Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Yet another milestone

It seems that Loonies And Sense is growing up. I have a small pool of loyal RSS subscribers, Google Analytics shows a steady flow of new visits coming in, and I've even been tagged to participate in a meme. Well, today it's official, because I've had an actual "advertising inquiry" e-mail.

Here's the text of the e-mail:
Hello,

I’ve recently looked over your site and believe that your reader-base and visitors might be a possible advertising venue for us.

I am interested in traditional link advertising as well as using link “blurbs” on certain pages of your site, or on certain articles – perhaps even submitting articles. This includes but is not limited to purchasing a post also. We are open to any idea that would allow us to capture interested readers, but would prefer to avoid the traditional “Ads by Google” and “Sponsored Links” sections.

Please let me know if you’d be open to discussing advertising possibilities further.

Thanks in advance,
Julie
National Techmark
In August, Interesting Money wrote about an advertising inquiry of his own, and his response to it. I tend to agree with his view on this subject. I'm not against monetizing Loonies And Sense, but the idea of an advertiser "submitting articles" does not sit well with me.

What do you think? Have you received this sort of request? How did you respond?

11 comments:

Traciatim said...

As long as you do something like late night TV and have a disclaimer I don't see the harm in making a little money off your website.

Why not just have a standard intro of "The following is a paid advertisement from our sponsors, XYZ Company".

paidtwice said...

exact email a while back. I chose to ignore it because I don't have advertising in my content but I don't think doing it is a bad thing. :)

Welcome to the high pressure world of determining what advertising fits in your blog scheme :)

FourPillars said...

I got the same email. I corresponded with the guy a few times since they mentioned they might be interested in link ads (which I'd be ok with) but oddly enough as soon as I mentioned that I wouldn't do sponsored posts, I never heard from them again.

Maybe they just lost my email?? :)

Mike

SavingDiva said...

I've never received anything, but congrats! Why not make a little money from your blog to put toward your debt?

Tim Stobbs said...

I talked talked to them and cut them a deal. I write the post and I get to be honest with my opinions. They can provide their thoughts on the post, but I retain full editorial control.

I asked for a fair amount of money and was surprised when they agreed to it.

Post will be up next week so you can judge me if I sold out or not.

Tim

Anonymous said...

Interesting comments. I had the same email and assumed it was junk.

The fact that someone has actually been paid is interesting.

I must say that the product pay check loans is a dodgy one. They must have paid a lot to Canadian Dream to do this although his comments are balanced.

Amanda said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Amanda said...

I just got the same email. I'm going to wait and see how that works out for Tim from Canadian Dream...

Heather Hernandez said...

I got the same e-mail. That's how I found this blog, I did a Google search to find out more about the company. My personal opinion is that if they don't have a website they wish to share with me about their company, then I want nothing to do with them and are sending their e-mail to the SPAM folder!

Kacie said...

Hi there! I just got that e-mail as well, and that's how I found your blog. Glad I did--it looks cool!

Anyway, I figured it was a payday loan company. I think those companies are as unethical as they come, so I won't be selling ad space on my site.

Kathryn Lang said...

Either this company fell off the earth for a while or has just located my website.

I got the email today and have found nothing positive about the company. I'm off to Tim's site to see if I can find anything out.