How much should I charge?

[DarrenC]

I have received a phone call from a travel insurance company who want to advertise on my site. The advertisement is a simple text link, on a travel insurance page on the site (PR4)

This page though is very popular due to the targeted audiance is looking for this type of product.

How much would you charge for annual listing?

Not sure what the "going" rate is.

[SillyJokes]

The Times Educational Suppliment charge £50 per 1000 exposures. Which I personally think is a total rip off and assume if can be haggled down.

With this in mind think of a figure and then double it for haggling room.

[DarrenC]

That is a lot :o

Okay thanks, that's given me a few ideas.

Any one else? :)

[JustOneUK]

free for 6 months.. provided you get a reciprocal.

make sure the link opens in a new window.

Evaluate your traffic from them over 6 months..if you get nothing...charge them £20/quarter.

No reciprocal £40/quarter

[Richard Glynn]

Ask them for a percentage of the sales and then write and distribute news release about you 'joining forces' with them. You could talk about exploring reciprocal marketing opportunities yada yada etc. Trade press like that sort of thing. (You wouldn't get much coverage if you wrote about someone simply advertising on your site - that's all)

For the consumers - offer your customers exclusive added value insurance deals to get the show on the road. Offer to email your database introducing the partnership in return for the other comapny underwriting any offer you agree.

[bwglaw]

With them being a travel insurance company (are they actually a travel insurance company, or are they a broker?) I would offer at least £100/month and negotiate from there. Go in too cheap and you will have difficulty increasing your prices later.

A rule of thumb in advertising - never pay the price they ask. This said, they will negotiate. They need traffic from your site as much as you need it from theirs, if they will put a link on their site. I have not come across travel insurance companies that do this

[Rob Holmes]

Heres some thoughts....

You know the amount of visitors you get to that page - work out if .5% of them went through to the site, then if 1% of the people that went through purchased - then check the average sale price for travel insurance.

Then you'll have a very rough figure of what they would make per month for the advert - then half the figure they make and go in at that price.

You'll at least be confident that they should double their money.

You can also negotiate on position of the link (top right is best) and other links around it and on the same page - and they should pay more for exclusivity.

Rob

[DarrenC]

Great suggestions from everyone - thanks! (I love this forum!)

Darren

[DarrenC]

Okay, they have signed up for advertising :D

I used Matrix's idea of calculating the rate, and Jonathans idea about not going too cheap, because they will probably want to negotiate (which they did!)

Now Im just waiting for the money to hit my account! :)

[bwglaw]

Are you able to tell us what they agreed? or any near the figure I gave - just out of curiousity ;)

[DarrenC]

I'll PM you Jonathan :)

[mark_hadfield]

I'll PM you Jonathan :)

Damn my nosey parker-ness! :x

[DarrenC]

hehe

I've always gone with affiliate advertising on my sites, because I've earnt a steady about of money, but what I hated was that I couldn't really work with that company, and get a business relationship...

I'm now in the process of ditching the affiliate links when I am successful in gaining an advertiser to replace that link.

Between the Affiliates and Google Adsense, all of my outgoings are paid for! (with some money left over for a rainy day!)

[Red Creative]

In this very competative subject a skyscrapper or banner would cost them @£1,000 for several hundred to thoushand clicks, depending on what the site was - relevancy and traffic stats important to consider also.

[DarrenC]

Red Creative, if you can get me companies to advertise at that rate (or thereabouts) I'll split 40% of the rate with you :lol:

Companies are very cagey about advertising online, and even on an on-topic site such as mine- they don't think that the link alone could aid search engine positioning.

Darren