How much should I charge to advertise on my site?

[Frimley111R]

I'm working on a great (IMO) new website which will have people who will visit it for news on a specific subject. The revenue is planned to come from advertisers specific to that market but, for planning purposes, what do I guesstimate for income for adverts, sponsored articles etc?

 

[fisicx]

Tuppence.

Advertisers will pay once you get the traffic.

 

[Frimley111R]

Well yes, I understand that, more traffic = more £ advertising costs. This is quite specific though, not like adsense. Imagine that I have a news website all about horses/horse riding and I say to a supplier of related products 'Advertise on my website, I have XXXX horse enthusiasts on here'. Surely this highly targeted approach is worth something more than pennies. Does everyone want free impressions and just want to pay for clicks?

 

[Clinton]

Surely this highly targeted approach is worth something more than pennies.

No, it isn't. Sorry.

The problem is size. It does not make sense for firms to even consider all the small deals ... and you'll find that they won't.

At best they'll suggest you sign up to their affiliate program i.e. you get paid only when you generate a sale.

Till you get to a certain size (traffic , DA/PA, whatever) you'll find it next to impossible to sell ad space... at any price.

The revenue is planned to come from advertisers specific to that market

I would recommend you have a backup revenue source.

 

[Frimley111R]

Ok, fair enough. I guess its a case of build an audience and then apply revenue streams.

 

[lolage]

What your proposing is something that Facebook has been offering for years now. It's quite easy to advertise to niche audiences already on many platforms.

 

[Clinton]

build an audience...

And engagement. Audience on its own is not a major advantage these days.

 

[webgeek]

When you're bringing in real traffic, people will entertain a discussion.

When your traffic is repeat visitors, from the countries of interest to advertisers, they'll start to consider spending.

When your repeat visitors from a country of interest have proven full-page read behaviour and/or proven click through rates, where they've bought stuff on the site 1+ times (even free stuff), they'll start to write the check to you for advertising.

You've got to have people who will do more than run up the total of ad impressions. There must be some ad clickers in that crowd of tyre kickers.

Once they advertise, if the ROI is there for them, they'll bite your hand off trying to buy more space and squeeze out the competition.

Give away some slots as an introductory offer - get some data - get some traffic, then put your advertising media kit together.

 

[Frimley111R]

Good points, thanks.

 

[rf-harris]

How old is your website, what is your niche and how much traffic you are currently getting on your website?

 

[kelvin dron]

Try to maintain good statistics count with the following points,
1) Try to get more number of visitors daily to your website
2) If you have the facebook page try to improve likes
3) Same as Twitter too, try to get more number of followers

Once you got improved in all the above three points definitely people may look into to advertise on your website.

 

[Frimley111R]

How old is your website, what is your niche and how much traffic you are currently getting on your website?

None yet. I am in the development stage but it a market i know inside and out and although there are a lot of big players in it I can see a great niche which can expand and take a good slice of the market. Definitely has 2 big USPs.

 

[fisicx]

So don't even think about advertising income yet. Build the site and work on gaining traction, get the daily visitors up and engaging then think about monetizing the site. If it does become popular, the advertisers will often contact you.

 

[Frimley111R]

So don't even think about advertising income yet. Build the site and work on gaining traction, get the daily visitors up and engaging then think about monetizing the site. If it does become popular, the advertisers will often contact you.

I'm not, I'm just thinking things through that's all. I recognise that I need good, engaged traffic to the site first.

 

[fisicx]

I've got a niche site that generates a couple of hundred each month. Traffic is around 800/per day. Most of the income is Adsense, under 20% is from banners and other afiliate things. It doesn't scale up though. 8000/day doesn't mean ten times the income. But consider 10 sites each earning £100 per month and you start to get a decent income.

 

[UKcentric]

If it's your passion, focus on developing superb content, for free. Do that for a long time. Eventually the opportunities for monetisation will present themselves, but not before gaining a loyal audience and steady high volumes of traffic.

Don't forget to get people signing up to your mailing list, and provide excellent quality information that way too.

