I have run an advertising agency for a decade. I think your idea has great potential. I do see, however, a problem.
Experienced advertisers long ago stopped believing in artificially inflated "views" and "follower counts," which is endemic on other major social media platforms. They want "real viewers who are honestly engaged."
The existence of bidbots, multile-account-self-upvoting and voting rings make any "post-payout metrics" on Steemit useless.
Large Follower counts are all but meaningless in today's Follow-for-Follow environment and, on Steemit, people follow fat wallets ... simply because they're fat.
And, Whales producing "sub-standard" content, but nevertheless attracting hundreds of fawning commenters, is unlikely to convince advertisers that "legitimate engagement" has been achieved.
The theoretical curation process of Steemit (Hot, Trending) would have solved the metrics problem beautifully, but 15 minutes of due diligence uncovers the fact that such rankings are bought, and almost never earned.
My views on potential advertiser reactions is not speculation. If you look on my blog, you'll see a two month absence. During that two months, I approached a very well known Fortune 1,000 company with the idea of sponsoring an almost two-month-long Contest on my Steemit Blog (my company creates poetic advertisements).
The Contest would have paid out USD $100,000 in SBD prizes.
I presented them with 3 poetic ads to choose from. They LOVED all three, and so, my proposal soon tripled in size. Three Contests at USD $100,000 apiece in prizes. The Contest would also have had them open an account and deposit six figures. This account was to afford them additional "prize-giving capabilities" during a Contest and, between them, was to have been delegated to me.
Of course, large advertisers don't do anything without doing due diligence and creating a set of metrics to gauge success. The company's enthusiasm soon cooled. To quote one of the senior marketing execs, "Steemit is a Den of Thieves ... everyone's cheating." I corrected him saying that most people didn't cheat. He replied, "And those are the ones who leave."
And so, I set about the Herculean task of attempting to clean up Steemit. I did a ton of research and a ton of thinking. I decided to publish a Series of Articles to gauge the reaction of the community and attempt to stimulate a conversation.
Here's an article that was posted 3 days ago. By Day 2, it was ranked 7th on the blockchain for "Most Comments." Take a look to see how it achieved such august rankings. Your fellow Witnesses figure prominently.
At present, no major advertiser would touch Steemit with a ten-foot pole. Any advertising Steemit could attract, without major reforms, would be so low-paying that it wouldn't be worth the effort.
Steemit has to make a decision: Either act like a legitimate blockchain with a commitment to curating quality content, or, remain a cheater's paradise where the name-of-the-game is gaming the Reward Pool.
Quill
RE: Proposal: Paid Advertising on Steem (with a Twist)