Bloggers and brands: who is responsible for ROI?

That guy calling up to complain about not getting any traffic from his banner ad is akin to advertising in the Yellow Pages then calling them to complain that no one is calling from the ad.

Many advertisers are in unchartered waters when trying to leverage their brand via advertising / sponsorship relationships with bloggers. Rather than looking for unrealistic levels of accountability, they should be thinking of creative ways to partner with bloggers that give some benefit to the blog’s readership, and not simply slap your banner ads in front of what you hope to be an engaged and relevant audience.

Nice post Hannah and nice to meet you at Blogopolis. Shame though there weren’t more brands in attendance.

People who attended @LadyMelbourne’s presentation at Blogopolis on putting together a media kit were advised to always include very detailed terms and conditions, that might also include a disclosure statement and your position on editorial approval over content and images. They could also include how many times you might tweet or promote the item/post on Facebook etc. You can only guarantee your actions, not the response.

Great post Hannah!
Glad to see that there are PR’s who think of this like we do. That advertising never guarentee’s a response or sales, it’s a way of getting your name out there, on someone’s radar and hopefully someone takes the risk and dives in.
A blogger cannot make people react to sponsored content (ad’s, sponsored posts, reviews). I feel as long as they do their best to represent the company in a good light and to encourage their readers to look into that company to make a decision for themselves then they’ve upheld their end of the deal.
This is how advertising works.
Would a company really call up a magazine or television station after taking an ad out with them because sales did not increase? I think not.

thanks for this post – insightful read.

A great post! This is something that I have worried about with selling advertising on my website. Online advertising the stats are transparent as far as traffic goes but not brand awareness which builds even without clicks.

Good piece Hannah. I agree its absolutely up to the advertiser to work with bloggers to come up with a creative solution that will engage readers. Bloggers merely provide an appropriate platform for brands to launch from.

Hi Hannah! Thanks for writing an informative post about bloggers and advertising. It is often a grey area and not much discussion on a public forum for australian bloggers. I believe in forthcoming and upfront with potential sponsors. I do agree with miss pink. print media advertising do not guarantee new sales either.. and they often require a significant amount of investment. i think sponsors should uphold the same respect towards bloggers as they would towards magazines and other mainstream advertising channels.

And it was nice to meet you at blogopolis 🙂 xo emily

Great post, Hannah. Some straight forward advice for something that is a bit like straight forward media-relations.

Thanks Hannah. Great tips. Feels like this sort of process is really lacking in the industry at the moment.

It is really important to remember that Bloggers have priorities & very busy schedules – brands can’t possibly expect to be serviced at the level they are used to.

Thanks again,

Totally agree and it’s nice to see people on the same page here.