Tricia of Tricia’s Musing’s wrote a post describing PPP Direct, and, interestingly, got a response from Jarrod of Sponsored Reviews.
Tricia posts reviews for both Pay Per Post and Sponsored Reviews, and Jared is concerned that advertisers at Sponsored Reviews will check her blog out, notice she accepts reviews for $20 and then negotiate directly through PPP direct. He then wonders:
We spend a lot of money promoting the blogs in our system and sending you guys work.
Any suggestions? am I crazy to think that we should not continue sending you advertisers?
I thought about this for a bit, and I have to say: I don’t think Jarrod is crazy.
I think Sponsored Reviews is threatened by the existence of PPP Direct. Advertisers will check out a blog before accepting bids, see that a blogger also uses PPP Direct and try to negotiate that way. Advertisers will do this because it’s in their interest to do so.
So, Jared really does have something to worry about. But, this is what happens in the free market.
This means that Jared needs to figure out what to do and rather quickly.
However, the correct response is not to deal with Tricia, or any individual blogger, personally. The correct response is to talk to his legal reps and figure out whether or not to change his TOS. Likely he can change them to prohibit bloggers from posting “hire me” type advertising on their blog. He could require them to display Sponsored Reviews advertising. He could do any number of things including keeping the TOS as they currently are: That is, permit bloggers to post PPP direct badges and still participate in Sponsored Reviews.
But the deal is this: Whatever he does, he need to put this in his TOS and require it of all participants.
Of course, whatever Jarrod does, Sponsored Reviews’ TOS will make his program either more or less attractive to both bloggers and advertisers. If the new TOS prohibit PPP Direct, each blogger will then need to decide whether they prefer PPP Direct or Sponsored Reviews. Which program they select will depend on both how much money they think they can make with either program and how easy the programs are to use.
Honestly, I don’t know what Jarrod should decide about his TOS. If he prohibits bloggers from posting PPP Direct ads, he risks losing lots of bloggers; if he permits it he risks advertisers going directly to bloggers. These are risks he’s going to have to weigh and decide.
It’s a tough call.
But, strangely, I do have two cents for Jarrod, and they have little to do with his TOS. Here’s my two cents: Jarrod should imitate PPP and regularly offer opportunties for bloggers to post reviews about Sponsored Reviews. He would gain two things this way: 1) He’ll get feedback on whether or not the system is convenient for bloggers and 2) The blog readers will learn of the existence of Sponsored reviews. Some of those readers are advertisers– some are publishers. Jared needs to get the word out to both.
One of the big reasons PPP is winning is they are getting a huge number of Posties on board and the Posties are describing the program because PPP periodically advertises using their own system: PPP. It happens that many posties are happy because they joined, landed an opp within a 24 hour period and they actually got paid less than 32 days after they first joined. These happy posties are sharing information voluntarily and also because PPP periodically advertises themselves using their own service.
In the long run, Posties talking about PPP will also bring in advertisers who otherwise would never have heard of PPP. Bloggiers posting about Sponsored Reviews would bring similar benefits to Sponsored Reviews. But if Sponsored Reviews is advertising, I haven’t seen the ads– and I suspect I would because I read blogs that post for Sponsored Reviews.
Jarrod needs to demonstrate his confidence in Sponsored Reviews by using his own service to advertise Sponsored Reviews.
Great post Lucia. You brought up a lot of valid points, many of which I had also considered.
I’m sure that a lot of the paid blogging companies will feel a little bit threatened by PPP direct, but first and foremost it will be the ones with marketplaces that allow advertisers to look at the bloggers sites who are listed in their system.
I set my price at $20 as an experiment to see if I would get any PPP Direct offers. Remember PPP direct is only 8 days old as of today. I think a lot of PPP bloggers likely put up PPP direct badges so that they too could see if they’d have any luck at getting an offer.
I have absolutely no intention of keeping my price at $20 for much longer. In fact, I might change my price later today.
Each week that goes by I get more and more private offers to write reviews on my sites. It’s for that very reason that I embraced the idea of PPP direct. I like the idea of a middleman. It’s good for bloggers and advertisers in that there’s a system in place to ensure that both parties are happy and that the blogger does in fact get paid when the review is accepted. When you do private deals there’s no guarantee that a blogger will be paid unless they demand payment in advance, and if they do will the advertiser be happy with the final product? Who knows. At least with PPP direct you can negotiate back and forth with PPP as a mediator if necessary.
I’ve been getting private offers for longer than Sponsored Reviews has been around. Where these advertisers come from I don’t know. In most cases I’ve never seen any of them advertise on any of the paid blogging sites that I work with, so by allowing them to deal with me through PPP direct I’m in no way taking business away from a paid blogging company.
While there is a chance that bloggers who are listed at companies like ReviewMe and SR that have marketplaces for advertisers to browse, that an advertiser might decide to not make a deal with the blogger through the company that they originally found the blogger on … I think that the majority of my PPP direct offers, if I continue to get some, will come from the advertisers who have been finding me through other means.
I feel singled out by Jarrods comments on my blog, kind of like the guinea pig in all this.
It’s not me that he needs to deal with … it’s PPP direct.
Very good point.
I got private offers before I joined PPP — which was the first for pay like service I joined.
I’m also suspect quite a few Sponsored Review publishers have figured out they can contact bloggers personally even without PPP Direct badges. Bloggers have comments and “about me” emails displayed, so why wouldn’t some advertiser contant them?
So, that will be something Jarrod is going to need to think about with his model for linking bloggers and advertisers.
I can understand how you feel singled out– though, that may not be Jarrod’s intention. He may have just gotten upset when he recognized the threat PPP Direct will have. Then, he wrote using the pronoun “you”, meaning “all you bloggers” rather than “you, Tricia”.
In any case, we’ll see what he does. Whatever he does, it does need to happen through his TOS, and he does need to think about the fact that even without PPP Direct, his advertisers can identify the bloggers and contact them directly. Some probably do– because that’s in their interest.
When I originally signed up for Sponsored Reviews, they had one sponsored reviews offer which they rejected. No negotition or anything. I wouldn’t mind writing about them — I just want to get paid for it. We’ll see if they try that again. I doubt they will though.
I assure you it has nothing to do with confidence. It has everything to do with not having 3 million in venture capital.
Fair enough Jarrod!
Honestly, I sympathize with your position. But it is something you will have to deal with.
Yep,
I wish we could compete with PPP, dollar for dollar, but you are right, it is something we have to deal with and we are doing the best we can.
As long as we can continue to make bloggers money and put pressure on PPP as a competitor, it is good for everyone.
I would love to see bloggers start rooting for the small guy
PPP Direct is a direct response to pressure they are getting from both Reviewme and Us. If PPP didn’t have competition they wouldnt be so quick to offer new programs like this.
Thanks for the support!