This is the second post in my series of articles on developing Direct Ad Sales as an alternative revenue source. You can find the first post and an introduction here.
I previously talked about the benefits and disadvantages of direct advertising sales while covering the basic steps you can take to create an impressive advertiser sell page. In this article, I will cover the types of direct advertiser options available to bloggers and other webmasters.
While advertising networks can restrict the types of ads you can sell on your website, there is virtually no limitation when it comes to direct ad sales.
A tangible benefit is that all conceivable types of monetization tactics are all under one roof, or centralized under your control. You don’t have to log in and out of the various advertising networks, nor do you have to constantly insert or remove ad codes for the various ad networks you use.
Without further ado, here are 10 direct advertising options you may want to consider for your blog or website. You can choose to use a combination of various methods or pick one that best suits your website’s design structure and development goals.
1. Banner and Text Link Advertisements
The oldest form of online advertising, text links or banner ads is the most basic form of direct advertising and you should always set up ad placeholders before proceeding to other options listed in this post.
I would suggest using a banner or text link placeholder which indicates something to the extent of “Your Ad could be here” at the spot where you would be selling the ad. Naturally, this page should be linked to your advertiser sell page, which I’ve mentioned earlier in my previous post.
If you need some graphics for the ad placeholders, try looking for friends or fellow bloggers who are skilled in web design. An alternative would be to use Elance or other webmaster/design forums to get the work done.
2. Create a Mini-Network for Collective Advertising
Visualization of Blogrolls Network of United Arab Emirates Blog Community (by DC Rob)
Know any webmasters or bloggers with a website covering the same niche or industry? Collaborate with them and offer shared advertising options. For example, if you’re a blogger, work with three other bloggers and create a ad package on all three blogs for advertisers.
All members of the mini network should put up similar details of the package deal on their sell page and agree on a fixed price beforehand. There are two main benefits to this approach:
Advertisers like networked ads because it provides convenience, greater exposure and possible cost savings. Secondly, fusing together as a network will make up for each individual site’s weaknesses and allow you to set higher ad rates.
If you’re interested in starting a mini-network, I suggest starting slow (with 3-5 sites) in order to make things manageable. Remember to only work with trust-worthy webmasters/bloggers who are already familiar to you.
This DIY network strategy will work especially well when you aggressively contact potential advertisers. I will be covering specific marketing tactics on this topic in the next few posts in this series.
3. Offer Content Sponsorship Opportunities
For bloggers, this type of ad allows advertisers to sponsor specific blog posts. The sponsored content usually appear in the form of a sentence with a link, either before or after a post. Advertisers like this type of advertising because it allows them to target specific content.
If you have a particular blog post that receives a high volume of daily traffic or has a large number of incoming links, you can charge a higher rate for this specific page. Remember to vary your pricing according to the popularity of specific blog posts.
For general websites, content sponsorship allows advertisers to publish an entire Press release/advertorial, article or video about their product or service on your website. As much as possible, try to make sure that the content used should be relevant to your site.
4. Set up a Donation Page to Attract Link-Hungry Sponsors
If you own a website that offers a useful online tool, you could put up a donation request and set up a donation page which honors the various sponsors. While termed as ‘donations’, some of the websites running a donation scheme can be seen as implicitly selling links.
This donation page on a webmaster tool site has probably accumulated over $5,000 from generous sponsors, and in return gives out permanent keyword links on their PR 5/4 donation pages as a courtesy to the donor.
Even if you don’t offer any tools or services, try putting up donation widgets on your website and explicitly indicate that donors will be listed on a donation page. You’ll be surprised how many people will donate to your blog or website just to get a permanent link to their website.
5. Sell Paid Reviews On Your Blog
The paid reviews you can sell on your blog will be similar in functionality to sponsored review networks like Payperpost and ReviewMe. Review and link details can be negotiated in depth with advertisers or you can choose to have complete autonomy over how the review is written or developed.
This is probably the weakest element in direct advertising because paid review networks can provide a large amount of ready customers. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to work directly with advertisers through your own terms and rates.
There are some tactics (addressed in an upcoming post) which will allow you to make full use of the middlemen and still get assignments directly with potential advertisers.
6. Use Feed-Based Direct Advertising
I previously wrote about how to monetize your blog feed and these methods can be similarly applied to direct advertising. The most common feed-based ads include banner or text link based advertising.
Feed based advertising will depend on the strength of your subscriber base, so if you don’t have many feed subscribers (500+) it might be better to avoid offering this ad option. Another possibility would be to offer it as an short-term add-on or bonus to any ad package the advertiser buys.
7. Experiment with Pixel/Favicon-style Ads
This involves selling small squares of graphic icons which link to the advertiser’s website. This method allows you to focus on the combination of low pricing and bulk selling because a pixel or icon takes up very little of your site’s real estate.
While the pixel ad market is no longer a novelty, there are still advertisers who are willing to buy pixels or icon ads, especially if your website is established and sees strong daily traffic.
