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The Business Of Mommy Blogging

This morning I had phone calls from two ad networks. Neither phone call was successful. I mean, they were successful in that the ad network representatives were nice, and they were thoughtful, but we won’t have working relationships any time soon.

In case you’re reading this and you aren’t a blogger, let me bring you up to speed on what an ad network is. An Ad Network is a business that puts little buttons of advertising on blogs. They also may create microsites where their publishers can add content. Advertisers (think really big corporations) then pay money to get their product featured on the site. Ad Networks will sell millions of impressions at a time to a company and then distribute it through their vertical channels. In this instance I was to be part of a “parenting” vertical channel, perhaps they would sell advertising to a diaper company. I would be one of a few dozen sites to run their artwork. That is a vertical. Ad Networks sell verticals.

Since I’m mostly stuttery and annoyed let me give you a few highlights from the two phone calls:

  • I’m not familiar with your blog, but I imagine our advertisers wouldn’t want to be on it today, you know, with the dog and all.  Why are you calling me? Do you NOT prepare for work?
  • If you won’t advertise packaged food or Walmart, what will you advertise? There is a world outside of frankenfood. Double dog swear.
  • You don’t have much traffic. Neither do your other publishers, stop talking to me like I’m stupid.
  • Some of our publishers might have the tracking code in more than one place, but they do deliver on all their traffic. …. and I call bullshit
  • I don’t want to influence your content, but….  just let me get off the phone with you. You know we hate each other at this point, right?
  • We could offer you $3CPM before the 50/50 split but I don’t know if I can sell ads on your site. Why haven’t I hung up the phone yet?
  • Would you advertise diapers? Yes, but it would be a stupid way for them to spend their money.

And so it went.

But the remarkable thing about both phone calls was that they were incoming. I’m not saying you have to read every word I write, but before you tell me that my content isn’t a good match for your company, take a look at the post titles (at a minimum) and understand why you’re making a phone call.

I could change up my template and add a click for y’all. I guess then I would be able to double (maybe even triple) my pageviews. I guess that’s why so many folks have switched to templates that have teasers.

Mom Blogging is delightful.

The business of blogging is not.

38 thoughts on “The Business Of Mommy Blogging”

  1. So true. So very true. It’ was all such a lovely little world for me until I started feeling like I should take it more seriously and maybe try to make some money from my work (gasp). And then . . . now I often just feel irritated and dirty about the whole enterprise, especially when it relates to those ads, and the procuring of them. Blech.

  2. In all honesty, I don’t think I ever want to clutter my little blog up with ads. What’s the point? I want people coming to my site because they’re interested in what I have to say, not what I’m trying to sell. I’d rather get recognition for the meat of my blog, not the measily side dishes.

    That being said, I enjoy making a little money through Sponsored Tweets. I feel like Twitter is still so laid back and unheavy that it’s okay for me to throw out a bone to the twitterverse every now and then to add some pennies in my pocket.

    But my blog? Never.

  3. you can’t justify or have an intelligent conversation with ignorance.

    and if it helps i love your content because it is consistently inconsistent. if i can hear about masturbating bulldogs and the sweet story about your daughter wanting in on a hug between her parents on the same blog I have arrived at momblog nirvana.

    1. Actually they told me they were unfamiliar with my content and THEN they told me I wasn’t a good fit.

      One of them… with the other one… I’ll just surmise it will happen. Certainly after reading this it will.

  4. So appropriate that I came upon your post today. I am looking over a contract from an ad network right now and they basically want to be put in my will. Ridiculous for a measly few bucks. I have shied away from ad networks for the past 1 1/2 that I’ve been blogging, but since I pour my heart and soul into my blog, I thought it might be nice to earn some revenue. Yeah, um , looks like I need to rethink that one :(

  5. Ok, not to be totally ignorant but what is a teaser?

    I occasionally try to get myself psyched to pimp my blog out and try to make a few bucks–but ultimately it’s not worth it to me. I don’t want to answer to anyone else on my blogs–there’s already too much of that in regular life. I want to be able to do like you do and have a video about vajazzaling one day then talk about my kids the next, and to swear if I want to, and to not post for a month if I have too much other stuff going on.

  6. I loathe the teaser. In fact, I loathe it so much I will refuse to click on it regardless of how much I adore the author. That includes a lot of my friends. There is always another blog post out there waiting to be read without me having to jump through hoops to get to it.

  7. Okay, I am a blogger but still needed the remedial lesson on advertising and PR in the blogging world. I write for the sake of writing. Who wouldn’t want to be compensated for that but I can see the “feeling dirty” part of this.

  8. Yes, I avoid blogs with lots of ads at all cost, they can take too long to download and I just don’t have the time for it. It is so refreshing when I open a blog and there are no ads, just the author keeping it real for him/herself and not being a sell out.

  9. It is embarrassing that the ad sales reps didn’t even take five minutes of their time to look at your site. The first tenant of sales is know thy customer!

  10. Jessica,

    Your post shows that you have very little understanding of the advertising business. And yes, you have very little traffic to be attractive to an advertiser on your own.

    why are you so angry anyway?

  11. “Some of our publishers might have the tracking code in more than one place, but they do deliver on all their traffic. …. ”

    What does that mean? That people will take the ad codes from their ad network and put them on more than one blog?

    I do advertise on my sites but I’m the first to admit I’m not totally aware of all of the ins and outs.

    Thanks!

  12. Jess, you want my advertising networks to talk to? They have always treated me kind. Not sure what $$ you are looking for, but I do ok.

    trisha

  13. I can’t figure out what made that person pick up the phone and call you. Had you mentioned something somewhere about wishing you could be part of Federated Media? So they felt the need to call you and tell you that no, in fact, you can’t?

    Question: What do you mean by “teaser”? Do you mean posts that are just an excerpt with a “more” link? I don’t like those either.

    Also, I know a couple of blogs in the F.M. network that have a horizontal ad at the top and a vertical ad on the side, and it shows the SAME AD. It’s kind of an assault on my eyeballs.

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