 

[Frimley111R]

Good advice. I guess my only challenge is to work out (finger in the air) how long that will take! Answers on a postcard...

 

[ethical PR]

Hi @Frimley111R

As you are a marketing consultant - I'm sure you'll have a much better idea than most on here

Think about it as if you were advising one of your clients - how would you advise them to drive targeted traffic to their website so they could look at monetising it.

Invest in targeted advertising, build your reputation online as part of your wider marketing plan.

 

[GoingOnline]

For a niche site, get a newsletter going. Then you can sell advertising on said newsletter, and hopefully make your advertisers some sales, making it easier to sell display advertising campaigns once it's proven you have enough converting traffic.

 

[ethical PR]

@GoingOnline He's not going to be able to sell advertising on his site or associated content as he doesn't currently have the traffic. He need to build up targeted traffic before he can do this.

 

[GoingOnline]

@GoingOnline He's not going to be able to sell advertising on his site or associated content as he doesn't currently have the traffic. He need to build up targeted traffic before he can do this.

Hence my suggestion that he focuses on getting a newsletter on his website with real subscribers first, if you manage that then you have the traffic (or your niche is a weird one). Sorry if my comment was unclear

 

[Frimley111R]

Hi @Frimley111R

As you are a marketing consultant - I'm sure you'll have a much better idea than most on here

Think about it as if you were advising one of your clients - how would you advise them to drive targeted traffic to their website so they could look at monetising it.

Invest in targeted advertising, build your reputation online as part of your wider marketing plan.

Indeed, but my experience, considerable though it is, does not stretch quite this far. I have no idea what audience I may generate, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. Who knows? Realistically I can see no other way than to built it, market it and see what happens. I'll keep costs down as much as I can initially and test the idea.

 

[NickGrogan]

I can see a great niche which can expand and take a good slice of the market. Definitely has 2 big USPs.

I have no idea what audience I may generate, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. Who knows?

If you know the niche and you have two USPs then you know the size of the market. From this you can look at your potential market penetration and there is your audience figure. If you don't, its because you don't have a niche.

Depending on your niche you can earn money with relatively low traffic.

For example I run for forum and directory for the directors of energy brokerage companies. I know how many brokers there are in the UK, to a fairly high degree of accuracy. And I know how many use the forum, website, mailing list.

If you want to sell to energy brokers - for example if you're a new supplier, then its a great and quite expensive place to advertise. For anyone else it's fairly worthless.

It's not just about numbers, it's about value.

 

[Frimley111R]

Well there's a key word there: 'potential'. I do know, or can work out my audience size but potential market penetration is still a finger in the air.

I take your point about your site but this is not so niche.

 

[NickGrogan]

Not really, it depends on your niche size. For example if you target owners of horses who won a certain race, you need a very high penetration to be considered worthwhile. It's also easier to build your website and you can direct your marketing.

If you target people who like horses then you can aim for much lower levels.

Any very large niche will be easier for advertisers to target through adsense, twitter or FB, and so less and less valuable,

 

[Frimley111R]

Ok, this was interesting. Yesterday I was doing some research on similar sites and one of them had its advertising rates plus the number of advertisers on the site and site stats. They had 30 advertisers who were paying at least £150 per month, so roughly £54,000 a year at a conservative estimate (I ignored other advertising options). There wasn't much similar info on many other sites which indicated a lack of commercial awareness.

 

[fisicx]

How many visitors are they getting?

 

[SamLH]

Are you writing articles for them or giving them links to their website, anything special about the content or is it just a standard advert on your website.

We've been struggling with independant advertisers because they just don't have the resources to accurately present their data, analytics not complete, no way of monitoring conversions so usually go through adnetworks instead of buying straight from the website.

If its just a standard advert we pay per conversion but it roughly works out at £1 or so for a few thousand impressions.

 

[Frimley111R]

How many visitors are they getting?

850,000p.a.

 

[fisicx]

And that's why they can charge so much for their adverts.

Will you ever get anything like that in your niche?

