Tumblr today announced that ads can now be purchased for display in its Spotlight page or on Tumblr Radar. Business Insider is reporting that these ads start out costing $25,000 per ad. As you can see above, the ads will be accompanied by a dollar sign symbol next to the Follow button, indicating its placement has been paid for rather than earned.
The Tumblr Spotlight page is curated by Tumblr editors to feature interesting and creative Tumblr blogs. Tumblr claims the site “drives tens of millions” of follows each week. The new advertisements will be placed “front-and-center,” right in the middle of these featured blogs.
The Tumblr Radar is similar to Tumblr Spotlight, but is seen on the sidebar of Tumblr pages. Tumblr states that Radar gets more than 120 million daily impressions and that advertisers will get “a dedicated share” of those views.
It’s always a sad day for a community when ads start appearing in places where users expect pure content. However, Tumblr does have monetize its business somehow. Though there was initial pushback against Twitter’s promoted tweets, users quickly adapted and the tweeted ads have now become very effective.
In case you were wondering, the “Capitol Couture” ad seen in the above example is a blog set up by the Lionsgate movie studio to show off fashion designs based on the movie The Hunger Games.
What do you think? Are you itching to plop down your 25K to be featured on Tumblr? Think the site just jumped the shark now that it allows these ads? Leave a comment below and let us know.