Selling ad space?

How much should I ask?

[doc]

I have been approached about placing banners and or text adds on my web site which is country specific and am wondering how much I should ask for or hope for?
My targeted web site is quite new and only obtaining about 100 page views per day, however I am hoping that will exponetially increase shortly. (My older site has about 2000 page views per day)

[Nick_W]

Before anyone gives you help with prices, can I ask why someone might pay for ads on 100 visits a day? -- Is it a very specialist site?

Nick

[doc]

Perhaps they don't know yet how few page views the site has. What if they are also interested in the site with 2000 page views per day? I would like to respond to their query but I have no idea what would be a reasonable offer.
Thanks.

[Nick_W]

I'm afraid I have no idea. You could surely find some good resource though with a little digging. Try clikz.com or something like that...

My approach would be to turn the table (presuming I didn't know what to charge) and ask them what they have in mind. Anything they say, ask for double, settle in the middle...

Nick

[rcjordan]

I've found that a good, easily defended rate can be based on the cost of producing and delivering a direct mail brochure. Estimate the click-through percentage per day, then calculate from there. If you're using any of the PPC engines, consider using the average CPC for your target phrases.

[jimbeetle]

I've decided not to go with one of the ad services -- doesn't appear to be enough of a return. In between juggling all of the other balls that are in the air I decided it's best to set up our own ad sales, the proverbial "coming soon."

I was also in the dark and did a couple of searches, "advertising rates ourcity" and "advertising rates ourcategory." I was surprised that I found enough results to come up with a ballpark CPM of $10 to $15.

Until you build enough traffic you might consider this blurb I found one one of our quite large competitors: "Each ad space is 'rented' at a flat rate for 1 month, 3 months, 6 months or 12 months..." A run of site flat rate of $20 or $30 per month starting out might not be a bad idea.

Jim

[cpmguy]

Hey Doc,
I would take one of two approaches on the pricing of your ads. A.)I would get rates from competing websites of equal quality or B.)I would get current PPC rates for keywords that your site may target and run the numbers so that your cpm equates to a better deal than the ppc rates. For example if you charge 5.00 cpm and they can get a 2 percent ctr that equates to 20 clicks or .25 per click which may be a good deal if someone is paying more than that but if the current keywords are bringing less you will need to adjust your cpm down. Thats what we try to do to come up with rates that are fair to everyone