I was lucky enough to get $100 in free advertising credit on Sponzai last month which is IZEA’s latest service where advertisers can purchase guest posts from bloggers and specifically post news articles, product news, or guest posts and showcase them on other blogs. For this test I setup a handful of guest posts for several blogs including this one, I then generated leads to see which bloggers would be interested in featuring my guest posts. As there are thousands of bloggers listed in the system, I was surprised at the relatively low number of bloggers that show interest in generated leads. I can’t tell if they are truly rejecting or just aren’t logging into their Sponzai often enough to click the “I’m Interested” link.
As you can see from the image above I was able to purchase 32 guest posts with my $100 which averages to about $3.12 cents per post, and you can find some blogs listed in the system with PageRank 2 or better with thousands of listed Alexa backlinks and still be able to purchase guest posts for only $2 or $3. The most I paid was about $6 for a single sponsored guest post, the least I paid was $1 for a sponsored guest post.
Though every single link in a sponsored guest post is “nofollow” I think sponsored guest posts are a good way to get your name, brand and company out there. If you are selling a product, you are able to mention it with a link to purchase it inside your guest post so there is a good chance you can see a ROI that far outweights the initial cost of advertising. I wasn’t selling a product per se, but instead promoting my blogs and articles in the hopes it would drive more traffic which would lead to more revenue indirectly from AdSense, better Alexa which leads to better advertiser opps…etc.
Considering that purchasing a guest post is a lifelong post on the blog itself it is a steal to be able to purchase entire guest posts for the $1 – $2 range for some of these blogs, I think that some bloggers are underpricing their worth considerably. This is good for the advertisers however and you can get some decent blogs for low cost. However, I would strongly urge to visit the blog before you decide to purchase a guest post, because anyone can list their blog on Sponzai and there is no qualification process you can find some pretty low quality blogs listed that you may not want to advertise on.
- What I do is start a campaign and generate leads
- Every 24 hours I see how many people are interested and I visit the sites and extend an offer
- Every 24 hours after that I check back in and repeat the process and review the guest posts that were completed and ready for approval.
- Repeat process until I have used up all of my funds.
- Occasionally I will mix it up and write a few extra campaigns so the same post isn’t being repeated over and over on so many blogs.
Summary:
I enjoyed using Sponzai as an advertiser, and even though the links are nofollow, I had Google Alerts notify me of some backlinks from some of the sponsored posts (some blogs must override the nofollow or something). It was fun to be able to hire 32 bloggers to host guest posts and not pay an actual dime out of my own pocket, but this is a service I would pay for when I start bringing in more blog revenue and have more of an advertising budget. It is definitely a service I would use if I actually had a product to sell and promote.
Related posts:
- Testing Sponzai as an Advertiser Sponzai is a service that lets bloggers get paid for hosting guest posts on their blog. Advertisers can buy "posts"...
- Sponzai – IZEA Launches a Sponsored Guest Post Service IZEA the fantastic company that brought bloggers PayPerPost, SocialSpark, SponsoredTweets has a new service called Sponzai that just launched. ...
- Looking for Guest Bloggers – Inquire Within Guest Blogging is something that increases your exposure to other blog readers as a writer, it is a symbiotic relationship...
- Dragon Blogger Earnings for November 2009 Earnings summary for Dragon Blogger for November 2009 which shows you which blogging programs work the best for me and...
- Would You Pay For Blog Content? Would you purchase blog posts or pay for blog content articles on your site? Why sell written articles to bloggers...
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Tags: advertise with sponzai, advertise your blog, advertising on sponzai, advertising with sponzai, being a guest blogger, being paid by guest blogging, blog earning programs, earn money with blogs, Earning with Blogs, hiring bloggers, hiring guest bloggers, izea sponzai, make money blogging, paid for blog posts, review of izea sponzai, review of sponzai, selling blog slots, selling blog space, selling your blog posts, sponzai for advertisers, sponzai review, using sponzai, why use sponzai
December 23rd, 2009 at 8:41 am
Hi Justin, I was one of the bloggers that took one of your sponzai opps.
I think one of the reasons there wasn’t a lot of response on leads might be due to sponzai not sending out timely emails to bloggers when leads appear. I would have to actually log-in to sponzai to see if there are any leads each day.
also, there’s some bug where a lead would constantly appear on the page every time you’d log in even though I responded to it the day before.
I’m sure they’ll iron it out soon.
anyway, take care and happy holidays!
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December 23rd, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Yes, they did have that bug where leads would constantly appear over and over. IZEA announced they fixed that bug yesterday, and PPP V4 and SPONZAI won’t be sending emails, they require you to login daily to check leads. Annoying but true.
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December 23rd, 2009 at 10:22 pm
Thanks for the visit to my site and your comment. I really like the look and balance of your site. Great information. Was looking forward to seeing your review of the AVATAR movie. You really have to check it out in 3D. Actually it was good that you saw it first in 2D so that you will appreciate the 3D effect even more. Again thanks for the comment. I always return the favor and dropped a card on you also. Great site! Take care. ;o)
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December 23rd, 2009 at 11:03 pm
Do a search on my blog for Avatar, to read my avatar review, let me know what you think of it. The direct URL is here: http://www.dragonblogger.com/dragon-blogger-review-of-avatar/
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December 25th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Thanks for the review Justin. I do see how that would be good for exposure and branding but I would be much more interested if it was do follow links. In my opinion, I think you could go the digital point and get better value and a better ROI for the that $100.
Tycoon Blogger @promote your blog´s last blog ..Merry Christmas from Tycoon Blogger
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December 25th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Stay tuned, I am about to show you what $100 bought me with Google AdSense, will target the post on 12/29.
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December 25th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
Ic guess I’m a little confused as to why you would pay for guest posts to begin with, AND with no follow links?
Dennis Edell´s last blog ..EMERGENCY POST – MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer plugin might be DEFECTIVE!
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December 26th, 2009 at 8:23 am
In most cases this benefits companies or bloggers trying to release a news story and getting it published on many blogs, but this could also be used to sell a product or promote your own site. As I said, I just tested and used the service and it benefits bloggers by having the links nofollow it doesn’t hurt your SEO.
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February 8th, 2010 at 1:00 pm
Good article, especially as you talked about the process of how it worked from your perspective but even more how you managed the campaign as it developed.
Having worked through similar campaigns in PPP over a year ago when the idea was still in concept state, I am very keen on the evolution of this service.
All that said, I think that Izea may be suffering from too much diffusion. As both an advertiser and a blogger myself, I think things would be much easier to manage with all the service offerings located in a single website, ergo pick a business and stick with it!
I suspect this would give Advertisers more visibility to bloggers and it would increase the success levels of communications with only one place to log in. Not to mention as an advertiser looking to launch a campaign myself (this month) I don’t know if I should park my money in SS, PPP, Sponzai, SponsoredTweets or any of the other companies that compete with Izea. It was hard enough tracking PPP knockoffs, but 5 times as hard now that Izea has knocked itself off.
Brett Bumeter´s last blog ..Artisteer 2.4 with Vertical Menus & Flash Headers Available
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February 8th, 2010 at 1:40 pm
You make excellent points Brett and a good example of this is how SocialSpark CPC campaign virtually disintegrated with the introduction of SponsoredTweets. I also think IZEA which bills you as one company for your W2, should make the funds from all “services” combine into a single area, so that $50 collected from any of the services and they can issue a withdrawal, instead of having to accrue $50 on each service in order to withdraw funds. This makes it really hard to get a withdrawal from Sponzai which has much fewer opps than other programs.
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