 

[Frimley111R]

Are you writing articles for them or giving them links to their website, anything special about the content or is it just a standard advert on your website.

We've been struggling with independant advertisers because they just don't have the resources to accurately present their data, analytics not complete, no way of monitoring conversions so usually go through adnetworks instead of buying straight from the website.

If its just a standard advert we pay per conversion but it roughly works out at £1 or so for a few thousand impressions.

Hi Sam, sorry brain not quite in gear this morning. Are you saying you advertise on other people's websites because the site owners don't have suitable/accurate metrics systems in place?

I am conscious of Adblockers blocking many adverts these days, (I know because I use one myself) but the idea/intention is that the site will have short advertorials related to each section. So, for example say it's a site about beauty products (oh the irony!), in the hair section there would be highlights of the main hair related news with advertorials for hair related products and services interspersed. The idea is not have Adsense ads all over the site making it look like a website containing adverts but with some content thrown in there too.

 

[Frimley111R]

And that's why they can charge so much for their adverts.

Will you ever get anything like that in your niche?

Yes, there is far greater potential.

 

[Chris Ashdown]

Do it like this forum, sit around and do nothing and let the members do the rest easy peasey

 

[Frimley111R]

Do it like this forum, sit around and do nothing and let the members do the rest easy peasey

That's what you think, our invoices are in the post!

 

[Clinton]

Yes, there is far greater potential.

Everything has "potential". Google.com was once available for $5. It had a lot of "potential" but for years nobody bought the domain! Why didn't they? The domain had the potential to be worth millions!

Elsewhere you say:

I have no idea what audience I may generate, hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. Who knows?

My tip: Stop dreaming. Go do something - prove that you can put a site together and make it popular. Till then the answer to the thread's title is ... you've got no traffic to speak of so your charges to advertise should be £0.

 

[Frimley111R]

Google.com was just the wrong name at the time anyway. The business was actually Googol but it became Google when the first investor misspelled it on the cheque. The domain had no potential, the business using that name did.

I'm not dreaming but if you don't think businesses through you can do a lot of work only to find out that there is little value/revenue for it. Its planning.

 

[rf-harris]

None yet. I am in the development stage but it a market i know inside and out and although there are a lot of big players in it I can see a great niche which can expand and take a good slice of the market. Definitely has 2 big USPs.

All the best (Y)

 

[Woodhouse Marketing]

At the moment based on what you have revealed I'd suggest that you focus on getting traffic first, qualified traffic as well, ( niche specific).

Many advertisers won't run ads on a site with little or not traffic since the purpose of running an ad in the first place will be to get a return on their investment.



What you could do in the meanwhile as you build the site and generate traffic is go and get an affiliate account and run affiliate ads on the site, you could even run Google Adsense ads on the site too. Read up on Google Adsense. This will get you some money as you build up your traffic.

one thing you would also want to do immediately is capture data i.e names and emails of those that visit the site There is a way of doing this ethically you could do a free niche related giveaway. You'll need an autoresponder for that.


That's it for now my laptop / brain is running slow. I hope that helps.

 

[Frimley111R]

Yep thanks, I realise that. I don't know a whole lot about affiliate advertising but will look into it. TBH, generating traffic cost effectively will be my biggest challenge.

 

[Woodhouse Marketing]

You'll need to used paid traffic or learn SEO, seo can be hit and miss.

Irrespective of what you do it will require traffic, my suggestion will be to learn about web. 2.0 traffic, seo but as I said it can be hit and miss you're always going to be at the mercy of google.


Ignore the Internet marketers saying that you'll make xyz millions in 7 days et al, Focus on learning one thing at a time.

Paid traffic is instantaneous but since you're just starting out and if you haven't got the pockets for it I's say stick to free sources, it is slow burn, but when you send traffic to your site you must be able to monetize it that is why I suggest affiliate products.

If you can tell me what niche you're focusing on I can make some suggestions when i can find some time.


In the meanwhile could you state what stage you are at with your website and traffic methods.


I'll pop back in at some point.

regards