I’ve recently had a bit of luck selling ad space thanks to some referrals from a few of my online buddies and I thought I’d share the idea just in case it’s not something you’ve thought of yet…
Basically, a few months ago, an online buddy of mine who’s been in this business about the same time as I have got in touch with this idea. It’s a simple one but it’s proven to be pretty lucrative and it wasn’t something I’d already thought of myself. Basically, when someone buys ad space from my friend, he’ll suggest to the advertiser that they check out my sites and they give them my email address. Maybe the advertiser will get in touch and maybe they won’t, but the possibility is there. I then get an email from my friend telling me to keep an eye out for an email from the advertiser in the hopes we can pull off a deal.
In the past I’ve had people approach me asking for contact details of my advertisers in exchange for some of theirs. I’ve always felt uneasy about just giving away contact details and I’ve never been the type to email potential advertisers out of the blue so this model hasn’t ever really worked for me. But I don’t see anything wrong with suggesting new, quality sites to my advertisers that they might not already know about. It seems like most SEO people want to know about as many good sites that accept ads as they can so it probably makes their job a little bit easier.
The advantage for my online buddies and I are easy to see. Not only do we get new advertising contacts and potential deals, but the person who sends the referral also takes a little bonus for themselves. Money for nothing, really. The arrangement we have in place is 20% of the total sale. So if I refer an advertiser to my friend and he does a yearly deal for $1000, that’s a very easy $200 for me.
So far I’ve actually been doing very little referring myself and have instead been paying out a well-deserved 20% on several recent sales. This means a bit out of my pocket now but it’s on sales I otherwise would have never had. I’m really happy with the way this is working for me and would suggest finding some people to partner with in an attempt to reach out to more possible advertisers. Try to find people with sites similar to your own who already appear to have a good number of advertisers. Maybe 20% works for you, maybe you’re happy just referring for free and hoping they send some referrals your way or maybe you have some other model in mind – but I think partnering up with other internet marketers is a smart way to maximise your advertising potential.
I’m happy with the few partners I have in place and I’m not looking for any more just now, but I really think this idea has a lot of potential. Am I late to the party with this? Is this something people have been doing for awhile and I’m only just learning about it now? Have you tried this sort of arrangement and has it worked for you?
I’d be curious to hear about what you think of this idea and whether or not you’ve tried it yourself. Good luck!
Hi Kirsty -that is a good idea and I’m going to try it for my site.
regarding your Volunteer Handbook Guide, I now have it listed on my site and I talk about you too and your blog. I’d be really interested to know if anyone buys the book that I refer. Do you know how we can track that?
I do find your blog very interesting and you are generous to share all your info. Thanks
Ruth
I think this is a great idea. I am still working on getting enough traffic to make it worth it for the advertisers. I’ve heard that if you’re not getting at least 1,000 hits a day you’re not ready for ads. What do you think of that advice?
@ruth Thanks for your support of my ebook! I don’t have an affiliate program at the moment but it’s been on the cards for ages now. I’m going to do a revamp of the ebook – version 2 – I just don’t know when. When I do that I’ll start up an affiliate program which will hopefully boost sales and also reward people like you who put the word out! The reason I haven’t had one up until now is because I wanted to split the revenues 50/50 with a charity (and laziness). The new plan is still to give 50% to the charity and divide the rest between myself and the affiliates. But I’ve got so much else to do right now that I can’t even think about rewriting the ebook. I’ll post here as soon as I get off my ass, though!
@jenn In my experience advertisers never ask for traffic stats. I think PR and maybe Alexa (which is to do with traffic) are things that they look at. Mainly PR though. It’s only been recently that advertisers have been saying that they can’t justify paying X price for a site with X PR so I think the whole industry might be becoming more regimented but before that I could pretty much ask whatever I felt like and they’d pay. Maybe the good ol’ days are over? We’ll see!
Advertisers don’t as for traffic stats because they aren’t really advertisers. They are simply text link brokers looking for SEO.
I think you should just swap names with friends instead of trying to make a profit from their ablity to negotiate!
@nomadicmatt Yep Matt… I’m all about trying to squeeze profits out of people.
I am looking for some type of script that will allow me to sell text link ads on my website. They will be sold on a time basis. A user can pay to have their ad display for X amount of days. I don’t want to use a service like TextLinkAds. I would prefer to be able to sell the ads directly from my website.
I’m with you Kirsty. I’ve found referrals to be a win-win for both me and the small group of bloggers with which I have this arrangement.
In the past, I’d swap names alone, but I was giving away valuable business information, and rarely did they lead to any sales for me even if I mentioned the person who referred me. I can’t speak for how the other person did, usually it wasn’t discussed after the names were exchanged. Not very motivating for me to keep going out of my way to do it.
With a commission model, I’ve found the bloggers I refer advertisers to (some big, some small) are all too happy to get the leads. I’ve seen people make $1,000 in just a few weeks, seemingly out of thin air. Plus, there’s the potential for repeat business and renewals long term.
Keeping that kind of payoff in perspective, I don’t feel there’s anything wrong with asking for a percentage in return. The blogger always has the option to say “no” but I’ve yet to have that happen.
I’m also going to add that I don’t proactively look for people to do this with. Almost all have approached me, and we’ve already had an existing relationship.
Funny, this is exactly why I visited your blog, looking for ads to run, text ads work good, going to keep an eye on future posts for now.
Rewarding those who refer to you business definitely seems like a good strategy. It sounds like you try to make it a win-win situation, and that seems like a sustainable, fair, and good thing to do. It sure sounds like you have an interesting life being able to travel like this. Thanks for posting this.
Hmm, nice choice… great guide… I never thought of that but I’m not sure if I have such friends to help me sell an ads… Need to get more friends who’s into internet marketing. Furthermore, if my site has low traffic I can’t sell for high $$$ and I can’t give my friend much $$$ so it’s pointless until I get boost my traffic first isn’t it?
Very interesting but I think you need to get good traffic first and then think about ads. Thanks.
most of my ad sales were from direct promotion on my site itself
I currently own a website that caters to people locally and I was thinking about selling ad space on my website to local businesses. What do you think is the best way for me to contact a local business with my proposal? Should I call them up, send them a sales letter through the mail, or email them if they have a website? I was thinking about just emailing them since they probably get solicited all the time. What do you think?
Hello Kirsty,
Your thoughts are really wonder to earn from site.
Kirsty, I am going to email you right now about this. I don’t know how I missed this post last month from you but I think it’s an awesome idea especially since you get so many advertisers and most of us have no idea how to do it.