Question

Topic: Other

Company Paying For A Link On My Sites?

Posted by Anonymous on 6/17/2009 at 11:45 AM ET 250 Points
Maybe this happens often, but this is a weird request I have received.

A company contacted me and wants me to place a link, with narrative to their site/products on my retail site. (I have a pet-health site also.) The products are pet urns/memorials. Most of my company's products are pet related, the pet sympathy gifts/gift baskets category being the largest.

I checked out this company's site and their products and am most happy to add their information, with the stipulation that my retail site be given a reciprocal link on theirs. I'd like to promote my business as well!

Right off the bat in their inquiry e-mail, they offered to pay me for my allowing this link on my site. I said, No need for payment, happy to do this, here's the link request to fill out, let me know how I can fill out a request for them to provide my information on their site.

Well, they say they do not provide reciprocal links -- although they have MANY other companies' links, none like mine -- can we (again) pay you.

Seems like people would rather have something for free than paying for it, but what do I know. Anyone ever encounter something like this? How much could I expect them to pay me to advertise for them, which they will do directly through Paypal or Google?

Any input?
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RESPONSES

  • Posted by michael on 6/17/2009 at 11:49 AM Accepted
    Jean,
    I can see why they wouldn't want your link on thiers. There are many pet gift stores and they (I think I know who these guys are) are selling nationwide. They would hurt their sales if they allowed yours and nobody else's.

    I have this situation for another client. What you might want to do is charge them $250 for 3 months. And then, when you are generating lots of sales for them, re-ask.

    Michael
  • Posted by Gary Bloomer on 6/17/2009 at 12:58 PM Accepted
    Dear Jbrudd,

    By advertising on your site this company is cutting its CPC (cost per click) rate because the people they'd be getting from you are more highly qualified in terms of their willingness to buy.

    Their rate of return will be measured not only by the amount they save by paying you, but also by what they'd be paying Google. Google's current rate for the search term "pet urns" which currently has 27,100 monthly searches is $2.15 PER CLICK!

    To find out how many visitors this other site gets, go to www.quantcast.com and copy the name of their website into the main search box.

    If this company is listed, those jolly nice people at Quantcast will give you all kinds of facts and figures about the site in question, not least of which will be a pretty hard number on its monthly visitation, from which you'll be able to figure out click to sale conversion rate (the average website conversion rate is around 2 - 3 percent for specialist sales).

    You could place a call to the company and ask them what their average sale is. True, they might not tell you, but you might just get lucky.

    Multiple their average sale by their averge conversion rate and you've got a good idea of the worth to them of advertising on your site.

    I know of other sites that charge (and get) at least $100 per month for one little banner ad placed on their website.

    Personally, I believe contextual, text style ads work better than banners because they're more likely to be clicked on when someone's reading an article. People suffer from banner blindness.

    If you're not comfortable asking for $100 per month, ask them what their rate is. If you feel like it, offer them contextual. text ads, but charge more.

    If these people want to give you money (monthly revenue) you could always do it on a month to month basis, or set up a short contract that's renewable every quarter, with rates to be renegotiated every six months, or every year. If they go for it, the revenue generated could be used to advertise your site somewhere else, so you each win.

    The big question is, can you afford to turn revenue away?

    I hope this helps.

    Gary Bloomer
    Wilmington, DE, USA


  • Posted on 6/17/2009 at 8:24 PM Author
    Thanks, all, for your responses. I've yet to hear back from this company, so I don't know what they've decided to do. Very interesting!

    - Jean
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