So lately there has been a lot of crying over Apple introducing variable pricing in the iTunes music store. Soon after both Wal-Mart and Amazon raised their prices following a similar pricing structure as Apple. A lot of the top tracks have been raised 30 cents to $1.29 for new hits while recent songs will still cost 99 cents and older tracks will cost 69 cents. While the music industry is always pushing for more pennies I think the raise on Amazon’s end came purely out of pricing strategy. As the fourth (Amazon) and second (Wal-Mart) biggest online music retailers it does not come as a surprise to me. If Apple is charging $1.29 for latest hits then they too can jump on the bandwagon charging the same amount or even a little less to appeal as a better value.

Although there is a recession I don’t think it will have much effect on music downloads. The people who pay for music now will continue to pay for it until it becomes ridiculously high. Personally I don’t see the incentive of download music online for the same price it costs to buy the CD without getting the CD or anything that comes with it. Especially when you can still find all the music you want online for free. It won’t be long for others to follow suite. Best Buy and Target where listed as the 3rd and 5th largest online music sellers my bet is they will change their pricing structures by the end of the year. Cant wait to see the numbers that Apple posts from its iTunes sales this year.

The artists seem to be making plenty of cash… I don’t see any rappers complaining about their Bently’s and bitches which says something. I think the music industry has seen a sift in consumer use like watching videos online or using online radio services. While im not a huge fan of Little Wayne his success is a perfect example. Up to the release of “Tha Carter III” album he flooded online mixtape outlets with music. Not only did this create an amazing hype train, it combated the leaking of his album material. Putting out over 80 tracks and remixes before putting out an album will make it so people really dont know what to expect on the album. And if the content is good, the hype and interest of whats on the album does the rest of the work. Some of the tracks on the album were songs released on mixtapes that were later extended or remixed.

The industry is not the problem. You just have to make the right records.

NPD Data.

One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone emails me with an advertising offer and then when I give them a fair quote they go and change everything up to try and push the limits. For instance, this particular advertiser was interested in purchasing an undisclosed number of text links ads within content. After giving them a quote, they came back with a totally different offer and tried to low ball me on the price. Not only is this annoying because it takes time to price everything out, but automatically I don’t even want to be bothered in sending them an updated quote because it tells me they are cheap asses and I am here to make money.

Their new offer consisted of paragraphs of text that would be inserted across Smmguru.com and contain no more than three links per paragraph. How we got from text links to paragraphs of links I don’t know but why they would think a text link and a paragraph should be the same price I do not know. Don’t get the nature of this post confused. I am simply saying that most likely the people who are going to email you offers will try to get as much as they possibly can for nothing. That’s why its important to know the value of your ad spaces, what you can get from other advertisers, and what affects the ads could potentially have on your site and its visitors.

Don’t be afraid to reject an offer, if you sell your self short you will be kicking yourself in the ass later when you realize that selling lifetime paragraphs of text for $10 a pop was not nearly worth it lol. My favorite technique for dealing with these situations is to reply with the highest amount I see fit and see how the advertiser reacts. Surprisingly they will often take the deal (within reason) or give you another offer slightly below what you requested. Its a tricky game but when played well you can easily get ten fold what you would have otherwise if you settled for the quick payment.

Also keep in mind that not every ad space you sell has to be a “lifetime link.” You will find that most offers that involve big bucks will come in monthly or quarterly packages. Personally when I see people asking to buy a lifetime link I want to respond with an “lol are you serious?” I find it funny that people think they can put a value on a “lifetime link” as the exact value will most likely change dramatically over the lifespan of your website or blog. Because of this I will give the following tip: Instead of jacking up the price for a lifetime offer, instead give them a fair monthly rate knowing that later on you can make changes. Not only will you make more coin, but you can adjust the price as your site grows.

Just a few things to think about while you are stuffing your faces for the next days. I bet if you took this coming weekend to re-evaluate all of your advertising relations you will see that you could easily start to fine tune prices and increase your ad income.

Lets face it… Digg and StumbleUpon could possibly be the hardest traffic sources to monetize. Their users are notoriously ad shy and conventional methods must be highly targeted for them to work. Becuase SU can send such large amounts of traffic and have a more steady tail, its important to realize the potential money that can be made from it.

1. Push affiliate links. If you have a lot of affiliate options availbile, why not plug them were relevant. This is one of the best ways to make money on social media traffic as it should fit perfectly in to your content. Just make sure you somehow cloak your URLs so you don’t scare anyone away.

2. Convert them into RSS subscribers. If you can get them to come back, chances are you will make money sooner or later. Another bonus of getting them to subsribe is the ability to put ads in your RSS feed. This method allows you to retain the user, and possibly make some money.

3. CPM Method. This one is more or less like fishing with dynamite. Where all other strategies fail, this one almost never looses. Just make sure you have enough traffic and a good CPM rate or your just wasting your ad space. If you have accounts with various advertisers (you should…) make sure to shop around for the best rates.

4. Private ad sales. If you manage to build up enough exposure, you shouldn’t have a problem getting someone to buy ad space. Have your traffic and or demographics availbile and make it known that you have ad space up for grabs. However, you may want to use some judgement with the ads you get back becuase you also want to keep them relevant or you might end up allienting users due to over saturation of ads.

Four more ways to make money on SU. Quite simple really, you can either go very broad with the CPM or very targeted with private ad sales and affiliate links. Make sure you have stumble worthy content however before you worry about making money off it. Theres nothing worse than a brand new site with Adsense blocks the size of your head plastered everywhere.