I suggest allocating a specific section on your website (perhaps the sidebar) and include small blocks of graphics. If you’re using Wordpress, the fastest way to get started on your blog is to use AdIcons for Wordpress, a plugin that allows you to sell advertising space in the form of little brandable icons.
Remember to seed it with icons that link to your friends’ blogs to make your ad space look active and in-demand.
8. Try Selling Contextual Text Links for Existing Content
This technique was first popularized by V7N contextual and allows the advertiser to pick one specific word or key phrase that exists on your website and and pay you for a permanent link to their their website.
Advertisers love these sort of links because they are within relevant content, are perceived as author recommendations and are hard to detect as paid links.
From a seller’s perspective, you won’t need to write a new review or paid post just to promote a specific product and instead, only involves hyper-linking specific words.
Obviously, you’ll need to check if the website you’re linking out to is reputable and worthy of a recommendation. You’ll also need to be ethically comfortable with possibly not disclosing that it was a paid link.
9. Look for Interactive Internet Broadcast Sponsors
Set up a live internet broadcast session in which you can interact with visitors from all over the internet. An good example of this monetization strategy comes from Chris Pirillio who has Adsense, direct sponsorship AND donation-based programs set up on his live internet broadcast page.
While some might think that this only works for semi-celebrities, I think it will work if you are not afraid to come up with something creative. Revver/YouTube artists and Justin.Tv are strong examples of how public video-based websites can attract a large audience.
The anonymity of the internet relishes visual disclosure and video/cam broadcasts can easily create buzz and bring in a barrage of high paying advertisers. For beginners, I suggest setting up a dedicated page for internet broadcasting on your site, instead of running an entirely new project from the ground up.
10. Sell Ads in Email Newsletters
This is for webmasters who have their own opt-in mailing list of interested visitors/readers. Selling sponsored advertorials or links for highly relevant products can not only add value to your list readers but provide a source of revenue.
Affiliate marketers, especially love advertising on email newsletters/lists because it reaches a very targeted audience who are already pre-sold on specific topics, products and services. If you want to start building your own email list, I highly recommend using AWeber, one of the best autoresponders and newsletter managers in the market.
Conclusion
The next article in this series will be focused on ways you can use to determine an appropriate ad pricing model for your website. How much should you sell those ads? What long term arrangement and form of negotiation will be most beneficial to you?
These are some of the topics that will be examined in detail. If you have any questions on this post, do leave a comment and let me know. I’ll love to hear your thoughts on the direct advertising options I’ve listed.
I previously talked about the benefits and disadvantages of direct advertising sales while covering the basic steps you can take to create an impressive advertiser sell page. In this article, I will cover the types of direct advertiser options available to bloggers and other webmasters.
While advertising networks can restrict the types of ads you can sell on your website, there is virtually no limitation when it comes to direct ad sales.
A tangible benefit is that all conceivable types of monetization tactics are all under one roof, or centralized under your control. You don’t have to log in and out of the various advertising networks, nor do you have to constantly insert or remove ad codes for the various ad networks you use.
Without further ado, here are 10 direct advertising options you may want to consider for your blog or website. You can choose to use a combination of various methods or pick one that best suits your website’s design structure and development goals.
1. Banner and Text Link Advertisements
The oldest form of online advertising, text links or banner ads is the most basic form of direct advertising and you should always set up ad placeholders before proceeding to other options listed in this post.
I would suggest using a banner or text link placeholder which indicates something to the extent of “Your Ad could be here” at the spot where you would be selling the ad. Naturally, this page should be linked to your advertiser sell page, which I’ve mentioned earlier in my previous post.
If you need some graphics for the ad placeholders, try looking for friends or fellow bloggers who are skilled in web design. An alternative would be to use Elance or other webmaster/design forums to get the work done.
2. Create a Mini-Network for Collective Advertising
Visualization of Blogrolls Network of United Arab Emirates Blog Community (by DC Rob)
Know any webmasters or bloggers with a website covering the same niche or industry? Collaborate with them and offer shared advertising options. For example, if you’re a blogger, work with three other bloggers and create a ad package on all three blogs for advertisers.
All members of the mini network should put up similar details of the package deal on their sell page and agree on a fixed price beforehand. There are two main benefits to this approach:
Advertisers like networked ads because it provides convenience, greater exposure and possible cost savings. Secondly, fusing together as a network will make up for each individual site’s weaknesses and allow you to set higher ad rates.
If you’re interested in starting a mini-network, I suggest starting slow (with 3-5 sites) in order to make things manageable. Remember to only work with trust-worthy webmasters/bloggers who are already familiar to you.
This DIY network strategy will work especially well when you aggressively contact potential advertisers. I will be covering specific marketing tactics on this topic in the next few posts in this series.
3. Offer Content Sponsorship Opportunities
For bloggers, this type of ad allows advertisers to sponsor specific blog posts. The sponsored content usually appear in the form of a sentence with a link, either before or after a post. Advertisers like this type of advertising because it allows them to target specific content.
