.

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TYCP Entertainment Magazine Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 6:55 am

Then don’t read it?

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I can’t even get google on board due to my site’s content.

Some good advice again cheers shoe.

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these are must do things before thinking of approaching a potential advertiser

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These are some great tips. All of our contests are with businesses we’ve already established relationships with. It makes things so much easier in asking for contest materials. It also reassures the business that people will enter the contest because we have a proven track record of having success on all the contests we posts. I guess eventually other businesses might offer up contests too, especially if they see how popular your site is?

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Useful tips. I won’t totally agree with the number 4 - whereas it’s sure more difficult to find advertisers when you’re not in the US, it’s not impossible - thanks to PayPal (I am based in Europe). Furthermore, if you happen to find European advertisers, they pay in euros, which is a nice bonus Of course, if you live in a country not supported by PayPal, it might get tricky.

I would also like to add one little piece of advice - you can create a .pdf document with statistics, demographics, description of your site, ad zones, etc. and send it out to advertisers at request. Looks quite professional and all the information is in one place (can be printed out, too).

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Good tips. I guess that explains why I never received any responses to my requests for companies to sponsor contests. I sent the requests out while I had 7 posts on my blog, and it was only a month old. I didn’t even have a page rank yet (now it’s a big fat 0 which isn’t much better).

Guess it pays to have a good amount of content and traffic to the site before you start courting advertisers.

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These are really great things that we shouldn’t be doing if we want advertisers or sponsors for our web site. I myself come across these kinds of blogs and web sites and it is absolutely ridiculous that they think they should deserve sponsors of any kind.

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Whoa.. I’m outside US …
But i think darren rowse maybe not agree about it..

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Some great tips Jeremy.

A quick question though about your advertising page. Is there any reason why you don’t have the prices listed for spots?

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Jeremy Schoemaker Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 11:10 am

Sure - we want people to contact us about it.

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TYCP Entertainment Magazine Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 6:56 am

It’s interesting you say this because I know John Chow thinks the prices should always be up front. I’ve seen it work both ways though.

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Jewellery Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

Well that means Shoe can negotiate better rates

Tushar Dhoot Reply:
September 14th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

Any particular reason why, Shoe?

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Ari - Laberinto Social Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 11:27 am

i think shoe’s reasons are for the value in the relationships you form from communication. that is something that can’t be gained by a quoted price…

Yeah, those are the obvious tips. Normally I don’t search for advertisers, but instead they find and contact me.

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Awesome tips, I’m going to work more on the about sections of my sites.. that’s for the great info this is print worthy to hang by my desk and read to make sure I’m following them

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I never try too hard to sell advertising. My thought is if people aren’t coming to u trying to buy advertising you are doing something wrong.

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TylerC Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

If you don’t push it… how will they know?

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Moneybites Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 3:28 pm

They will know because you push it at first, then let word of mouth marketing bring you all you need, he he

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cheap used cars Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 12:54 pm

I’m not saying I don’t have an advertising page, but it’s a small link in the footer. My point was, if someone wants to buy advertising on your site you don’t have to push them. The site pushes itself.

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How I Got A Job In The OC Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 2:06 pm

I agree with Tyler. It just seems like common sense that if you advertise a need for advertising, someone will want to get in before another guy. If there isnt a big deal about advertising, there wont be that big of an interest.

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Ari - Laberinto Social Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 11:31 am

yep. in the end, you’ve got to ask for the date to get the girl you know?!

i have an advertising page, and i mention it on my contact us and about page too.

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Shoemoney! Those are some excellent posts! I’ll be sure to incorporate them into my blog. Thanks again and have a nice day!

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Why does it matter where I’m based, as long as I have an English blog with US readers?

And love the “Click my ads!” post on the advertising page

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TylerC Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 12:46 pm

When it comes down to getting your wire transfer (real businesses don’t use PayPal) you will see why.

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Stefanie Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 2:55 pm

I’d beg to differ. There are plenty of very real businesses that use PayPal because it’s convenient and offers privacy for customers. I do the marketing for a “real” company (with a 50,000+ square foot “real” building) based in St. Louis, MO, and we happily use PayPal for a variety of purposes. You’d be surprised at the number of customers who love that their billing information isn’t shared, or the number of factories that use PayPal as a payment method.

We like to think of it as being with the times - and we certainly don’t complain about good bloggers with English-speaking audiences, regardless of where they’re located. What matters to us is the traffic.

