What to charge at first for an ad/banner on new web site.

One month free advertising, good idea or bad idea?

[bartainer]

Hello,

I have a fairly new informational web site. My strategy for income and clients is to solicit my competitor’s advertisers. I will charge less and offer more. My partners think that my giving away one month of free advertising is incorrect and a bad plan. I disagree! I want to develop an honest reputation and I think offering one month of free advertising is a good plan. This gives the client time to see his/her ad on my site.

Please help me with the right formula!

Thanks.

[edited by: eljefe3 at 11:58 pm (utc) on May 17, 2006]

[ergophobe]

Just a quick question. After the first month, how would you charge for banner advertising (CPC, CPM? CPA?).

Totally out of my expertise, but just thinking logically, I would say if your pricing is CPA (cost per action), it's essentially a no-risk proposition to the advertiser anyway and will be free if they don't sell any sales/subscriptions/whatever. If it's CPC, they don't know that your clicks are as high quality as the current advertisers, so there's some risk. I would not even consider CPM on a brand new site and some sort of cost per month would be totally out of the question unless the cost were zero.

Also, before I would bother, free or not, I would at least want to see some traffic stats (this being a fairly new site, how do I know that you don't have just a couple thousand visitors per month, in which case I would only advertise if there was perfect overlap with your information and my product).

[bartainer]

Very good! You have educated me and I do appreciate your expertise. Thank you.

[ergophobe]

I do appreciate your expertise

Totally out of my expertise,

heh heh. Just a few impressions from a total non-expert. You'll get some real expertise if the real advertising folks chip in.

[bartainer]

I hope that happens, because I certainly could use it! However, thank you.