If you have a particular blog post that receives a high volume of daily traffic or has a large number of incoming links, you can charge a higher rate for this specific page. Remember to vary your pricing according to the popularity of specific blog posts.
For general websites, content sponsorship allows advertisers to publish an entire Press release/advertorial, article or video about their product or service on your website. As much as possible, try to make sure that the content used should be relevant to your site.
4. Set up a Donation Page to Attract Link-Hungry Sponsors
If you own a website that offers a useful online tool, you could put up a donation request and set up a donation page which honors the various sponsors. While termed as ‘donations’, some of the websites running a donation scheme can be seen as implicitly selling links.
This donation page on a webmaster tool site has probably accumulated over $5,000 from generous sponsors, and in return gives out permanent keyword links on their PR 5/4 donation pages as a courtesy to the donor.
Even if you don’t offer any tools or services, try putting up donation widgets on your website and explicitly indicate that donors will be listed on a donation page. You’ll be surprised how many people will donate to your blog or website just to get a permanent link to their website.
5. Sell Paid Reviews On Your Blog
The paid reviews you can sell on your blog will be similar in functionality to sponsored review networks like Payperpost and ReviewMe. Review and link details can be negotiated in depth with advertisers or you can choose to have complete autonomy over how the review is written or developed.
This is probably the weakest element in direct advertising because paid review networks can provide a large amount of ready customers. Still, it wouldn’t hurt to work directly with advertisers through your own terms and rates.
There are some tactics (addressed in an upcoming post) which will allow you to make full use of the middlemen and still get assignments directly with potential advertisers.
6. Use Feed-Based Direct Advertising
I previously wrote about how to monetize your blog feed and these methods can be similarly applied to direct advertising. The most common feed-based ads include banner or text link based advertising.
Feed based advertising will depend on the strength of your subscriber base, so if you don’t have many feed subscribers (500+) it might be better to avoid offering this ad option. Another possibility would be to offer it as an short-term add-on or bonus to any ad package the advertiser buys.
7. Experiment with Pixel/Favicon-style Ads
This involves selling small squares of graphic icons which link to the advertiser’s website. This method allows you to focus on the combination of low pricing and bulk selling because a pixel or icon takes up very little of your site’s real estate.
While the pixel ad market is no longer a novelty, there are still advertisers who are willing to buy pixels or icon ads, especially if your website is established and sees strong daily traffic.
I suggest allocating a specific section on your website (perhaps the sidebar) and include small blocks of graphics. If you’re using Wordpress, the fastest way to get started on your blog is to use AdIcons for Wordpress, a plugin that allows you to sell advertising space in the form of little brandable icons.
Remember to seed it with icons that link to your friends’ blogs to make your ad space look active and in-demand.
8. Try Selling Contextual Text Links for Existing Content
This technique was first popularized by V7N contextual and allows the advertiser to pick one specific word or key phrase that exists on your website and and pay you for a permanent link to their their website.
Advertisers love these sort of links because they are within relevant content, are perceived as author recommendations and are hard to detect as paid links.
From a seller’s perspective, you won’t need to write a new review or paid post just to promote a specific product and instead, only involves hyper-linking specific words.
Obviously, you’ll need to check if the website you’re linking out to is reputable and worthy of a recommendation. You’ll also need to be ethically comfortable with possibly not disclosing that it was a paid link.
9. Look for Interactive Internet Broadcast Sponsors
Set up a live internet broadcast session in which you can interact with visitors from all over the internet. An good example of this monetization strategy comes from Chris Pirillio who has Adsense, direct sponsorship AND donation-based programs set up on his live internet broadcast page.
While some might think that this only works for semi-celebrities, I think it will work if you are not afraid to come up with something creative. Revver/YouTube artists and Justin.Tv are strong examples of how public video-based websites can attract a large audience.
The anonymity of the internet relishes visual disclosure and video/cam broadcasts can easily create buzz and bring in a barrage of high paying advertisers. For beginners, I suggest setting up a dedicated page for internet broadcasting on your site, instead of running an entirely new project from the ground up.
10. Sell Ads in Email Newsletters
This is for webmasters who have their own opt-in mailing list of interested visitors/readers. Selling sponsored advertorials or links for highly relevant products can not only add value to your list readers but provide a source of revenue.
Affiliate marketers, especially love advertising on email newsletters/lists because it reaches a very targeted audience who are already pre-sold on specific topics, products and services. If you want to start building your own email list, I highly recommend using AWeber, one of the best autoresponders and newsletter managers in the market.
Conclusion
The next article in this series will be focused on ways you can use to determine an appropriate ad pricing model for your website. How much should you sell those ads? What long term arrangement and form of negotiation will be most beneficial to you?
These are some of the topics that will be examined in detail. If you have any questions on this post, do leave a comment and let me know. I’ll love to hear your thoughts on the direct advertising options I’ve listed.
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