So You Want to Learn IZEA? A Blogger’s Guide to Using the IZEA Platform

One of my 2015 blog resolutions was to take my blog to the next level. I wanted to improve my content, drive more traffic to my site, and of course, make more money. As a part of this, I decided to get serious about learning how to use IZEA. I had heard about other bloggers making pretty decent money through them and thought it was high time that I checked it out too.

I will admit that IZEA can be a little intimidating at first. A lot of people are confused on how to use it and how to make the most of the opportunities they offer. I decided to try and break down this sponsorship marketplace.

So what is IZEA?

A simplified version is IZEA is a sponsorship marketplace. They connect bloggers with brands who are looking for exposure via blog posts or social media. Brands receive influential content and engaging, shareable stories that drive awareness and  creators are paid for their participation and partnership.

Pros:

• You are paid electronically.
• Creating content is quick and easy.
• You can work how and when you want.

Cons:

• There are no guarantees with the process.
• It takes 30 days for payment.

How do I use IZEA?

This is where most people seem to get hung up on the process. There aren’t a lot of instructions on the platform and it isn’t necessarily intuitive, so often people will look at the site, get confused or frustrated, and never come back. People, you are leaving money on the table! This is why I am going to walk you thorough the process and hopefully make it a little less intimidating. 

Are you ready?

Setting up your IZEA account

You will first want to go to the IZEA website. Once you are on their page, you might need to scroll down to the bottom of the landing page. On most browsers it will be below the fold, so you might miss it. This is where you will sign up.

You have the choice of using your Facebook or Google+ credentials in order to log in. If you choose not to use either of those, you are also able to use your email address.

Once you sign up and log in, you will be able to see your dashboard. There is a lot of useful information on this dashboard, but I am going to focus on just one piece at a time.

Up in the right-hand corner you will see two rectangles. One will say “Balance” and the other will say your name and the kind of account you have. By clicking the balance button, you will be able to view information such as credit cards you have on file (if you have a paid plan), which earnings have cleared, which earnings are still pending, and your personal settings (phone number, tax ID number, PayPal address, etc.).

The other button will have your name and the type of plan you have. It will also allow you to access your account settings as well as your financial information (you can get to the same financial information by clicking on the Balance button too).

IZEA offers three kinds of plans, and which one you choose can be determined on how much you see yourself using the site. The free plan might be good if you are just starting out, however, it has a pretty high cashout threshold and only allows you to put in three bids a month. It might be worth it just to test out the platform, but if you really want to make money you will need to go with the paid plans.

There is a lot of controversy over whether it is better to go with the $1 plan or the $5 plan. Truthfully, I have the $5 plan and in the first two months of using IZEA I made enough money to cover the entire year. I also like that the $5 plan has the lower cachet threshold so I can actually cash out at the end of each month. I just leave enough money in the account to cover the following month’s plan cost. This plan also allows me to bid (or apply to) as many sponsored opportunities in a month as I want. Obviously, you don’t get ever opportunity that you apply for so you will want to be able to make a lot of bids.

Setting Up Your Profile

By setting up your profile, IZEA is able to send you offers that are tailored to your specific niche. No one wants to have to wade through tons of offers that aren’t even a good fit for their blog, so this will help narrow things down.

The first thing I did was enter my name as well as a short bio of myself and my site. Advertisers will see this so use it as an opportunity to sell yourself a little. I also entered my gender and date of birth. Now, you will also want to add an avatar for yourself. You can choose an avatar from one of your connections (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc) or you can upload your own. If you have the $5 Pro Account there will also be a “Pro” banner across your avatar. This will not appear on the Free or the $1 plans.

After you have filled in your basic information, you will want to fill in your interests. Verticals are the broad categories that your blog(s) fall into. These are the topics that you might be interested in writing about. You can choose up to five of these. Then fill in the tags. Tags are more specific topics that you write about or would be writing about on your blog. It will help advertisers get to you know and get more of a feel for your blog.

Now it’s time to fill in your demographic information. This is all pretty self-explanatory. 

Next is the part where you talk about your specific blogs. Some people have multiple blogs, and the nice thing about IZEA is that you are able to list multiple blogs to receive offers on. Once again, you can add up to five verticals (broad categories) and more specific tags. 

Then you go on to connect your other social media accounts as well as adding verticals and tags for each one of those. Honestly, these are where I get most of my work from right now, so you don’t want to neglect adding these. 

 Placing Your Bids

The way you make money through IZEA is through a bidding process. On your main dashboard you can see what offers you have available, which you have put bids on, and which have been declined by either you or the advertiser. 

This is the main page where you will see all of your offers for any blogs or social media accounts you have set up. The offers are grouped together, such as all of the blog offers are together, all Twitter offers are together, Instagram offers are together, etc. Scroll through all of the offers are determine which ones might interest you.

If an offer jumps out at you, you will want to find out more. At the top, you can see which offer the platform is for. In this example, I am showing an offer for a sponsored Tweet. The second thing I look at is what the average bid is. This is the average amount for an accepted bid. You will want to keep your bid around this amount but you are always able to go over or under. Also, check out the Overview and Requirements sections to see if you and your blog or social media platforms would be a good fit for this campaign. 

If you decide that a post isn’t a good fit or if it doesn’t pay enough, you can always decline the bid and the offer will be moved into the Taken/Canceled section of your dashboard.

However, if you are interested in an offer you can always place a bid. Just enter the amount that you would want to receive for writing a blog post, tweeting, taking an Instagram picture, etc.

You will always want to include a small pitch telling the advertiser why you would be perfect!

What’s Next?

After submitting your bids now it is just time to wait. If an advertiser is interested in your bid, they may accept it outright, or they may ask to negotiate. If they choose to negotiate, they will give you an ideal price they would like to pay. You can then accept that number or counteroffer.

Once your bid has been accepted, you will then need to enter your content. Remember, you enter your content on the IZEA platform, NOT on your own platform. If your content is accepted, IZEA will post it on your behalf. Just because a bid is accepted does not mean that your content will be accepted, so whatever you write, make sure it follows the guidelines and write so that it stands out. 

After your content has been approved and posted, you will be paid out within 30 days. It really is that easy!

So many people are intimidated by IZEA, but it really is a great way to make money as a blogger. 

What are your secrets to using IZEA?

 

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. Click here to find out more about my disclosure policy.

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