Sponsored-Blogging: Opportunities for Pay-for-Post Marketing

The Internet continues to make it difficult for traditional newspapers to survive, and some analysts and pundits are predicting that we' ll see the last print newspaper go to bed for the last time within a generation. Web 2.0, Social Media and blogging - including citizen journalism - are quickly becoming the preferred way for many Americans to learn news, read commentary, and share opinions. It' s no surprise then that Internet advertising dollars are shifting into the blogosphere - opportunities abound for individuals to monetize their blogs not only through display ad and pay-per-click ad placement on their blogs, but also through posts directly sponsored by advertisers and temporal blog "buys" where a given blog is sponsored by an advertiser over time. This report investigates the nascent sponsored-blogging market, how sponsored-blogging works, who the players are and how it makes money.

Sponsored-Blogging: Opportunities for Pay-for-Post Marketing pulls together the most pressing issues and considerations into one concise report, providing key insights and specific recommendations that bloggers, advertisers and ad networks can put to use immediately. Issues considered in this unique report include: CPMs relative to other internet ad modes; disclosure and transparency; mechanics; advertiser/blogger matching networks; market size.

• Advertising Agencies: Sponsored blogging is a creative new medium - are you fully briefed so that you can brief your clients?
• Advertisers: Gain an understanding of the mechanics and considerations behind sponsored blogging, and what to look for when you are ready to spend.
• Paid Bloggers: Learn what steps you can take to increase the value of your blog and the amount you get paid for each post.
• Sponsored Blog Ad Networks: Specific steps can be taken to increase the average payment per blog post and provide better value to advertisers.
• Online Advertising Networks: Sponsored blogging threatens to encroach on pay-per-click and banner advertising spending. Are you positioned to defend or capture territory?
• Traditional Print Publishers: Understand the threat that sponsored blogging represents to your advertising revenue. Do you have a counter-strategy?
• Readership, Circulation and Traffic Auditors: What new products could you introduce that tap this growing advertising segment?

• Sponsored blogging is a nascent, but growing, advertising vehicle with the potential to represent a substantial share of Internet advertising spending. It has the potential to be a $2 billion market - 5% of online ad spending - by 2011.
• Sponsored blog posts are a unique online advertising vehicle in that they provide for more text and context than pay-per-click ads or banner ads.
• Typical payments for sponsored blog posts are less than $10. But there are many things that bloggers and paid-blogging ad networks could do to increase that figure.
• As bloggers invest more time and emotion in their blogs, they start to look ways to make money from blogging.
• Bloggers walk a fine line between adhering to truth in advertising laws and maintaining a strong, trusting, readership base.

“Bloggers who reported spending 20 or more hours per week on blogging tend to be making money from their blog (75%) and tend to be getting paid for blog posts (75%).”