Photo by Brittney Bush
Blogads.com is pretty unique in the world of blog monetization because you set your own rates. It's also pretty accomodating: you can run Blogads alongside BlogHer ads, Adsense and others. The interface is a little ugly and a little awkward, but it works. Blogads says that the average blogger makes $50 per month.
How Blogads works:
1. You set up an "adstrip" with your rates and make some selections regarding formatting. Blogads spits out code that you paste in your sidebar.
2. Advertisers browse for blogs by scrolling down a list of blogs ranked according to page impressions. The most highly trafficked blogs are on the top of the list. Generally, these blogs charge the most for their ads (up to $18,000 per week!), so bargain-hunting advertisers tend to scroll down a bit to make their selections. In fact, smaller blogs that get 1000 impressions per week and price their ads at around $20 per week can expect to do just fine.
3. When someone wants to place an ad on your blog, you'll be notified via email so that you can approve or reject it. If you don't respond within hours, the ad is automatically approved.
4. Eventually, you get paid. Blogads takes 30%. You're paid via PayPal once your balance reaches $75, but you have to wait until your advertiser has paid up. That can mean waiting a couple of months if an advertiser has bought on credit. If you don't reach $75, you'll get a payout the following February.
The only catch with Blogads is that you can't just go to Blogads.com and join. You have to be invited by a sponsor (who will then receive a small percentage of your revenue). The sponsors only have a limited number of invites, so you'll need to have good traffic to convince them to spend one on you. You can also write to signup@blogads.com and request to be notified when a sponsor appears in your niche.
Further Reading:
Angie blogs at BlogCoach.org and BabyCheapskate.com. She is also the founder of free-baby-stuff site Freepeats.org. Angie lives in Atlanta with her husband and young son, and very fluffy dog.
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I've wrote them in the past, and never heard anything from them. I'm currently running BlogHerAds, and while my traffic keeps going up, my profits don't seem to reflect that rise. Blargh.
Anyone want to invite me in to their BlogAds network? Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?
http://andria-and-co.com
Great post, Angie! I'm new to BlogAds, have been a member for less than a month but I love how easy it makes advertising. Wonderful to be able to set your own rates, but not have to deal with the administration aspects.
Thanks for letting us know about BlogAds. Perhaps one day my traffic will be high enough to get in on this! I appreciate the information!
Brandi
appreciated the information.
Thanks for the info! I've been on their waiting list for over a year now, and wondered if it was worth it. Sounds like it is!
Are you sure you can use BlogAds alongside BlogHerAds? I was using BlogAds for awhile and then they emailed me to say: "We've noticed you're running the blogads javascript below another ad network, which doesn't conform to our terms of use. Going forward, we want to focus sales efforts on parenting blogs with blogads conforming to our terms. With this in mind, we're removing your blog from the order page. Please feel free to write if you'd like to use Blogads as your primary ad network."
And since BlogHerAds requires you to show their ads ONLY above the fold, I had to take BlogAds off. I've been looking for another ad network that would allow me to place their ads below BlogHerAds – or something that's going to make me more to *replace* BlogHerAds. Would love to hear recommendations.
Shannon,
I have both BlogHer ads and Blogads on Baby Cheapskate and haven't had a problem. I know of several other bloggers who also have both.
If there's a new TOS agreement at BlogAds, I don't know about it. I'm going to go poke around, though, and see if I can find anything about what you describe above.
Thanks for letting us know about Blogads' communication with you.
Here's a link to the Blogads FAQs for bloggers:
http://tinyurl.com/4jzegq
There's a bit about Adsense (it's fine with Blogads if you use it). Nothing about any conflict with other ad networks. Still looking.
I'll post again here if I find anything else.
…and here are the Terms of Service for bloggers:
http://web.blogads.com/Documents/blogger_terms/
Here's what it says: "You may display advertising material from sources other than Application Provider on your Internet web Site(s) provided that all other advertising material in the same column as the Adstrip(s) appears underneath the Adstrip(s). When advertisements appear in multiple columns of a web page, the Adstrip(s) must be the top most advertisement in the leftmost column in which there are advertisements within 400 pixels of the top of the page."
Let's just say that when they start enforcing that one more regularly, their advertisers are going to have a whole lot less adspace to choose from!