Thanks for your kind words – I’m glad to hear you’re enjoying the series!

I looked at your site, and it’s truly very nice. And 2500+ subscribers is a great accomplishment to be proud of.

I believe the problem you’re having is that attracting advertisers for the type of direct advertising that we discuss in Suzy: Week 16 Goals–Direct Advertising is more challenging when you’re not focused on a specific, relatively small, travel niche.

This is because advertisers are loathe to spend money without reaching highly targeted readers, and there are a number of giant websites out there doing a better job of attracting travelers (think Travelocity, TripAdvisor, Orbitz, etc) than most travel blogs are. They reach hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of travelers daily.

A blog that features all types of travel to all (or many) different destinations won’t give Advertisers the results they’d want for the money they’d invest in advertising there.

But all is not lost! This is where standard Affiliate Ads come into play – read our installment Suzy: Week 15 Goals–Affiliate Advertising for an explanation – this works well for unfocused blogs or small sites, because it costs the advertiser nothing unless they get a result (a purchase, for example), which is when you get paid.

So my suggestion would be to sign up for an account with several Affiliate Program such as Commission Junction, Google Affiliate Network, and LinkShare, and start displaying some relevant ads in addition to the Google Adsense you already have. Seek out related products that you can try and recommend, for which you can earn some affiliate income.

Good luck!

I love this series, you give great advice! I was wondering what the threshold is for a good subscriber list and what isn’t in regards to selling advertising. I’ve got well over 2,500 subscribers for my monthly newsletter, yet I can’t seem to get any paying advertisers. Any advice?

Thanks!

You two have a wonderful niche that lends itself well to contests – lots of sponsors would offer products for you to give away, and you could combine a giveaway with a review of the product, like Donna Hull from MyItchyTravelFeet.com is doing with this Balanzza Digital Luggage Scale – she reviewed it and is giving one away.

I think you should go for it!