Felicia Coley writes a blog on shoes and is facing a dilemma common to most bloggers - "How much to charge advertisers for renting blog space ?" She writes:
I was just contacted by a relatively large company that is requesting to advertise on my blog. Being a newbie, I'm flattered, yet clueless as to how much to quote as a monthly rate.While advertising rates may depend on lot of factors like site traffic, your niche, ad placement and even visitor demographics, we can use contextual advertising programs like Adsense / YPN or impression based programs like Adify or TribalFusion to estimate the advertising potential of our blogs.
Say you have a 125x125 space in the left sidebar where you are seeking advertisers. Run an Adsense campaign in that space for a week and track the performance using Adsense channels.
After a week, get the average CPM value for that space (this data is available in Adsense advance reports under eCPM).
Armed with the Adsense CPM figures, you can easily quote rates that are 20% lesser than Adsense.
[Adsense ads are contextual and therefore more relevant and enjoy higher click-throughs. On the other hand, static banners look the same across all pages and return visitors generally ignore them].
Here's an example using the above model:
Your site receives 30,000 pageviews (or hits) every month. The 125x125 Google ad that you ran for 7 days returned an average CPM of $5.00.
If your client is willing to advertise based on ad impressions, you may charge him $4 CPM. If he is interested in a monthly campaign, you can quote him 30*$4 =~ $120 per month.
Also, you may charge a premium (50% or more) for ads that are displayed above the page fold near the most visible areas of the site. [CrazyEgg can help you here].
And always offer choices and remain flexible with the ad formats. If your sidebar is 160 pixels wide and the advertiser's banner button is 180 pixels wide, try to work with your site designer to stretch the sidebar to fit the ad.
Related: Adverting Rates on Popular Blogs
Find this article at: http://labnol.blogspot.com/2007/03/blog-advertising-rates-how-much-to.html
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
I disagree to this model Amit...Now, if Adsense will return me $5, then why should I accept the advertising offer if it will return me something less.
I would rather say, run Adsense on the space, and say you make $5 out of it. Then, bid for $6 and if the advertiser accepts the offer, then you make an extra dollar!Otherwise, you always have Adsense to fill that space, dont you?
Written on 23/3/07 3:21 AM
Anand - Good point.
But when you are a newbie, you have offer the best option to a prospective advertiser so that he's attracted to your site - that means give him the space with maximum returns at nominal cost.
Secondly, you can still have Adsense ad running on your site. So the net returns may be higher.
Written on 23/3/07 12:30 PM
Came here via Google search.. Thank you Amit - this was very hulpful!
I recently decided to accept advertisements on my site and had no clue what to charge.
Written on 30/3/07 1:51 AM
I would agree here that it does not make sense to charge less for a spot where you could earn more unless you have been banned by adsense for instance.
You could always use CPM services like Tribalfusion to add to your income running them next to the adsense ads on your website.
Written on 13/4/07 1:25 AM
@Anand:Its always best to lure your advertiser in right sense. If you are going for direct sell, you can charge less and offer them discount if they agree to buy for long term say 2 months or more. If we see an overall look ultimately you might find constant advertisers for your site. Thats always better than adsense which depends on bidding. Not necessarily $5CPM will give u same money but a permanent or regrlaur advertiser will.
Written on 27/5/07 10:04 AM
Thank you Amit,
I too was recently contacted by an advertiser saying they were interested in advertising on my blog and asking me what my rates were.
I am currently working out a fee model and came across your site by searching Google for blog advertising rates.
Your post and discussion in the comments have given me a good starting place.
I am also wondering:
1) What the scale of rates would be for, say a vertical sidebar ad (e.g. 160x600), which isn't wholly above the fold, as opposed to a completely above the fold horizontal banner space. Would you recommend charging 25% less, 50% less?
2) Are there any plugins or scripts available for rotating ads in blogs? Currently, I would have to offer exclusive visibility on all blog pages, because it would mean adding a fixed code to the template.
Written on 29/9/07 4:19 PM