If you’re a food blogger you know better than anyone else, ads just don’t generate enough money to support a full-time income. Brand sponsorships are another common way that recipe bloggers earn extra money.
Here is our huge list of brands that have worked with food bloggers in recent years on sponsored posts and other types of collaborations.
Looking for other revenue-generating ideas? Join Reciple to earn more per recipe view!
Food brands naturally are the most common type of company that works with recipe bloggers. However, grocery stores, kitchenware brands, and local businesses also sometimes collaborate with food blogs.
There are a wide variety of different ways that brands engage with food bloggers. Here are a few different types.
Sponsored posts are a common type of brand engagement for food bloggers. A brand will pay the blogger to sponsor a post or recipe, and the blogger might cook using the brand’s ingredient, showcase their cookware line, or otherwise talk about the brand with their audience.
For a sponsored review, a company provides a product with the expectation that the blogger will write a positive review. In some cases, the blogger tries the product and cannot honestly provide positive public feedback (because they don’t like the product), in which case the agreement is voided and the product is not promoted. Ideally, the blogger does like the product and writes a post reviewing it and shares it on social media. Sponsored reviews are usually paid promotions, so in addition to providing a product to test, the brand also pays a fee to the blogger. Some new bloggers might accept only the free product in exchange for their time.
Some bloggers accept social media collaborations or sponsorships that never actually reach their blog. They may collaborate in live videos, do a “story takeover”, direct an advertisement, or otherwise create social media content around the brand in exchange for a sponsorship fee.
For a sponsored giveaway, a brand provides the blogger with free products to give away to their audience. For new bloggers, this may be an unpaid promotion, but experienced bloggers with large audiences will charge a fee to facilitate and promote the giveaway.
Bloggers can earn anywhere from a few dollars to many thousands of dollars on sponsored content, depending on the size of their audience and their expertise in sales. Some new bloggers will create sponsored content in exchange for free products, but most bloggers don’t bother to work with brands that pay less than $200 per engagement because it is not worth the time of coordination, communication, and content creation. Bloggers with large audiences and networks may earn five figures on a single sponsorship.
So, how do you get relevant, high-quality brands to pay you to create food content? Experienced bloggers may have brands reach out directly to them, so all they have to do is negotiate the terms of the engagement. Other bloggers use networks like Blogher or Honest Cooking to connect with brands that are looking for experts and content creators.
You can also try pitching directly to the brands that you want to work with, to see if they are interested in an engagement. The best way to pitch a brand is to get a personal introduction to someone on their PR or marketing team from other bloggers you know who have previously worked with them. If you don’t have a contact within the brand, look for a general PR or media email address on the brand’s website. Have a professional-looking press kit or media kit ready that will act as your portfolio and help brands understand the value that you bring to the table.
Ads are just one way for bloggers to earn an income. Brand sponsorships are a great way to diversify and grow revenue from your food blog!
Looking for more ways to earn money from your recipes?
Reciple is the first ad-free recipe platform that is equitable for creators. On average, our creators earn at least 10x per recipe view than they do from ads.
