Hi there,

I received an email from a random person asking if they can advertise on my blog. I will attach the email. It seems valid to me. I just want others opinions. Does this seem valid to you?

Hi Cherish,
My name is Laura, and I currently have a client (an online retailer of wholesale clothing) for which I am looking to acquire advertising on quality websites such as yours. We've had a look at cherishscupoftea.blogspot.com and think that it would be a good match for our client, whose target demographic is similar to your own.

We would be interested in purchasing advertising in the form of a text-based link on your site. To reduce unnecessary admin and hassle, we prefer to pay a fixed annual upfront fee for such advertisements. Once the ad has been placed, payment can be made quickly by PayPal or Check.

If this is something you would be interested in, please let me know.

Thanks in advance!

Laura (Last name removed)

Great! Congrats!
You will need to have a Tax ID to properly claim it on taxes a legitimate business will report it on theirs.
For our website we go by impressions (page views)
Our monthly traffic is about 30,000, A lot charge from $6-8 per 1,000 impressions (ours is closer to $15)
I would see what she has to offer. Then consider your traffic and do the math. As a private blog I wouldn't expect as much but you may finagle the price up.
If you do bite, and get a tax ID, you may as well make a couple places available for advertising and get some cash flow going!

Well, that's part of the thing. I don't really get much traffic to my blog. So I'm wondering why they are emailing ME.

But thank you for the info, that's very helpful!

They probably don't know your real traffic though. I would see what she has to offer anyway. Or not bother if you don't want to mess with the tax stuff later. I wouldn't think you get much more than $100 - $500 for a simple text link for a year...
I would only leave a link up for a short time if they want to pay after it is posted. That does sound fishy.

First you DO NOT need a Tax ID, you can use your social security number.

Second, if you go with this, and I'm not sure I see a downside, give them a month to pay you or remove the ad.

That's what I was thinking, Scott. I emailed her back today asking for more info and a link to their site.

Yes, you need to see and approve the add, and make sure they don't have access to any of your passcodes.

But as noted unless you get 1000's of people traveling to your web page, if you are paid by the number of clicks, it may amount ot nothing. But I can't see why it can hurt to try.

I have a Google ad on my own web site, I get maybe 40 to 100 clicks on the ads a month. Nothing to get excited about

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Fr_Chuck

But as noted unless you get 1000's of people traveling to your web page, if you are paid by the number of clicks, it may amount ot nothing. But I can't see why it can hurt to try.

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Yeah, that's what I was thinking.

Sounds great if you ask me, I'll make sure I visit it every day to get your 'clicks' up ;)

Let us know what the follow-up email says. It smells like a scam.

No follow-up email. Probably is.