Better banner advertisers?

[dickbaker]

I have a site that gets about 180,000+ visitors a month, with a bit over a million page views a month. There are over 1600 pages on the site.

I have one banner advertiser who has ads on just 17 pages on the site. His ad offers a free catalog for his guns. (My site is gun-related). With just 17 pages, he's getting nearly a 5% CTR.

I approached the publisher of two gun magazines about advertising on some 1500 pages on the site. After a month of talking, they agreed, and I got the ads up on the site.

Problem is, they're only getting about 100 clicks a day total from the two ads on all those pages. I suggested that they remove the subscription price from the ad, and emphasize the free gift promotion.

Their response was that they didn't want visitors, they wanted sales, and that 20,000 to 30,000 clicks a month (my estimate) would be too pricey. They don't think the ads will convert that well.

So, I need to find another advertiser. It looks like the best ones are the ones that offer something for free.

Any suggestions as to what sort of advertiser? I know that's a broad question, but any advice would be much appreciated.

[LanaST]

do you want another advertiser because you need to fill content on your site or do you simply want another one for the money?

Have you considered affiliate marketing instead? This will bring in revenue and you can pick and choose what you want the link or banner to look like, etc...

This would give you more control...

The program that I work with for example has tons of free offers campaigns.

[dickbaker]

LanaST, what I'm looking for is an advertiser or advertisers who want a good CTR. As I mentioned, I already have one banner advertiser who's getting roughly a 5% CTR. And that's from just 17 pages out of some 1600+ pages on my site.

I have another advertiser on my site. This company specializes in commemorative fireams--engraved replica's of historic firearms. They only have four pages on my site, but they're getting a CTR of almost 13%.

To be honest, I'd rather have just a few advertisers on the site. One of the best compliments I've received is that the site looks serious, and isn't cluttered up with ads.

What's really frustrating is that I worked this publisher for a couple of months.

Maybe some of you have more pages and page views than I do, but I see what I have as valuable "real estate."

I worked very hard to get to this point, and the number of visitors and page views is growing constantly.

A million or more page impressions a month, and I get maybe $400 to $500?

I don't think so.

Again, any comments or suggestions are very welcome.

[Jon_King]

Based on twenty years of advertising stat watching (previously traditional publication adverts), I can say with out doubt that a free offering will drive volume. In some cases unrestrained volume is undesirable but, for those that want volume, Free is the way to go. IMHO