Blog Earnings: October
November 4, 2007 Posted by Tyler CruzIt’s hard to believe just how fast October flew by… it only seemed like a few days to me!
I always get excited when it’s time to write a new Blog Earnings update post. I’m always eager to see how much I’ve made, and most importantly – if I’ve made a new month record.
Unfortunately, as I had predicted during my September earnings recap, October was not a very good month for me in terms of blog income. While my RSS and traffic have been increasing and I revitalized my blog with the new theme, October’s income is very low because I didn’t receive a single paid review from PayPerPost.
Here are my updated numbers:
It just goes to show how much paid reviews affect my blog’s income. September brought in nearly $600 from paid reviews alone, while I only made $175 from the two reviews I did last month (one was paid privately).
I need to find a way to get more offers for paid reviews. I thought my Order a Paid Review From Me post back in mid-October would have brought forth a slew of offers, but I didn’t get a single one… odd!
Even though I haven’t been getting many offers for paid review lately, I raised my price from $75 to $80 for paid reviews a couple days ago. Yesterday I hit a new RSS record of 882, my traffic has been increasing, and I write very long and detailed reviews.
In fact, a paid review that I just finished, took me around a total of 12-14 focused working hours to review and write. For the amount of work I put into my reviews and the exposure they get, I actually think they’re worth at least a couple hundred dollars, so I’m constantly perplexed why I don’t receive more offers. $80 is an absolute bargain in my eyes…
My earnings breakdown still has Private Ads and PPP composing the majority of my blog’s income. I’m fine with how it is distributed now, but it will be interesting to see how it changes as my blog’s income (hopefully) increases.
Another advertising change I made to my blog was the addition of sitewide side 125×125 banners, which came available with the launch of my new theme. Wanting to sell these spots out as fast as possible, I priced them at only $15, and within several days sold them all out. Even John Chow bought one! I’m only allowing a maximum of 6 slots to make sure that all the advertisers get a fair amount of exposure.
I’ve already increased the price to $20 a month for them now, so if they wish to renew near the end of November, it will be $5 more, which is still cheap in my eyes.
I also increased the price of my 728×90 leaderboard by $5 from $80 to $85, since I have several people on the waiting list for it and the current advertiser keeps renewing. Supply and demand, my friends… this is slot is an incredible value.
So there you have it. Unfortunately October was a pretty bad month for me, but I had predicted it so it’s okay 🙂
The good news is that I expect November to do quite well, very possibly beating September to set a new record. Stay tuned!
Tyler, one of the things that always puts me off paying for reviews from bloggers is the lack of a case study or contact name of people who have bought reviews in the past.
I like to hear real opinions from past and current advertisers about amount of visitors and the quality of those visitors, but often bloggers don’t provide this. This is the sole reason I setup Blog Ad Reviews earlier this year, so advertisers could write their reviews about adverts they have bought on blogs. Unfortunately, it hasn’t quite taken off yet, so I still have to rely on approaching bloggers directly for case studies and reviews of their reviews. 🙂
I guess what I’m saying is, if you can show me a case study, or you can give me the contact details of a person who has paid for a review in the past and who is willing to share their opinion, I’ll be much more inclined to order. I’m sure I’m not alone. 🙂
Soon, I’ll be going through a large marketing campaign and I’m formulating the plan for that campaign right now. If I can see a case study, I’ll certainly consider adding a paid review from you in to my marketing plan.
Hi Jamie,
I definitely agree. I actually did this once or twice before; WordZe actually made quite a bit of money from my review (something like 300%-400% ROI) and I remember posting about that.
Part of it is the chicken and the egg thing.. I need paid reviews to be able to write about how they fare. Another part is that it’s difficult to actually contact the company or website owners as often times it is simply somebody in a marketing department purchasing these reviews…
Wow that’s a shame about the lack of PPP reviews this month considering the $580 you made the month before! Do you do the reviews just on this site or do you have other sites that you use them for?
I wonder if it has anything to do with the whole PageRank issues and PPP could be suffering in general as a result?
I only have this one blog.
I don’t think that PageRank comes into the picture here as the slowdown occured before the recent Google blow up. Also, I never got many offers from PPP itself; 90% of my offers come from advertisers who find my blog and see that I accept paid reviews…
If they take 12 hours and you get $80 why bother doing them?
Snowball effect. (If I start making $1500~ a month from my blog, it will attract more visitors, repeat…)
Anyhow, my average review takes me probably around 2-5 hours, but reviews for ad networks always take me much longer since I write them of the utmost quality for PublisherSpot at the same time.
It seems like a lot of blogs with reviews have had less of them as of late… coincidence?
Is that so? I rarely read other blogs anymore so I haven’t noticed. It’s interesting because I really believe in the whole paid review blogosphere thing; I think it’s a very viable and new solution for online advertising.
Maybe the decrease is “because” you do such detailed reviews of their sites.
Lets face it most people are paying to have their site mentioned by an authority site like yours. I wouldn’t want to pay someone to write anything negative about my site.
They want “FLUFF” and a link to their site. Its not a true review, but its good for their site.
Just my two cents, keep up the good work.
Tyler, what do you tell advertisers when the month is up and you’re going to raise prices? Can you give us an example email of what you might say?
I have a pre-written template I use for renewal reminders. When I raise the price of an ad, I simply modify it and notify them of the price increase if they wish to renew…
Good point from Adrian.
I’ve noticed in your reviews you give your honest opinion, even if this means a negative review of a product/service.
Perhaps advertisers see this and say we don’t want honesty we want you to say how great we are!
The price of integrity.
Which is why I don’t do paid reviews because I think it could undermine the integrity of my blog.
At least you are seeing more money from Private Ad Sales which is very good. Start building these up like you did your PPP review prices, and you probably won’t need to use PPP anymore.
I wouldn’t say ~$390 is bad for a personal blog. I’m quite sure November will do much better for you. Christmas is very near..
Allen
Your income from PPP is only from Direct PayPerPost review requests? That is great.
Regina Thomas
QiSoftware.com
Definitely.. there’s no way I’m writing those quality reviews for $5-$10 😉
[…] one day I can live like Tyler Cruz – but then I’d have to move back in with my parents – and my wife wouldn’t like that […]
I think at $80 you’re selling yourself short given the amount of time you put in.
IMO, double your price and sell less reviews. Besides reviews aren’t as enjoyable to read.
There was a housing developer years ago in pierce county (WA) that built tons of GREAT houses and was trying to sell them at equally great low prices. No one bought the houses at the low prices and he went bankrupt. Someone came in bought the houses and jacked the price up another $80,000 and they sold to people.
Raise your prices and I think you’d do better.
I hate the fact that in South Africa, we have no access to any of these services as we are not allowed PayPal accounts which can receive funds.
It’s a great shame! Well done on all the earnings bud!
[…] my Blog Earnings: October post, I wrote: "…In fact, a paid review that I just finished, took me around a total of […]