Selling Ad Space with a Little Help from Your Friends

I’ve recently had a bit of luck selling ad space thanks to some referrals from a few of my online buddies and I thought I’d share the idea just in case it’s not something you’ve thought of yet…

Basically, a few months ago, an online buddy of mine who’s been in this business about the same time as I have got in touch with this idea. It’s a simple one but it’s proven to be pretty lucrative and it wasn’t something I’d already thought of myself. Basically, when someone buys ad space from my friend, he’ll suggest to the advertiser that they check out my sites and they give them my email address. Maybe the advertiser will get in touch and maybe they won’t, but the possibility is there. I then get an email from my friend telling me to keep an eye out for an email from the advertiser in the hopes we can pull off a deal.

In the past I’ve had people approach me asking for contact details of my advertisers in exchange for some of theirs. I’ve always felt uneasy about just giving away contact details and I’ve never been the type to email potential advertisers out of the blue so this model hasn’t ever really worked for me. But I don’t see anything wrong with suggesting new, quality sites to my advertisers that they might not already know about. It seems like most SEO people want to know about as many good sites that accept ads as they can so it probably makes their job a little bit easier.

The advantage for my online buddies and I are easy to see. Not only do we get new advertising contacts and potential deals, but the person who sends the referral also takes a little bonus for themselves. Money for nothing, really. The arrangement we have in place is 20% of the total sale. So if I refer an advertiser to my friend and he does a yearly deal for $1000, that’s a very easy $200 for me.

So far I’ve actually been doing very little referring myself and have instead been paying out a well-deserved 20% on several recent sales. This means a bit out of my pocket now but it’s on sales I otherwise would have never had. I’m really happy with the way this is working for me and would suggest finding some people to partner with in an attempt to reach out to more possible advertisers. Try to find people with sites similar to your own who already appear to have a good number of advertisers. Maybe 20% works for you, maybe you’re happy just referring for free and hoping they send some referrals your way or maybe you have some other model in mind – but I think partnering up with other internet marketers is a smart way to maximise your advertising potential.

I’m happy with the few partners I have in place and I’m not looking for any more just now, but I really think this idea has a lot of potential. Am I late to the party with this? Is this something people have been doing for awhile and I’m only just learning about it now? Have you tried this sort of arrangement and has it worked for you?

I’d be curious to hear about what you think of this idea and whether or not you’ve tried it yourself. Good luck!

About Kirsty