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BarryO Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 3:29 pm

4) those companies are quite short-sighted not paying outside usa.
Well done to your com Stefanie and Shoe

Vlad Balan Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

But I’ve had wire transfers made to my country and there were no problems.

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Ari - Laberinto Social Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 11:28 am

i guess it shouldn’t matter, but some people seem to think it does…

Excellent tips. Thanks for the info.

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haha, wow iam doing alot of those “do not”’s I guess I need to shape up.

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Excellant advice and tips. Thanks Shoemoney!

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Yet another awesome advice. I was thinking about running a contest a few days ago, so this really helped. Thanks Shoe!

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I write down these notes. Very important tips for a good adv campaign!

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Good tips, but you know it sucks when you are outside US and can’t get sponsored by a company, there is no good opportunities for bloggers outside USA!

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I hate those @yahoo and @hotmail e-mail addresses. It costs MAYBE $9 to get a domain name and setup a real e-mail account.

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Jewellery Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 4:37 pm

Not even $9 when you use coupons

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Great tips, and as I have always told my clients I build sites for that you do not build the site around advertising you have to build around content. Content has to come first, if you don’t have good content to start off with it’s never going to happen.
Same old addage, if you build it they will come. That goes for users and advertisers.

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Some really great tips thanks shoe will def use them for my blogs

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One other tip could be if you land them to your advertising page and it has broken links - just like yours shoemoney
check the ” top 10 money making blogs of 2007″ link

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Did you crawl into my computer and look at what I was researching over the weekend? Very timely (for me) and good advice from somebody who obviously knows what they’re talking about.

And I really like the Screengrab! plugin for Firefox for taking a full-sized screenshot of a site. It’s free and has several options of what it can do.

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MarketingWicked Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 2:09 pm

Yes he did.. didn’t you see that’s one of the new Shoemoney Tools…

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Nebraska SEO Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 4:13 pm

Terrifying!

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Great tips! Unfortunately my blog meets all of that criteria but still has trouble getting sponsors!

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Melvin Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 5:34 pm

maybe because no one wants to advertise on a competitor…

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How does one search for sponsors for their blog?

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Jewellery Reply:
September 10th, 2008 at 4:38 pm

Find people advertising in your niche…and contact them.
Gain enough traffic so they contact you.

OR

Use a third party to do so.

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Seems like almost common sense

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Good information. Sure is something to think about.

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I wonder how many people read these ideas and then realize that they have been doing some of the things that you recommend not to do…

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Although most of what’s here should be common sense, I get the feeling that it’s not, based on the proposals I’ve seen from some bloggers. I take care of the marketing for Vat19.com, and while we’re always looking for new bloggers to work with, it’s tough to find sites that have worthwhile content and decent traffic.

The “No BS” advice is especially solid. I don’t know if some bloggers assume that everyone who works at a company is in the dark, but I’ve heard things like “Your Google rankings will skyrocket when you buy a placement in my site’s directory” or “I am sure you’ll sell hundreds of xxx when you advertise on my site.” Even if your site was okay up until that point, the fact that you’d say something like that when it’s clearly not true is enough to kill any trust I might have had.

If you’re serious about marketing your site to advertisers, try to learn a bit about it on your own. Stick in some affiliate products and track your conversions - then you’ll know what does well and what your advertisers might realistically expect. It will also give you a better idea of who to target, since the companies that are in a position to get the best results will generally be willing to pay more than those that are less relevant.

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Curby Reply:
September 9th, 2008 at 11:27 am

I like your level headed advice. How do I find out find out more on what you are doing? ~ Curby

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Jeremy,

I’ve tried like hell to get real money sponsorships. Even went as far as snail mailing companies. Nothing.

Rex

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Ari - Laberinto Social Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 11:33 am

i feel your pain man…

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Solid post, I’ve written a couple about this. The trick is to be professional, you’d be surprised how many people will give you stuff if you just lay it out for them plain and simple!

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I completely agree with your points made in this point. Most bloggers think they can just go out and get advertising without building some authority for their site. It’s sad.

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Great tips, having an advertise page is essential with the screenshot.

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Gary Vaynerchuk, the wine library tv guy, has thing he says that “anything is better than zero.” Meaning get that first sale for anything because it’s better than nothing, which is true. After you get some cred and some sales, you can increase the prices. Until then, companies aren’t going to shell out for an unknown quantity unless you show something.

