Why dont we start a Private Ad Sales network?

Forum Rules

Helios_Multi TPoxygen11final

[thiru]

I have been searching for ways to monetize my blog's ad space.

A post on Garry Conn's blog got me thinking. I have joined him.

Then, I thought, 'Why shouldn't we start our own private ad sales network?'

Your thoughts much appreciated.

[FormerAdmin]

I have been searching for ways to monetize my blog's ad space.

A post on Garry Conn's blog got me thinking. I have joined him.

Then, I thought, 'Why shouldn't we start our own private ad sales network?'

Your thoughts much appreciated.

Hi Thiru,

this is something that comes up every so often here - and I am in support of it

Best regards, Andrew

[Lightening]

Well, I'm all for the idea in theory.  But I imagine we need someone with a fair bit of know how to get it off the ground. ?  It would be great to be able to advertise Aussie companies on Aussie blogs.

[ShadowKnight]

We need an advertising guru and someone with feeds into some larger companies.  The idea is a gem though.

[thiru]

Mmm.. that's right. The way I thought is like this. Let us form a group, say, 50 bloggers - then each of us can promote to advertisers saying, 'Hey, we are a group of 50 blogs. Do you wanna show your ads on our blog network for 'X amount'?'.

Even if couple of us successfully get a deal or two, then all  50 of us can benefit. We can pay the blogger who secured the deal some incentive, so his / her effort would be rewarded.

I can't see a reason why this won't work. 

[Lightening]

In all honesty, I can't see what we've got to lose by giving it a go.

Only suggestion I have is some way of ranking blogs or something.  I think those who have high traffic should get paid accordingly. ??

[ShadowKnight]

My blog has no traffic at the moment thanks to the ineptitude of MD Web Hosting, so I guess I earn nothing

[thiru]

Yes, we need to rank the blogs - we could use a service like LinkQuote to estimate the price.

[Evan]

A great idea if there are some marketing/sales types out there.

I am very much not, so I'm all in favour.

I don't see why it wouldn't be successful if there are the people who are good at this sort of thing.

[Lani]

Before you go getting too enthused, this won't be as simple as it sounds.  You'll need to set up an entity to receive the payments and distribute them to the bloggers, as well as managing the tech side of things to guarantee  advertisers are getting what they've paid for on the sites.  Also, even with only 50 bloggers, you'll probably find quite a few who are particular about the type of thing they are prepared to advertise  so everyone going out individually to sell ads on the basis of the entire collective displaying them would be a pretty bad idea without some serious guidelines being created first. 

Overall: Serious organisation is required.   

[scotty]

My 2 cents.

Techical - check OpenAds (an open source ad server). It already has everything you need serving ads, managing publisher, advertisers and generating statistics/reports. Pretty scalable as well.

Payment - PayPal, like every other small ads network out there.

Bloggers - when money can be made, you will have no problem finding bloggers there

Personally I find the hurdle would be ad brokering -- someone who can (1) find advertisers (2) link advertisers with bloggers (3) handle transactions in between. Sometimes you need to look at it from an advertisers' point of view (instead of some bloggers looking into exchange traffic) -- why would I want to advertise on your site? Does it bring good ROI? Does it have a big portfolio of high profile bloggers to give me maximum exposure? Does it provide any anti-fraud mechanism to protect the advertisers? How does it compare with hundreds of other ad network out there? Etc etc.

After all, too many publishers without advertisers on an open market means very low effective CPM. In that case publishers will be less likely to switch from their default broker, which is likely to be AdSense. Vicious circle continues...

I have no doubt that someone with "know how" can get good long term advertisers on board. You really need someone like Darren Rowse to get it kick started. Oh wait, he has already co-funded a blog network

[Kelley]

I have been recently nosing around Blogher and the like.  I would much prefer to have relevant Aussie ads on my site.  Sounds interesting, but I agree it will be a lot of work and I for one can't put my hand up to help no matter how many pairs of shoes you offer me. 

[Mistress B]

and no amount of chocolate would induce me either............

 

[thiru]

thanks for your lovely comments and advice people.
Let me head down this path and try few things, then I can come back here to get interested people on board. 

[Evan]

Looking forward to hearing when you come back.

If there is someone who can do the marketing for me I'd be extremely grateful (and I mean this in a very real and (hopefully) financially rewarding sense - to adapt Monty Python and the Holy Grail).

[neerav]

Hi all I've found a way we can band together and sell ad space

Details at http://www.aussiebloggers.com.au/forum/index.php/topic,1868.new.html#new

[samjohn]

It does seem crazy that there is no connective body. I for example am looking for environmentally based blogs to purchase posts and advertising on, but there is no way of finding blogs to do so except google and a cold call (email). The most frustrating thing is that I know there must be a ton of aussie bloggers out there willing to make a buck for a post, just no way for us to connect...