Free trials on advertising?

[kodaks]

What is your idea on giving free trials of advertising?

I have new website that it just getting started, and is looking for potential advertisers. I was thinking of offering a sort of "free trial", in order for the advertisers to test the waters. Any thoughts?

[eljefe3]

It certainly can't hurt, especially if you have good tracking in place to show the number of clickthroughs etc.

[kodaks]

Do you think the trials should be based on days, or the amount of clicks/impressions?

[hobbnet]

This is a little off topic but have you considered looking for CPA offers that are relevant to your site's content?

If done right you can good money off of CPA offers and you won't have to actually sell your ad space.

[CanadianChris]

Base the trial on both.

"5000 click throughs or 30 days, whichever comes first" kinda deal :)

Is this site currently getting alot of traffic?

As somebody that purhases ad space, I won't buy anything that can't guarantee 10,000+ clicks/month usually. But it also depends on the quality of traffic. There is the occasional exception to this for me:

If you send traffic to my site as a free promo for ad space and it gets sales, then I will be much more inclined to consider purchasing long term ad space as long as there is a profit. I find this usually only happens when the traffic is sent from a related site (i.e a widgets site sending traffic to another widgets site, whereas a ratchet site sending traffic to a widget sites tends to convert less, etc).

Have you also just thought about using affiliate programs related to your site for the text links?

[kodaks]

Thanks for the replies!

This is a little off topic but have you considered looking for CPA offers that are relevant to your site's content?

If done right you can good money off of CPA offers and you won't have to actually sell your ad space.

Yes, I have been using some CPA affiliate programs that are some-what relevant to my site's content. I just feel that I would gain revenue, with business advertising.

"5000 click throughs or 30 days, whichever comes first" kinda deal :)

That is a pretty good idea, I will look into it.

Is this site currently getting alot of traffic?

As somebody that purhases ad space, I won't buy anything that can't guarantee 10,000+ clicks/month usually. But it also depends on the quality of traffic. There is the occasional exception to this for me:

If you send traffic to my site as a free promo for ad space and it gets sales, then I will be much more inclined to consider purchasing long term ad space as long as there is a profit. I find this usually only happens when the traffic is sent from a related site (i.e a widgets site sending traffic to another widgets site, whereas a ratchet site sending traffic to a widget sites tends to convert less, etc)

I do not recieve a whole lot of traffic, just around 100000 page views a month. I run a medium-size local information website for a 75000 people city. So, the traffic and content is extremely targeted.

Thanks again!

[nativenewyorker]

Perhaps you can deal directly with some local merchants if you know them on a personal basis. This would likely make them more receptive to doing business with you.

You may also want to add something to your free advertising along the lines of "Please mention that you saw us at widgets.tld" Everytime a customer mentions your website, it will reinforce the merchant's decision that advertising on your site is effective and something that they should do.

[kodaks]

Thanks, I will put those ideas to good use :)!