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Jeremy, spoken like a wise blogger and marketer. All of my blogs save one are on blogspot. AAARRGGHHHHH !

I’m moving the one with the most traffic off of blogspot, using the wordpress software that does this, and on to my own domain.

I understand that I can create sub-folders for my other blogs under this domain and move my other six blogs to individual sites there?

I finally had my first CPA, Market Leverage sent me an email, a whopping $8.00 for a debt solution. Even better, it was a text-ad in the content of my blog that the reader clicked through! Now my wife believes that money can be made on the internet.

Just imagine the traffic I can generate once I get my real domain chugging along. Thank you for the solid, and very timely information!

Respectfully,

Nicholas Chase - http://donotreadthisblogunless.blogspot.com/

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poor jokes Reply:
September 9th, 2008 at 3:10 pm

blogger blog gave me the first income on net bt now i am trying to develop sites

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Thank you - I am bookmarking this now - very helpful to blogger with no advertisers.

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I thnk the fact of international thing is true but again advertisers will look for US and Canada traffic so I guess you can always flaunt your analytics stat and you can give them more reason to sponsor…

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Tushar Dhoot Reply:
September 14th, 2008 at 12:47 pm

You’d be surprised how many advertisers don’t even accept Canada traffic. It’s mainly just USA.

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Why would location matter for prizes? Can’t the sponsor send it out to the winner directly?

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normally when I dont have advertisers yet I test my site with affiliate banners. If Im making $20 a month with a certain lets say pepperjam banner and im selling direct ads for $10, then maybe I would just continue using affiliates and/or increase my price…

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Where’s my comment? Disappeared!?

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If you have a PR5+, Alexa sub100,000 site, the advertisers will knock your door even if you don’t do much promotion.

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poor jokes Reply:
September 9th, 2008 at 3:08 pm

dats too long way to go
it will take hell lot of time to go upto that level just ask shoemoney

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Well put, you are spot on with that list. And once you get an advertiser, give them awesome customer support to keep them advertising. I don’t accept any CPA/CPC advertising at all and that’s worked out wonderfully.

-Scott

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Nicely done.
Then it seems, we need to work on getting traffics first…

Then, how to ensure the advertiser will agree to pay if we increase our price?

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several good points in there. I think that if you make a decent site and establish traffic the other things just fall into place.

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TeasasTips Reply:
September 8th, 2008 at 9:47 pm

that’s exactly what I am working on Tom. I am carving out a niche audience and working toward establishing consistent traffic. Good post Shoe, thanks for the info.

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poor jokes Reply:
September 9th, 2008 at 3:07 pm

really good post me too struggling with my joke site which is getting pageviews but no earnings as such fm adsense

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very true…

I am trying to get out of the list you mentioned

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Thank you for this very informative post!

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Would you be intersted in advertising Fighters.com on my sport website?

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If you are looking for a quick, legitimate way to fill ALL of the ad spots on your site/blog almost immediately, approach other sites, business acquaintances (within your niche if possible), fellow bloggers, etc. and give them a brief intro of your new site. Tell them that you’re just getting started and would be happy to trade ad spots for a link or a mention on their site. If your site LOOKS legit, and you SOUND legit, quite a number of folks are willing to make that trade. You can naturally reserve larger ad spots for the big sites, and let smaller businesses take the sidebar. The result is a site that is fully ad-filled long before you would otherwise consider approaching folks to buy ads. Having a “full” site makes you look established very early in the game - good for future advertisers, but also good for readership as well.
As your site develops traffic and you get your name out, you will eventually have people ask how they can get their ad there as well. At that point (or maybe sooner), have your “advertising” page ready as well as reasonable starting rates. As folks start to pay for spots you can filter off the link-traded ads, or even begin approaching the existing “advertisers” to see if they would like to continue their ad with a payment.
The key is remembering that if you treat them with respect you will likely get respect in return… and end up with an authoritative site sooner as a result.
Just something to consider. It’s worked for me in the past!

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How old or how many posts do you think you should have on your blog before contacting people for a contest? I have done this with one of my other blogs and had some success but many times people don’t write back. I even offer to write about their blog, website, or business for free in a detailed blog post giving them links back to their site just to get something to write about and still nothing. Who turns down free advertising? My blogs are professional looking and 2 are hosted so I know that isn’t the problem.

