Two paths to a niche edit: marketplace vs. cold outreach

Two paths to a niche edit: marketplace vs. cold outreach

The recurring debate this week, framed as a choice rather than a winner.

— A roundup on an agency blog laid it out plainly: marketplaces (Guest Post Tracker, Adsy, brokered Slacks) cost more per link but close in days. Why it matters: when you need 10 inserts to hit a launch date, speed buys itself.
— Counterpoint from a forum thread: cold outreach to the actual site owner runs roughly a third of marketplace pricing and gets you placements no broker is reselling. The tax is a 2-5% reply rate and weeks of follow-up.
— Also circulating: a hybrid most practitioners actually run — marketplaces for volume and deadline pressure, outreach reserved for the 3-4 anchor domains you genuinely care about.

Editor's note: the real variable isn't price, it's whether the link will already be sold to your competitor next month.

Pick of the week: outreach for the pages you'd be sad to lose; marketplaces for everything fungible.