Revenue sharing with another site - Deal or No Deal, Howie?

[Sutra]

Got an email from a semi-related site that is more well-known than mine. For now anyway, hah.

They have asked if I want to do a revenue-share deal where I post any of their content to my Facebook pages. In return I get to keep the majority of the revenue generated from the traffic I send.

Now, this to me, sounds ridiculous. Smart on their part, but retarded on mine if I were to accept.

1. I'm sending them MY traffic, which GIVES THEM much more exposure.
2. In return I get to keep *most* of the revenue generated. The fuck? If it's MY traffic, shouldn't I get ALL the revenue?
3. Why keep most of the money from their ad revenue when I can keep ALL the ad revenue, keep ALL the exposure, and increase the likelihood of links to MY articles, by promoting my own content?
4. The only positive thing I can of is if I were in a position where I couldn't produce enough articles a day for my audience. But I have a bunch of articles, so I don't need extra content.

Before telling them "No deal" I would like to get your feedback, just to make sure I'm not missing something important here.

Do you think this deal is worth taking? Why?

 

[eliquid]

Don't be a sucker.

You never take the first deal handed to you. If you do you always lose.

There is a deal here, find it. But if you act on the first thing given to you ( accept or don't ), you're the one that loses out. Believe that.

I'll give you a small hint. Fire back at them and tell them you want them to post your articles to their audience at the same frequency you list theirs to yours. Then tell them you want 3 guest blog spots on their site for the transaction as well as well as keeping the majority of the money.

Wait and see what they present back.

 

[bopeep]

That is how most of the successful viral sites are making money today. Many of the big viral sites own no more than a site or two and gets their content shared from other big pages. It is pretty much bullshit, since you can only share as many links without going overboard, just share your own links. BTW, it is a good idea to use redirects using multiple domains. It helps with the reach, and also if people complains about an URL or hides it enough times, it is bad business

I get this kind of messages everyday..

Wittyfeed is a shitty Indian clone of viralnova (with good design, but horrible content) and they now have almost as much traffic as littlethings because they have a bunch of business dev spamming page owners for rev share deals all day.

 

[Ryuzaki]

Trank, here's what I thought in addition to @eliquid pointing out that there's gold to be had here.

I'd remember a couple of things. Binary {Yes|No} thinking is losing thinking. The Middle Path is usually the winner. No niche is zero sum. There's usually enough traffic for a ton of people to eat and eat real good. Remember the discussion from Day 5? Eating at the same table as other kings can raise the barrier for entry against invaders. That's a good thing. It let's you focus your covert attacks on those that matter.

Also, if the same visitor can visit Site A and Site B a thousand times each. You still win. In the end, you might sell your site and retire to your beach mansion without ever having slaughtered everyone in the niche. You still reached the ultimate goal. The only zero sum game here is time. Win as much and as soon as you can, even if it helps your worst enemy. Eventually you'll be indifferent to the enemy because they'll be fighting the new owners of your site while you're hammered on mixed drinks while learning to surf with both of your exotic girlfriends who also understood this principle. They'd rather share you than not have you.

To be more specific now, I'd consider trading as eliquid said. YOU have the leverage. They asked you, not the other way around. If their edge rank sucks, make them give you more posts and guest posts. Limit the deal to a trial period of 5 months or so. You can both siphon each other's traffic and fans and then split ways OR you can keep chugging and find more ways to ensure you both end up on the beach. But like the yes or no, this isn't a {Never|Forever} deal. You can trial it.

 

[Sutra]

Magnificent advice in this thread. Thank you @eliquid @bopeep and @Ryuzaki

I just wrote them back. I proposed posting each other articles at equal frequency. Also, today I noticed that they rewrote one of the popular articles on my site (funny timing so wondering if that article put me on their radar). Anyway, I requested a dofollow source link on that article, back to the article on my site.

Will see what happens and update this thread.

Also, I kinda feel like an idiot now, haha. A while back a different site, that's more well known than mine, asked to do an article sharing deal. I told him I wasn't interested in posting his, but he was free to post mine with a dofollow source link. Which he did a few times then stopped. Now I'm thinking that I should accepted fully and posted each others stuff constantly. Might have to back to that guy hat in hand like a moron, haha.

 

[Sutra]

Just heard back. They said they don't post other articles to their pages at this time but will get back to me if that changes. Which I imagine is pretty unlikely, haha.

However, they did give me the dofollow backlink so that is good.

 

[bopeep]

OK I have a different opinion on cross posting of articles, you don't want to do cross posting. Simple reason is you can only share so many Links per day without losing your edgerank/reach. Once you have lost your edgerank, it is hard to get back. Almost better to start a new page. So say, if you can optimally share 8 links a day, those better be your links mixed with authority links. Outbound link diversity is important, and yet you want to share your own site the most, plus other authority sites (Try linking out a trending article on a established site like a news site or local TV site and see the reach for yourself). My point is, cross posting is not going to help since you are posting only 8 times total. It is always better to offer cash for clicks. The going rate is $8-$10 average for 1000 US clicks. If at all you ask for cross posting, it should be S4S of images or videos. Internal content. Also s4s currently is working in a neat way. If you share the content of a large MORE active page, the reach of that content is better than your own. So look for larger pages which are slightly related. Tell then you will share twice for every share they do. They will happily oblige. It will work in your advantage.

If you want outreach for getting shares, then, have some posts written that are more viral in nature and can cater to a larger demographic without straying too far away from your theme. And then approach any kind of active pages with slightly overlapping demographics.

 

[bopeep]

If you aren't already doing this this is a great way to monitor your competition. The engagement is what drives everything.