What to charge for a small display ad?

Guess or ask company to make offer?

[shallow]

A major company wants to advertise on my site, depending what I charge them. But the fact is that I haven't the foggiest notion of what to charge.

They want to place a 125 X 125 pixel display ad on an entire section of my site which contains appoximately 300 pages.

Any suggestions or recommendations where I can go to get the info?

Would it be unprofessional to tell them I don't know what to charge and ask them to make a fair offer?

[King_Fisher]

This reminds me of some dialog from an old movie.

Farmer trying to sell a cow.

1st farmer: How about buying my cow?

2nd farmer: How much do you want for her?

1st farmer: I dunno, what will you give me for her?

2nd farmer: I'll give you a nickle, now how much do you want?

Moral of the story know how much you want for your product before you start

dealing!...KF

[shallow]

So you're saying, pick a number out of a hat?

I do know I want more than a nickel. ;-)

Thanks.

[ken_b]

Are you running AdSense on those pages now?

If so, you might be able to get an idea of what to charge by looking at the AdSense income from a small or similar sized adblock.

Then add some extra, remember AdSense, and all brokers, take a cut of the ad price.

You need to add that back in, at a minimum, to make up for the hassle of dealing with customers, collections, etc.

I'd at least double what AdSense pays.

[edit] fix typo ~ twice. can't spell. :)

[edited by: ken_b at 9:58 pm (utc) on Feb. 26, 2008]

[shallow]

That's a very good idea. I appreciate the helpful answer, ken_b.

[eljefe3]

You can always compare what other sites are charging that are simillar to your sites. Probably a seach like " your topic advertising rates" will give you a general idea of the market in your topic.

[shallow]

Thank you eljefe2!

I have one more question. Which is worth more? A text link ad on a home page only; or a small display ad appearing in an entire section of a site (currently about 180 pages).

Thanks again.

[sem4u]

That depends on many factors. How many impressions do your pages get? You could sell on a CPM rate. Run AdSense as a test to see what CPM you can get using that.

A text link on a homepage could go for a small or a larger fee, maybe charged per month, depending on things like Google Page Rank and traffic. Be wary of selling text links as Google is trying to clamp down on these at the moment. Your site *could* get a Page Rank reduction or even a ban...

[shallow]

Where do I find a consultant I can hire to help me with this?

[eljefe3]

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