Make Some Money Bloggin!

By Mandi • 09/13/2011

I have been getting TONS of emails from all of ya’ll lately! I am really excited and honored that you think that I am awesome enough to help you out! If you have emailed me and havent heard back please don’t give up on me! I am trying my hardest.

So today I have decided to update a really popular post that I wrote about how I personally make money blogging. I hope that it can answer some of your questions because I personally believe that everyone who puts energy into a blog can be compensated financially. All of these networks do not care if you have 6000 followers or if its just you and your mom that read.

There are a lot of things I wish I knew when I started blogging. Making money was not something that I worried about. But once I understood that I could make some extra money and not feel like I was compromising my blog integrity it made my life lots easier! (Cause lets face it, room makeovers take some mulah!)

Wouldn’t it be the perfect situation if you could promote products that you love, have the companies appreciate your work, have your readers not feel like they are reading a commercial and make some spending money?

That’s my perfect situation. It’s a win win and everyone comes out on top.

The route that I have chosen to take is with ad networks.

Have you ever heard of an ad network? There are lots of different ones out there. They pay different ways and do things differently. I am part of 3 so here is the low down on them. Also when you are a part of more than one you get more opportunities coming your way! So sign up for all of them! The common thread with all of these companies is that they want you to share YOUR opinion 100%.

Social Spark is an ad network where you write blog posts about a certain company or subject.

I Love Social Spark because you set your price and then they send you offers from all different types of companies. You can either accept or decline the offer. You have no obligation to post something that isn’t in line with your content. They tell you in advance how much each campaign is worth. They range anywhere from $5.00 to hundreds. They work with a lot of large reputable brands and have AMAZING customer (blogger) service.

Because they have such a wide offering you just have to make sure that you are blogging with what you feel comfortable with. I get offers daily from Social Spark. Most have nothing to do with my blog so I don’t accept them. You can determine yourself what is right for your blog. I just choose to keep mine on the topic of my niche.

Every single successful blogger that I know is signed up with Social Spark.

Rivit is an ad network that runs banner ads on your sidebar.

Rivit pays per CPM which means that each ad that runs has a set price for every 1000 times the ad is viewed. The ads have a CPM of between $.40 and $4.00 depending on the campaign. Unlike Google Adsense it is not based on a CTR (Click Through Rate) though the higher your CTR is the better ads you get… Basically you are doing nothing, other than putting the HTML on your sidebar. And you guys should know that I am a big relationship builder, and they have the cutest girl running the show over there that I adore named Stacy. She is pretty much wonder woman.

The one thing that can be confusing sometimes is exactly HOW the CPM works. CPM is based on impressions (so every time your page is viewed) Ad networks run different ads throughout the day in the same banner. You are paid for each time a specific ad is viewed. If you were running a campaign that had a $2.00 CPM and it was exclusively that ad you would make a lot. Usually ads with really high CPMs have priority to your readers, meaning that they are the first ones seen but with Rivit they usually have a cap on the # of times an IP can view it in a 24 hour period. Because the ads are always changing your CPM will fluctuate daily. One thing to maximize your profit with a company like Rivit is to know when a high paying ad is running (they send you an email when this is happening) and make sure that you have GREAT content that day, things that will be tweeted and FB a lot sending more traffic to your site. Does that sort of make sense? That is what I understand at least, if I am wrong feel free to correct me!

Clever Girls is the third company that I am a part of. They are kind of a combo of the first two. In that there are sponsored posts and you can apply to be a part of their sidebar ad network

The Ladies that run Clever Girls are HILARIOUS. They are like the cool funny girls that want to be friends with everyone. Seriously I laugh out loud at the newsletters and tweets they send out with the opportunities. If you want to participate you reply to the email. The first time I ran this post there were a few people that signed up with Clever Girls (I don’t know how many). Instead of sending me a tweet or an email saying thank you, they sent me a HANDWRITTEN thank you card. I didn’t even know that was possible anymore! It just shows you the character behind these awesome ladies.

I recently was accepted into their Style Buzz network so I will keep you guys posted!

So there are a few ways to contribute to your thrifting/grocery fund.

And here is the best part. They all look for blogs that are big and small!!

So click over and sign up! Even if your blog is small and you only make $50 that’s like a whole new dresser people!

And in the policy of full disclosure I have not been asked or compensated by any of the above companies to blog about this subject. I just wish that someone would have showed me when I started!