How Do I Find Advertisers for My Blog?

April 9th, 2007 | Revenue Generation

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Back in February, I wrote about “The Top 3 Ways to Generate Revenue from Your Blog” — number one being advertisers:

Dedicated advertisers are usually your best source of revenue. They pay a much better rate, they’re a guaranteed revenue stream every month, and they tend to stick around. The only downside is that you usually need to have really healthy traffic levels to make it worthwhile for advertisers to work with you directly.

I noted later in the comments that what constituted a “healthy traffic level” really varied from nice to niche — some sites may be able to attract advertisers with a tenth of the traffic of others; it’s just so dependent on what type of readers you’re attracting.

Additionally, you definitely want to avoid monetizing too soon. Very few things can kill a site quicker than letting your advertising overwhelm everything else.

Let’s suppose, though, that you do have healthy traffic levels for your niche and are indeed ready for advertisers. How do you go about finding them?

Put Out the Welcome Mat

The first thing you want to do is make it obvious that you’re open to advertisers. Go ahead and get ads running on your site, whether AdSense or affiliate banners (or both). (Start with Commission Junction if you’re new to affiliate programs.) If potential advertisers find your site but don’t see ads, most will assume you’re not interested. You have to make it clear that you are.

Next, you need to have an easy-to-find link to a page that clearly outlines your placements and how much they cost. Not only does that make the potential advertiser feel more comfortable, it helps you weed out advertisers who aren’t willing to pay what you’re looking for. (How do you know what to charge? See “The Easiest Way to Set an Advertising Rate for Your Site.”)

If you have a really popular site, these may be the only two things you ever have to do to keep the ad revenue flowing.

Go Find Them

If the advertisers aren’t finding you, though, there are several things you can do to get their attention.

First, is there a product you’d really like to endorse? Contact the company directly to see if they’d be interested in advertising on your site. Be sure to include full details on how many visitors you get each month and what your advertising optons are.

Next, if you’re running AdSense ads, what companies do you see showing up there regularly? They’re already advertising on your site, so there’s a good chance they’d be interested in other options you have available.

Also, go take a look at some other sites like yours. Who’s advertising on those? Makes sense that they might be interested in your site, too, right?

I’ve personally had tremendous success with all three of these strategies, so I can testify to their effectiveness. I’ve also heard of people finding good advertisers by posting in forums like Digital Point as well.

Don’t Lose Them

Finally, take great care of your advertisers once you have have them. Under promise and over deliver has become cliche, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true.

I especially like what John Chow does on his blog: actually taking time out to recognize his advertisers and draw positive attention to them. That’s not hard for him to do, but you know the advertisers really appreciate it. Often advertisers have to decide between multiple sites when they’re allocating their monthly budgets, and something like that keeps your site foremost in their mind.It’s a whole lot harder to find an advertiser than it is to keep one, so be sure to spend some time giving them more than they expected.

Realize too, though, that advertising on your site often won’t turn out to be a good investment for a particular advertiser. If that’s the case, don’t be the psycho boyfriend or girlfriend that won’t let them break up with you. Be easy to work with, and you’ll often find it coming back around to benefit you later.

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