Let’s talk about giving the advertisers the maximum return on their investment. I knew I wanted to tackle this topic as soon as I got this gig.
I am not an expert on all things Postie-related. Neither am I a novice. I like to think of myself as Everyman, and I will try to bring that perspective to my posts over here. Plus I look good in hats.
One thing I have learned in my time as a Postie is that it is often hard to find a definitive answer to certain questions and issues, as you will see.
When taking an opp, I have always been mindful that basically I am being employed by the advertiser. Now, I don’t know about you, but wherever I have worked I have always strived to be a good employee. I like to think I bring the same work ethic to my opps as I do my day job. I want them to like me, and I want them to feel that the job I have done for them was worth the money they paid.
I do this partly because I want to get a good tack rating, I do it partly because I know that the happier the advertiser is the more likely they are to advertise again which is good for PayPerPost, and I also do it because…well…it’s just the right thing to do, darn it. Hey, don’t judge me soley by what I write on my blogs. I was raised right, you know!
Don’t look at me like that.
Anyway, I try to make sure I do something above and beyond just what is an “acceptable job”. Now, for a long time I would include extra links in my posts as often as I could. I figured “Hey, if they are happy if I do one link, then they’ll really be happy if I do three meaningful links!” And maybe it worked, because I had a tack rating of 5.
Then I got wind that some advertisers didn’t like it if you included extra links. There was some theory that too many links diluted the worth of the post. Hmm… I looked on the boards but couldn’t find a definitive answer. In fact, I started a thread on the topic the other day in anticipation of writing this post and still it seemed to be a gray area. The only real consensus was that some advertisers appreciated extra links and some didn’t. However, there is no way to tell when you take an opp which school of thought that particular advertiser belongs to (if they belong to one at all).
In any event, I stopped putting in extra links for fear of taking a hit on my tack rating (more on tack rating in a bit). Instead what I tried to do was give them more words than they required. I usually did that anyway, but after deciding to include just the links required, I really concentrated on doing it. In a way, I think it improved the quality of my posts even more because I then tended to take opps that I felt extremely comfortable with, such as finance, sports, and entertainment. I can knock out 200-300 words on those topics without breathing heavy.
In contrast, I think we all know what it’s like to take an opp that has a decent payoff only to find out that once you get into it, you think “Huh?” and then have to struggle to reach that required wordcount because you don’t really understand the subject matter very well.
I’ve been guilty of doing that in the past. Not anymore though. There have been several times I have taken a $15 opp only to take a second look and throw it back. These days I would rather take a $10 opp and do what I know is a really good job on it than to take a $20 opp and after I submit it still not know what the heck I was writing about.
In other words, I don’t like to have to fake it.
Does giving the advertiser more words than required give them a better return on their investment? Again, there doesn’t seem to be any definitive answer on this that I can find. It makes me feel better though, and I figure it can’t hurt, so I keep doing it. And my tack rating is still five.
And what about that pesky tack rating, anyway? How important is it? There are different schools of thought on this as well, and I could probably do a whole separate post just on tack rating (goodness knows this post is long enough as it is) but the bottom line for me is that I take pride in my work and I tend to be a bit competitive and obsessed, and so I am going to do everything I can to make sure I have the highest tack rating possible.
So what have we learned here today, kids? Well…we learned that I don’t really have any answers. There are more theories about a lot of this stuff than there are about the Kennedy assasination. But you can’t go wrong with the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Picture yourself as the advertiser (and heck, quite a few Posties have also been advertisers). What kind of job would you like your employees to do for you?
There is your answer. Or at least as much of one as I can give you.
And if you have made it all the way to the end of this post, I admire your stamina. As your reward, here is another embrassing photo of me:
The mocking may commence.
