How do people normally work out what to charge for advertising space as to me it seems everyone advertises at a different rate and I want to be fair but at the same time generate as much revenue as possible.

I have a site that was launched at the start of this month. We are already seeing 40,000+ hits per week, 150,000+ pageviews per week and are ranked 252k in Alexa so far.

We have 3 advertising spots on our site.

One is a sponsored text link box that appears site wide - max of 4 links as to not overcrowd the page

160x60 banner which would be with NO roation
728x90 banner with NO roation again

But how do i work out what to charge as i look at one persons post and think im too expensive, then see someone else's post and think otherwise

Suggestions and input please

Thank you

I would test different price points and see where you get results. Remember that it is easier to lower your prices than to raise them. Good marketers almost always discount their prices or throw in extra value to keep clients and gain new ones.

So yoou may want to test two different price points that are close and see where your market hits. Then, you can always offer a discount from that point to the prospects that didn't bite the first time.
Thanks

I did set a base price going off what some other members have charged on other forums but feel this may be too high now, what would you start at just to see how far off i am

yeah you u correct as the site is new initially you should start from lower price and then increase it

It depends on what your pagerank is. If you have a pretty good pagerank I would start at $50 a week and go from there. If not, maybe start at $25 per week and see where that takes you.

My site is only 4 weeks old and I dont have pagerank yet.

I put an ad up for ads at these prices
Sponsored text links - all pages with no rotation $10 p/w
160x60 Banner - all pages - no rotation $20 p/w
728x90 Banner - all pages - no rotation $40 p/w

So far Ive had a few PM's (of another webmasters forum) saying that they would have a text link but not till next week.

I had one person say theyd have a 728x90 banner for one week and where to send payment though they never replied after that and thats been about it so far. So didnt know if it was because my prices were too high or because some people just waste your time.

By what your saying my prices arent too bad then. Alexa has gone up again, though not sure how long it takes before PR updates?

The most common pricing model for banner ads is cost per thousand impressions. Most media sites charge $10-20 per thousand.

If you are running Google AdSense, you can get the cpm you are earning from the AdSense reports. Use that as the basis for pricing based on CPM.

If you simply charge per week or per month for the position and you aren't giving your client enough impressions, eventually they will realize it because of a lack of clicks and not come back.

Also, the average banner contract lasts about three months.

If i were you,I not going sell any space if my blog is new.

Yeah,it doesn't make sense selling ad with no visitors to the blog.

You have that many visitors in less than a month, amazing. Heres what you do, take this and roll with it, You charge as much as you possibly can, not a penny more or less.

I know sounds like a joke but really there is no easy way to tell. Know one here can tell you that without knowing what kind of site you have.

If I had a site that got 100,000 visitors a day and my site was about flowers then I could charge a lot for a good banner spot (heres the key point) to a site that was related to flowers, like a bouquet site or special flower pots etc. but if i gave ads to a construction company they wouldn't pay nearly as much.

PM me if you can and tell me about your site or show me the site and I could give you a little better idea or try downloading the seobook toolbar or use semrush to try to get a better idea.

good luck thats huge traffic for so little time. I would say the site should be generating well over 30k a month from traffic. Thats not including your product if you even have a product. But again hard to say i don't know what kind of site it is.

Curious what kind of ad platform you're using? Usually if you sign up with an ad network then they'll tell you their rates. Ad networks handle not only the problem of figuring out prices for you, but also signing up advertisers.

Originally Posted by promisem

Most media sites charge $10-20 per thousand.

Media sites such as...?

A CPM of $10/$20 isn't going to get much of a look-in from me. You'd have to have more money to burn than you knew what to do with to turn that in to a profitable campaign.

I've heard of prices as high as this, but it's definitely not the standard pricing. And it certainly isn't going to attract any buyers for this guy.

If you're new to selling adspace - stick to monthly or weekly tenancy deals. You'd need to get some tracking software in place before you could charge by the CPM. In most cases, with small direct buys, webmasters prefer the flat rate deals.

There they can pay on the forumhome part for $25 per month (I call this priority listing) and for the More ... section (shows up after clicking on it) for $10 per month.

A reasonable price

yeh its true that it doesn't make sense selling ad with no visitors to the blog. evaluate by Ur self too

its depend on PR and clicks
normal changes for adds at PR0 sites
160x60 Banner no rotation $60 p/m
728x90 Banner - no rotation $120 p/m