Interview with Jim Kukral about BlogKits
Posted in: Pro Blogger Interviews, Affiliate Programs
BlogKits has launched it’s long awaited Affiliate Marketing Network for bloggers.
So I thought I’d ask it’s founder, Jim Kukral, a few questions about it and what he’s learnt along the road in developing it.
What is BlogKits? (give us your elevator pitch)
Our business model is simple… Help 99% of 50-70 million low-traffic bloggers make a few extra bucks by giving them easy to implement tools and partnerships with large-named brands that lets them keep blogging, instead of trying to be an expert marketer. We’re an alternative blog revenue generating solution to things like Google Adsense, although, specifically, we operate non-contextually, and we follow the cost-per-sale (cpa) model.
Why have you developed it?
99% or more of all bloggers are low-traffic, meaning 100 visitors a day or much less. If you have a blog like that, your options for making money are not very good. You can’t sell cost per thousand (cpm) because you don’t have enough traffic. You can’t sell decent revenue earning sponsorships on your blog because you have low-traffic. Nobody wants to spend any real money for a link on your blog with low-traffic. Adsense pays to little with too little clicks. And so on…
On top of those facts, those same bloggers are just that… bloggers, not marketers. BlogKits takes away all the confusion of trying to make money with your blog, and gives you easy to use tools and partnerships with big name brands, all in one easy solution.
How much can they expect to earn using BlogKits?
Always impossible to answer that question, but… If you’re a blogger that is having trouble making money with your blog because of lack of traffic, you’re going to have a much better chance at making money with the BlogKits methodology.Years of working in both blogging and marketing have proven to us that our model does in fact work, especially when dealing with online communities such as blogs. One of the keys is the delivery, and we’ve worked hard to make those options attrActive for bloggers, and blog readers. We have more unique options coming soon that are even better, offering even more tools for bloggers and more exposure for advertisers.
Experience has also told us what most bloggers probably “can’t” earn with other options like Google Adsense. Our Adsense earning tool for bloggers makes that case very well. www.blogkits.com/adsensetool.html
Most bloggers who have experimented with affiliate marketing find that it works best when there is relevancy between content and the affiliate programs being promoted. How does BlogKits keep ads relevant?
What you say is true. That’s why contextual matching ads usually do so well. What we’ve done is categorized our advertisers into what we call “ad pools”. Right now we have three of them, of which a blogger can simple choose one, and we rotate ads from advertisers we selected ahead of time that fit in that category. Those are currently, with more to come as our advertiser list grows:
1. Tech & Internet People - This set of ads work best for blogs that have a webmaster or tech audience.
2. Non Specific/General Readers - This set of ads work best for blogs that don’t have a specific niche industry audience (safest bet).
3. Small Businesses Read My Blog - This set of ads work best for blogs that have an audience of small business owners or professional business-to-business readers.
You seem to be pretty anti AdSense in your promotion of BlogKits - why is this?
Our research has shown that Adsense doesn’t work very well for low-traffic bloggers. We’re not trying to say Adsense doesn’t work, because it does, and very well, for a lot of people, just not small blogs. But somehow there’s a perception out there that Adsense is the only way that bloggers make money. I think what most bloggers will find out eventually is that Adsense only really begins to generate significant returns for your blog after your blog begins to gain a larger audience. And even then, when you get to a certain point of success with your blog, you should certainly look at selling your own sponsorships as a better alternative, and then fill with things like Adsense, BlogKits, TextLinkAds, Adbrite, Performancing Partner Ads, paid reviews by Reviewme.com, etc… The key is doing what’s right for you and your blog, and what earns you some dollars in your pocket.
Can bloggers use both BlogKits and AdSense on the same blog?
Absolutely. BlogKits partner ads are not contextual at all and do not violate the Google guidelines whatsoever.
Do you think bloggers will earn more with BlogKits than AdSense?
Yes, if your blog fits our target, which is 50 million + blogs that are having trouble earning money with their blogs. We call those “real” bloggers. Bloggers who haven’t turned pro yet. :)
This is the second incarnation of BlogKits - what did you learn from your previous go at it?
BlogKits was created in Jan 2005 specifically to help bloggers find opportunities to earn money with their blogs. Kinda like enternetusers.net is an educational tool for those same bloggers; BlogKits always aspired to be more of a solution/agency instead of a guide. The early days of BlogKits were spent working hand-in-hand with advertisers and bloggers, one at a time, helping match them together. During those days we learned quite a bit about what advertisers wanted, and more importantly, what bloggers wanted, and their readers too.
In the spring of 2006, BlogKits was bought by global performance marketing company ForgeCorporation, Ltd. (www.forgecorporation.com). Forge was able to bring the right amount of funding and support to help turn BlogKits into a fully functional, trusted tracking solution, now powered by the OfferForge network.
Feel free to ask Jim more questions in comments below - I’m sure he’d be happy to answer them.
There’s more information on BlogKits at their blog and BlogKits in a nutshell
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