As far as showing your statistics, how much traffic/hits do you need before advertisers or potential contest sponsors pay attention to you? I know a niche helps like being a Mom Blogger.

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I try to prepare a specific site on a specific advertiser. This is a very effective method.

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Jump starting the advertising wheel for a new blog/site can be a bit hard but then it gets easier by time , it’s very important that you start approaching Sponsors only when you are ready or you’ll be blacklisted at least in their minds when you really are ready!

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Ari - Laberinto Social Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 11:34 am

what i’d like to know is when is that perfect time to start you know?

lol

some say right away some say after 6 months, and others say when you get to 100 posts…

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I understand you’r attitude pertaining to @yourblog.com, but I find that I get a ton of spam if I use this address since my current provider does not have a spam filter. A @yahoo/gmail provides the benefit of a spam filter which works great for me. I would much rather use the @yourblog but the latter works better for me.

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I never knew that this is negative for your blog: “The whois information about your site is anonymous”

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how to post blog or advertise in your blog. we will advertise on any blog or forum has good traffic

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Hmm I really didn’t want to do an about page, as I want the site to be more about the people that use it than about me so should I still go ahead and do one anyway? I never really wanted it to be a blog but it seems that’s where it’s at right now.

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Nebraska SEO Reply:
September 9th, 2008 at 7:54 pm

You don’t have to make it about you personally… you can (should) have an explanation of what the site is all about. Think of it as a mission statement for the site.

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ROFL@ the Shoe hating on someone’s grammatical errors. I love you bro, but you’re never going to win a grammar rodeo!

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purplevodka Reply:
September 17th, 2008 at 1:45 am

Hehe that’s what I was thinking. It’s a good post but telling someone not to have grammatical errors in a post that has grammatical errors is really a pot/kettle situation.

Your - possesive; belonging to
You’re - abbreviation of ‘you are’; the apostrophe replaces the ‘a’ … why do people have such a hard time comprehending this?

Good tips though Thanks!

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Hey Shoe, I’ve actually printed out this article, I hope u dnt mind. These are some great tips and would make for a great guide when drafting my web marketing strategies. Thank you!

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Cars Reply:
September 25th, 2008 at 7:07 am

You Must give Shoe Royalty

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Excellent advice. Well played. I’ve known about these things for ages, but it’s amazing how many people still make those mistakes. You’d think they’d lern by now.

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I’v been looking at advertising on some related blogs just recently for some other of my sites, I just wish so much that sites had their “rates” listed on the site somewhere instead of always having to go down the route of emailing. I can understand why sites do it though as they many don’t want to come across as advertising channels to general readers but it woul dmake life easier some times…

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I would love to have advertiser on my blog, you have showing me a very common reason and good advice

Thanks Shoe

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Awesome post. I am thinking about using advertising space on my blog, but I think I will make sure and go by your list before I think about it, and get better traffic.

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How many unique visitors a day should your site get before thinking about advertisers and sponsors?

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i think i have a good deal going on right now with advertisers.

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Good points. Thanks shoe. I have to take notes not to forget any of them.

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Thanks for the advice. I plan to use it soon. p.s. You have some grammar errors too (Sorry for being rude - I’m an editor). I still think you rock though!!!! Thanks so much!

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Great post.

I’m pretty sure most people will read the first 10 things and be like, damn!

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Here’s a tip: go to where the advertisers are and drink with ‘em. You know that billions of business deals go down this way!

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I always check the who-is information of anyone I intend on doing business with on the web.

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Why pay for page saver when you use the free firefox extension “Screengrab!” Just go to the firefox extension search and install it. You can grab the visible portion of the screen, everything in the browser window including non-visible, and selection into a .png file. You can even just copy that and then paste into your paint program.

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Hi,
I just saw a Google ad for “tools.shoemoney.com” on this blog and I am a bit confused.
Does it make sense to share revenue with Google for promoting one of your own product on one of your own blog when you can easily create your own banner for the product and link out to it.

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The advertising page is a good idea. I’ve regularly got people contacting me about how to advertise on one of my sites. I don’t even have a stock document that I can send them. Time to fix that.

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I think it’s a bit rude to dismiss someone for the grammatical errors in an email they sent you when this post has at least 9 major grammar errors in it as well. I don’t think you should expect more quality of someone else than you obviously expect of yourself.

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Ari - Laberinto Social Reply:
October 8th, 2008 at 11:35 am

you tell ‘em nancy..

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