Advertisers, please get real

NOW wouldn't life be so much easier if when we went into a shop we picked the price we wanted to pay for something?

Oh how I'd love a new mobile phone to play with, here's £5, and as for a new television well here's £20 and if you throw in a smart Sky+ box I'll cough up £25.

Well it was the equivalent to that I received in my inbox this morning from an established website who wanted to advertise on This French Life, here's what they wrote (I've deleted their name to avoid heaping any embarrassment on their operation):

Hi,

I will get straight to the point. [website name] is seeking to be the premier web site for "property in france". As part of our marketing strategy we are investing a considerable sum in promoting our web site and/or our logo. We are therefore seeking relevant (on topic) websites for property and life in France such as yours. We are currently offering upto 25e for one year listings (links) from inner pages on your web site (providing they are cached by google and relevant) - to [website address] and 45e for links to us from good quality home pages. There is no catch to our offer and it is straightforward. If you would be interested in listing our web site on a relevant page then please return our email. We are looking for a very diverse set of sites from property to culture to cooking - France being the main topic of the web site.

Here is our preferred link and attached is our logo should you wish to use it. We would also equally interested in placing an appropriate link directly in any articles that you may have which are relevant.

[website address] title="French Property For Sale"> Property In France For Sale - [website name] is a portal for advertising French properties for sale.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Regards

So they are kindly offering me between £20 and £35 a year to feature a link on my site which has been established for more than four years, has the best part of 3,000 pages and is updated every day - where do I sign up?

And I won't even tell you about the established cross Channel ferry firm who wanted me to promote their service but didn't want to advertise because 'the association with our recognised brand name and benefit to your customers will be enough'.

Comments

[Philip Voice]

Craig

I think you have been very restrained to keep their name under wraps.

It is indeed an insult to you as I know how much effort and how much Google Juice you have created with This French Life.

The message to advertisers is to work with us as partners and do not treat us (the owners) as lackey's!

I am getting £50-70.00 a moth from advertisers on Landscape Juice and I can regularly come higher in the Google results than the company's own websites.

Well done for sticking to your guns.

Phil