WebRef Update: Featured Article: Selling Advertising on Your Site | 2

Selling Advertising on Your Site

What to Charge

What to charge is always the biggest question most first time ad sellers confront. Consider pricing on a sliding scale, rewarding big advertising buyers (i.e., the more impressions they buy, the less the cost is per 1000 impressions). If you have a lower trafficked site (between 10K-30k unique visitors per month), then you are unlikely to get more than between 5-10$ CPM (per thousand impressions). If you have a medium amount of traffic (30000- 600000 unique visitors per month), you are probably looking at 10- 30$ CPM. Anything above that can be charged at whatever rate you feel the market will bear, depending on the uniqueness of your site, the quality of your design and content, the amount of targeting available, the banner rotating software you use and a host of other variables. (Please note that visitors are NOT Page views - they are unique people coming to your site)

What to Sell

What kind of advertising you sell on your Web site is limited only by your imagination. Traditionally a Web site will have one or two 468*60 banners as well as perhaps 2-3 micro 88*31 buttons which can be rented to an advertiser. If you have an ezine or mailing list that has a reasonable (750+) subscriber base you can also sell positions there, usually a top position and a bottom or middle position, though this varies.

Recently however, the effects of traditional forms of Web advertising, such as banners, have been significantly blunted as surfers have become more and more net savvy and have become accustomed to simply ignoring banners on a page. Advertisers usually want something more, which has lead to the development of content sponsorships, one of the most effective ways of getting an advertiser's name out there and drawing clicks. A prime example of this is Clickz.com which promotes a content sponsor by adding a little "sponsored by..." line after the link on the navigation bar as well as two or three side ads and the advertisers name everywhere in the section. This makes a lot of money for Clickz as well as making the advertiser very happy, as there is generally a very good amount of branding and click-throughs.

Other options for effective advertising include pop-up windows, also known as daughter windows, which have a high click rate because of their relative newness and the content and types of ads usually found in this format. [ed. note - Be aware that some viewers find pop-up windows to be very annoying.] Another regularly used option is interstitial ads, which work like a television commercial, filling the page in between one page and the next.

The moment you begin to sell advertising, your Web site stops being a hobby and begins to be a small business. Your advertisers are clients, treat them courteously and with respect and if you follow all of the tips outlined above and think creatively with regards to the types of advertising you sell, you will have a successful Web site.

Additional Information and Links:

Advertising Networks Links

https://webreference.com/promotion/banners/networks.html

Ad Management Software Links

https://webreference.com/promotion/banners/software.html

Banner Ad Placement Study

https://webreference.com/dev/banners/

Ad Management Software Roundup

https://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/software/ad_packages_1.html

Internet Ad Types

https://www.webdevelopersjournal.com/columns/types_of_ads.html

The Basics of Web Site Promotion

https://www.wdvl.com/Location/Promotion/Basics.html

Ad Resource - Advertising and promotion services for the Web

https://adres.internet.com/

Turbo Ads - Resources for Rich Media Advertising

https://www.turboads.com/

About the author:

Adam Laitt runs the soon-to-launch AdsSuite.com - you can sign up now for launch notification. In addition, he works as a full-time Web consultant, specializing in advertising strategies and techniques for internet startups at reasonable rates. Adam can be contacted at [email protected].

Previous: Creating a MediaKit and Receiving a Return on Your Investment

This article originally appeared in the July 27, 2000 edition of the WebReference Update Newsletter.

Comments are welcome
Written by Adam Laitt and

Revised: August 4, 2000

URL: https://webreference.com/new/sellad2.html