How do you structure a price when approaching private advertisers?

[moojj]

After reading Derricks post about approaching private advertisers (http://www.publisherforums.com/showthread.php?t=71) I started to wonder what sort of prices people are willing to pay for advertising on a site. How many unique visitors should you be attracting on a daily basis before you considering this advertising method?

[itaca]

Actually I would like to know that too.

[jeremy]

here is an estimation tool (http://www.text-link-ads.com/link_calculator.php). most tools like this are horrible, but this one is actualy fairly decent. they highball their estimates a little... maybe take 80% of what they tell you, and that will be a good starting point.

of course, as anyone would tell you, an estimate only gets you so far.

[Tyler]

Very interesting tool jeremy! Never saw that before. One of these days I need to try Text Link Ads...

However, as most web prediction tools out there, this is inaccurate at best.

Their estimatations for text links on the following of my sites, entire site, on side sections:

$138/month for PokerForums.org
$35/month for TylerCruz.com
$52/month for Movie-Vault.com
$6/month for Hypotheticals.org

The only close one was for Movie-Vault.com. However, I could be proved wrong. Maybe people are indeed willing to pay 3x what I normally charge for text links on PFO. We'll have to see once I do try out TextLinkAds.

I tried hypotheticals.org for fun - if anyone wants to advertise on hypotheticals for any amount of money, I'll laugh :P

To answer moojj's original question - I find it very easy to gauge what to price things now from basic experience. After selling private inventory for years, you just get an idea from trial and error (learned through demand). To get a rough idea though you could indeed browse through sites like Text Link Ads and other sites' advertising pages to see what they are charging and what their traffic is like.

[babyboy808]

Tyler, what is up with hypotheticals.org... Are you seroius ???

[moojj]

Wow, theres some serious competition out there with website development. How can anyone compete with developers like Hypotheticals.org ?!

I can't tell if this is supposed to be a joke, or a real site..

[Bryan Le]

You can advertise whenever you want - you don't need to have a certain baseline amount of visitors. It's all in what you feel that you are worth. If you have a great site, but no visitors, you can charge like $5.00.

If you have a bad site, but plenty of visitors, then charge more. Really, it all comes down to what you're prepared to take in.

Prices are temporary, and are/can be easily changed. If you feel that you're selling things for to cheap, bump up the price. If you're price isn't pulling anyone in, try to lower it and see if that works.

It's experimental. Play around with it, until you find a steady stream of advertisers, or interested parties. Adjust accordingly.

[JustinG]

You can advertise whenever you want - you don't need to have a certain baseline amount of visitors. It's all in what you feel that you are worth. If you have a great site, but no visitors, you can charge like $5.00.

If you have a bad site, but plenty of visitors, then charge more. Really, it all comes down to what you're prepared to take in.

Prices are temporary, and are/can be easily changed. If you feel that you're selling things for to cheap, bump up the price. If you're price isn't pulling anyone in, try to lower it and see if that works.

It's experimental. Play around with it, until you find a steady stream of advertisers, or interested parties. Adjust accordingly.

Bryan tookthe words outta my mouth.

[Derrick]

This could be wishful thinking, but check out the going rates for ebaumsworld.com:

http://eacs.ebaumsworld.com/booking.php




It's experimental. Play around with it, until you find a steady stream of advertisers, or interested parties. Adjust accordingly.

This is indeed very useful advice. Key is that you test & measure your results, and like Bryan Le said, adjust accordingly.

A simple example test: Month 1 you might offer ad slots for $100 per month. Month 2 you change the rate and offer them at $50. Now look at your results for both Month 1 & 2 and go with what was most successful.