Working on your blog? Spend countless hours creating generally awesome content? Have a loyal readership? Well if the answers to all these questions is a resounding yes then you may be at that stage.
You know the stage, the stage to add advertisements to your blog. Like them or loathe them as a reader or perhaps as a blogger in general they are your lifeblood.
So what do you do? Do you plaster your blog with Google Adsense like a 5 year old kid decorating the Christmas tree? You could do that, however that would alienate your readership though wouldn’t it? The very same you have taken so long to build up.
Well there is a way you can offer discrete advertising on a per blog post or indeed per page basis. Wouldn’t it be nice to offer an unobtrusive way to advertise? One that wouldn’t upset your readers.
Say Hello To The Article Sponsorship Plugin
If the idea of Adsense makes you shudder or 125 x 125 box ads makes you squeal then you would do well to take a look at the Article Sponsorship plugin on CodeCanyon. Why? It’s a great way to allow readers (potential advertisers) to sponsor a blog post. It’s available to buy on CodeCanyon for $14.00
Installing Article Sponsorship Plugin
Well what do you get for your $14.00? Which incidentally is a relatively small amount for adding a new revenue stream to your WordPress blog. Installing the Article Sponsorship plugin is as easy as you would expect. Upload via the WordPress back end or upload via FTP through your FTP client of choice.
Article Sponsorship Settings Page
The above shows you what you will be greeted with when clicking on the newly added Sponsorship menu which appears in your WordPress admin sidebar. I have deliberately cut the screen shot off as there are more settings to change.
- Sponsorship mode: We have a few things to change around here. We can choose to show the Sponsorship box (more on that later) on every single post or if you have some very popular posts you might want to consider using the shortcode method.
- Sponsorship Fee: How much do you want to charge for a link on your blog? Well here you can set your charge rate for each sponsored post.
- Sponsors per article: How many links do you want to show at the bottom of your blog post? You choose, maybe best to keep it to a minimum 😉
- Sponsorship period in days: How long do you want the sponsors text link to show for? Enter in a number of days till it expires.
- Sponsor box title: Type in the text you wish to be shown to people at the base of your blog post. Make it catchy.
- Terms & Conditions: Here you might like to go into detail. Why not tell people what they will be getting for there $$$. Add in some conditions like no certain types of websites etc.
Email Settings For Your Sponsored Blog Posts
Well as you can see you can choose the email for notifications, the sender name, sender email, email subject and of course a nice thank you message. Here you could add in some terms and maybe a “we are processing your sponsorship, please be aware any violation of our terms will see your ad deleted.” Or something like that.
We also have a failed transaction message, so if for whatever reason your potential advertisers transaction has indeed failed you can let them now and of course what you are doing about it. Nice feature.
What About Payment Options?
Well thankfully the Article Sponsorship WordPress plugin supports four different payment options. At your disposal are Paypal, Payza, Skrill and lastly InterKassa. All can be accepted via a tick box and filling in the appropriate details.
What Does The Sponsorship Plugin Look Like On A Blog?
As the above shows this is what greets people at the base of a blog post. Whether you have elected to display site wide or indeed via shortcode this is what they will inevitably see. Changing the text to make it more alluring will make it standard out to potentially interested parties. All the while not upsetting current readers.
If a possible advertiser clicks on the “become our first sponsor” box the above slides into view. Clearly defined from the outset we have Sponsor title, email and of course website url. You will also note the “I agree with the Terms & Conditions” hyperlink. (see below)
The image above shows you what users will see if they click on the Terms & Conditions link. Here you will see the information you have entered in via the administration of the plugin, so it kind of pays to enter in as much as you can to ensure you get that all important sponsor.
How Does It Look To Your Readers?
It’s not in your face is it? It’s really quite discreet when compared to a banner advert. With the right copy message above it it could entice readers to click on the links and of course encourage advertisers as well.
Tracking & Management Of Sponsored Posts
Thankfull the Article Sponsorship plugin allows you to add advertisers via the WordPress back end. Which is incredibly useful if you have been approached by an advertiser who wants specifics and of course you have negotiated a different rate for advertising.
Managing Your Advertisers
Via the admin menu that’s added to your WordPress site you can click on “sponsors” this will throw up the above screenshot. Here is your command center for vetoing adverts, disapproving them and of course checking up on what is due to run out and more.
It’s a great way to get a snap shot of who is adverting what on your website and administer pending and delete those who ignore your terms and conditions.
Verdict On Article Sponsorship WordPress Plugin
It’s a great plugin for adding discrete adverts to your WordPress powered blog. It does have some great features and as an advertiser it’s incredibly easy to use. Payment is a breeze and it’s a piece of cake to install and of course administer.
However. For me it lacks a couple of options, let me explain. Text links are great and if you only want to accept text links then that’s great this plugin is for YOU. However it would have been nice to allow an image based advert, perhaps choose from a number of different sizes etc.
Also it would have been nice to have more than one option for advertising. By this I mean having a drop down menu on the interface to choose whether to advertise for 30 days, 60 or 1 year. It would help sales dramatically with a sliding scale of payments.
No tracking. Advertisers like to track everything they do (trust me I work in marketing!) not having a report function on clicks etc may well deter some advertisers from using your sponsored blog post. As they possibly cannot be bothered to go through the hassle of reporting themselves via a shortlink service such as bit.ly etc.
However. As a text link advertising method allowing you to keep all of the revenue (less the payment providers cut) this little plugin is a great addition to your blog. It’s functional and easy to use and definitely worth a look and $14.00 it’s not going to break the bank.
So if you want to add text link adverts to your WordPress blog and keep a majority of the revenue the Article Sponsorship plugin is definitely worth an investment.
» Full Details & Download | Demo
- Article Sponsorship Plugin Review – Discrete Ads For Your Blog - 8 January, 2015
