Counter Offer Shenanigans on Sponsored Reviews
April 30, 2008 by Holly
Filed Under Blogs & SEO, Technology
As it can be seen from the Disclosure Policy conveniently located in the footer of this website, I admit that while they are very few and far between, I will occasionally accept a sponsored review from a business or advertiser looking to generate buzz to their website or about their product or services.
A service that a great deal of experienced bloggers utilize in order to sell a sponsored review on their website is Sponsored Reviews. With its clean and easy to use interface, I personally find it to be a little less annoying than PayPerPost, which virtually every person with a website has ran to for some extra cash at one point or another. The way Sponsored Reviews works is a little different than what most bloggers are used to. In order to write a sponsored review you must select categories for your website, write a short description about it and then bid on reviews that advertisers have put in the marketplace that match the category in which you have placed your blog under.
Today I have run into something completely new to me when it comes to Sponsored Reviews–The advertisers’ ability to counter offer. While I have only accepted two offers on this website and those have been put on my other website only, I was a little surprised when I saw that an advertiser had sent me a counter offer on a recent bid I had made for this website. As most of you may have heard, Google PageRank has recently updated and when that happens, I always take a few moments to really dig through my statistics and see where this website stands as opposed to other websites in the same niche. After analyzing my overall statistics, I then go through my website listings that I have on services such as Sponsored Reviews and adjust my prices accordingly. Apparently, however, advertisers are likely to disagree with your proposal.
Just a few hours after bidding on a post I received an email of a counter offer over 75% lower than what I had offered in the first place. After wondering for a great deal of time if I had missed something and then realizing that advertisers are just generally known for counter offering bloggers ridiculous prices that are obviously beneath them, I counter offered them–For my original asking price.
So here is a lesson to all of the bloggers who utilize review services in order to help buy the groceries at the end of the month–When your bid receives a counter offer from an advertiser when you know damn well that the price they are countering you for is so obviously beneath you, do not buckle at the mere chance of a few dollars. As a web publisher, you must know where you stand and if you feel your website is worth $5 a post then by all means, you should most definitely be accepting $5 a post; however, if you feel as if your work is worth more, than you should be accepting no less than what you believe you are worth for your work.
Wicca on Thu, 1st May 2008 11:21 am
I couldn’t agree more; web-workers work hard! And there’s a lot of value produced on the web in terms of connecting buyers with sellers that I don’t think is any less honorable or important than flying the plane that delivers the product! Bloggers deserve to get paid.
Jacinda on Fri, 2nd May 2008 7:58 am
It seems like there might be some strategy behind taking a low offer the first time an advertiser approaches you. If you accept it and they realize how great of a job you did and had lots of traffic see the review, then they could come back in the future and offer you another one. This time, you would be in a much better position to ask for more money and even turn it into a contract type of deal with a few posts guaranteed for X amount of dollars.
That could be risky though because you also run the chance of them not coming back for more reviews or anything. Still, something to consider.
But I agree with everything you said, just saying there could be some strategy behind taking a low offer in certain cases.
Kyle Dylan Conner on Sun, 4th May 2008 12:20 am
You are aware that if Google finds out that you use PayPerPost and alike blog advertising company’s they will lower your pagerank, right? It happened to me. I stopped using Smorty and Sponsored Reviews.
Holly on Sun, 4th May 2008 11:50 am
Kyle: Yes, I am very much aware of the Google penalties. I don’t simply spew on about stuff I don’t know about here; in fact, I maintain (and even raise) bloggers’ PageRank for a living, you just have to know when to stop when it comes to sponsored posts; if you’re doing 5 sponsored posts a day then sure, Google is going to penalize you for running a website for the sole purpose of making money (ironically, only when it isn’t through them) however, if you do one or two sponsored posts every two or three weeks after your website has been up and running for 3 months or more and you maintain your backlinks, Google should go pretty easy on you.