4 Tips for Effective Sponsorships

I recently setup Curtis Holt as an affiliate for my Blender Market products, but I felt prompted to try his new sponsorship. So I applied to sponsor him, asked him to mention both nView and Light Painter, paid Curtis for his time, and waited.

Here’s the resulting video (sponsorship is near the end):

How effective was it? The video was published on September 18, 2023. Here are the stats after one week:

The video itself: As of now, it has 43k views - much higher than his average views. So, Curtis did his job effectively.

Linktree got 120 views the first day of the video, and since then has dampened to 20 views per day, with an average 50% clickthrough rate. Normally, my Linktree doesn’t get any views, so that’s a good sign.

YouTube gained a few subscribers! My watch time rate didn’t fluctuate much, interestingly. But then again, the goal of the sponsorship was to share my products, not my channel.

GitHub showed 170 downloads for the latest release of Light Painter! Huge increase compared to previous releases (from 30 to just barely 100).

Blender Market had 8 sales, with 5 of those affiliated with Curtis. Better than usual for me, but not as much as a Blender Market sale. I think that’s partially due to nView’s price tag ($21), which is higher than most products on the site.

But overall, I felt it was successful. I hope more affiliate sales occur during the holiday sales. But even if they don’t pan out, I paid Curtis upfront for his time.

Your Takeaways

Here’s my advice for seeking out sponsorships, affiliates, endorsements, etc.:

1. Message content creators! Pick those who would likely use your product or have similar interests. You never know who is willing to reply.

2. Be respectful and honest. A few may be interested in doing a full video or endorsement, but some may only have time for feedback. And many do not have time to reply. That’s okay.

3. Don’t use links that will track their clicks or views, as that can invade their privacy. Let them check out your work without the feeling of someone looking over their shoulder.

4. For me, working with big affiliates has been a mixed bag. I’ve had good results from some like Blendernation. With InspirationTuts: in one experience, they promoted my add-on and sales soared; in another, they took my add-on files and never spoke to me again. Research them. And if they’re interested, be willing to give them a fair portion of sales.

It doesn’t have to be a video or even an article. My first endorsement was a quote from Sean Kennedy, which he generously gave for one of my first add-ons.

It made a big difference in conversion rates and sales. But the key is a human touch, where someone with a face shares their honest opinions and support.

Happy Blend-ing!