When in the course of blog events it becomes necessary for one writer to dissolve the advertising bands which have connected her with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's dog entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of wo/man-kind requires that she should declare the causes which impel her to the separation.
Okay, that's a little belabored. But, as of today, I've dropped the BlogHer ad widget from my blog.
I originally signed up for their ad program thinking that it would a) provide a little pocket money and b) drive a little traffic via the links to other blogs in the network. I also thought - misguidedly - that running the ads, with the implicit signal that I'd been approved by the network, was a form of validation - you like me, you really like me!
In point of fact, the BlogHer widget does diddly squat as to traffic, and made my whole site load slowly. The income isn't worth the trouble - and on a real estate basis, dollars per pixel, the few other ads I've sold have paid a lot more. Furthermore, the contract with BlogHer constrained me as to some content - not that I really care to do any sponsored posts; I just don't like being told what not to do. There's also the issue of the ads themselves - given my earthy-crunchy eco-frugal nature, what the fuck was I doing running ads for Olive Garden and Hellman's mayo and Tyson Foods and Venus razors?
My blog gets a reasonable amount of traffic; no, I'm not The Bloggess, but people read and comment and read and don't comment. And frankly, the amount of traffic is fine; I'm not hoping to quit my day job because I'm not using this as much more than an outlet for me, for the things I think about.
Just so you understand how ridiculously small the income stream was, in the six month period from June 2011 to November 2011, I earned a grand total of $26.48 - enough to buy um, not much. And BlogHer owes me about that much for the seven month period that just ended, meaning that the monthly average has actually gone down. If I were Anna Viele, I might go into enormous detail about this and ad sizes and that and conspiracy theories, but I'm not. Suffice it to say, it wasn't worth it.
So I finally pulled the plug. Hallelujah!
13 comments:
I admit that my first thought was, "hey! $26! That's a lot of coffee!" :-)
Because I'm totally NOT eco-crunchy, that would buy me 4 of my white-chocolate mochas, double espresso, with soy. Plus, I have probably found that much in change doing laundry for the past six months and then WRITING about doing laundry.
Good for you.
I do no advertising because it's just not worth thinking about.
I can't believe BlogHer hasn't pulled my ads for me, since I've been so lax about posting. Seems like they're clinging rather desperately to everyone they still have.
Very good reasoning there sister! Sorry I have been so lame and failed to stop by for awhile.
Hope all is well with you.
That's reasonable. I feel more free since I took my BlogHer ads down. Too much space for too little money was how I felt about it.
Woo hoo you are not a sell out any more :P It is so much work monetizing a blog, you might as well be working a full time job.
If Blogher knew that you can transfer shrubbery they wouldn't mess with you at all. Just sayin.'
I am one of those people who never sees the ads. Which is why the Facebook IPO was particularly intriguing to me. Good on you! Now, what goodies did you get at the farmer's market!?
Ha ha! A post about blog ads that actually amused me! A first! Congratulations.
Thank you for sharing this. I keep seeing the BlogHer frame show up on more and more blogs and it makes many of them a pain to load. I was wondering what was the background behind that whole arrangement. Happy you're happy!
Happy Independence!
About 4 years ago, I tried to pulled the plug on BlogHerAds. For the real estate, income and the stipulation that it had to be above the fold, it was a ridiculously bad ad network.
But when I tried to pull the plug, they cajoled me into keeping it. And then the BlogHer wagon started rolling, first a Contributing Editor gig, and then speaking at BlogHer '09 (I actually can't remember which came first). So now I'm part of the BlogHer family and can't extract myself anymore. The one nice thing is that their reviewer program pays pretty well and *almost* makes up for the dismal ad revenue.
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