My sponsored post experiment wrap-up. I'm sorry I don't have any great insights to share.

Note this post is from March 2007. There are no sponsored posts on Plain Jane Mom.

On March 1st, 2007 I started an experiment to try writing posts for Pay Per Post and ReviewMe — go ahead and read Part 1 and Part 2 of my notes on it if you haven’t already.

I don’t have anything especially enlightening to report on my time doing sponsored posts. It turned out to be very simple. The pro: they pay you. The cons: you have intrusive ads on your blog, and it can be hard to find high paying posts that aren’t about payday lenders, online poker sites or other folks I won’t do business with.

A tidy summary for you

During the month of March I did 44 posts for Pay Per Post and I earned $1,039.25. In the first 9 days of April I did 3 for PPP and earned $108.85. I also did one post for ReviewMe and one for someone who contacted me directly which each earned $50. I’ll do the math for you: $1,248.10 in 5 weeks.

(Note that I had also signed up with SponsoredReviews, but the dealings I had with them in email revealed them to be, frankly, kind of snooty! I thought it was hilarious that they were acting like they were better than others given the business they’re in, but I digress.)

Behind the curtain

I know that there are some bloggers who think of their paid posts as part of their blog, but I am not one of those bloggers. For me, paid posts were 30 days of premium advertising on my site. Each of my posts had “This is a sponsored post” as the first paragraph.

None of my paid posts ever appeared in my RSS feed, so people weren’t getting constantly pinged that I had a new post only to discover it was an ad. Plus the sites I allow to re-purpose my content (9rules, MayasMom, Technorati…) weren’t cluttered with ads either.

Then what?

After a post has been up for 30 days (a PayPerPost requirement) I delete it. But the big question is “Was it worth it?” And the answer is “yes, but…” The “but” is that it was worth it to me to do it for just the 5 weeks or so. I wouldn’t do it long-term. I earned enough to justify going to the BlogHer conference this summer, and for that I am grateful, but I’m not interested in continuing with sponsored posts as a long-term project. Just to close the loop, I’ll be deleting my accounts with PPP and ReviewMe as soon as I get my final payments from them, and my SponsoredReviews account is already gone.

Thus ends the great PJM Sponsored Post Experiment of 2007. I made some money and learned from the inside what all the fuss is about with paid posts. Please return your seat backs to their upright and locked position. You freaks in the back row who have gotten too drunk to walk will be escorted off by security. Prepare for the cavity search.


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19 responses to “My sponsored post experiment wrap-up. I'm sorry I don't have any great insights to share.”

  1. Jennifer Avatar

    Interesting post, I was wondering how it was going on that PPPost experiment. I don’t think anyone would pay to read me though. :p

  2. DOMESTIC DIVA Avatar

    Sounds like you did pretty good, chick! I hate cluttering my blog up with ads too but a sahm’s gotta do what a sahm’s gotta do.

  3. MammaLoves Avatar

    Thanks for being our guinea pig. Sounds like a good deal if you need a little extra cash. Nice to know the option is there I guess.

  4. Jamie Avatar

    I’d say that if you made enough to pay for your BlogHer trip it was worth the experiment for a short time. But it also sounds like a heck of a lot of work! So far I’m most pleased with my BlogAds revenue, and I have you to thank for the BlogAds invite a while back.

  5. AbsolutelyBananas Avatar

    very interesting… thanks for sharing.

  6. Sharina Avatar

    Interesting review. I was considering signing up for PPP.

  7. Melanie Avatar

    Dayum! You made some decent money with that. It’s tempting, I’ll admit, but I think it would alienate some of my blog friends if I did PPP, so… probably won’t go that route.

    I love that your blog paid your way to BlogHer. Unbelievably awesome.

  8. Izzy Avatar

    That’s great $$$ but I think you’re smart to take the money and run!!!

  9. Sara Avatar

    Thanks so much for updating on this!! I’d considered it as well, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Sidebar ads are one thing, PPP is just a little too obtrusive IMO.

  10. goldcoaster Avatar

    I am amazed on how much they pay. Do these companies pay not just per post but how many readers/clicks etc. to get your total?

    http://goldcoaster.wordpress.com

  11. Bon Avatar

    that’s pretty good money, but upwards of fifty posts is a fair amount of your time, too. very interesting…thanks for including us in the loop.

    and, because i use wordpress which is powerful but complicated to my poor caveman mind…how did you keep the paid posts out of your RSS feed?

  12. motherofbun Avatar

    YOu know I was wondering how that paid post stuff worked. Thanks for the info. And how do you keep the paid posts of our your RSS feed. (Warning: I’m a technologically moron, so I might not even understand your answer.)

  13. crunchycarpets Avatar

    well that is pretty good cash..I wasn’t willing to do PPP on CC but tried it on my old Crunchy Ramblings..being that I don’t get as much hits there, the pickings were slim..and slimmer AFTER I had managed to post and be approved for a few 10 dollar one’s….the offering dropped down to the lender one’s all for about $6 and I didn’t feel inclined to write about them.

    I haven’t done much at all since…

  14. Kelly Avatar

    I think it’s totally worth it if you came up for the cash for blogher…very interesting…

  15. Jennifer Avatar

    Good info to know…this may be my only way of ever getting to attend Blogher.

  16. Homemom3 Avatar

    Wow, that’s some great money! I have been with them since they began but only wrote 33 ads for them so far and no where near that amount. Heck, I haven’t even hit $300 yet. You are kicking butt. Course like some stating, when I start posting a bunch of ads in one week I lose readers and I don’t want that.

  17. Shannon Avatar

    Hi!

    I’m new to your blog, but loving it already!

    That is so cool that you were able to make that much with those sites! I joined them recently, but am not getting that many offers. I’m not sure if I’m missing something important that I need to do, or what. But I hope I get it figured out! I sure could stand to make that kind of money! LOL

    Great to meet you!

  18. Allison Avatar

    That’s some great money you earned there! Congrats!

    I post for PPP and Sponsored Posts. My opps are slim pickings because of my page rank. I’m interested in how you keep your sponsored posts from showing up on your RSS feed. I would love to implement this on my own site.

  19. Jo Avatar

    Count me in as wanting to know how to keep them out of the RSS feeds too and I like your idea about copying the paid posts to a page after the 30 days. I might “borrow” that idea because I hate seeing the stupid things with my other posts.

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