SEM Tycoon

**Epidemic** · 05-18-2007, 09:03 PM

Hi everyone. I have an entertainment web site with a highly targeted audience that is a PR6 and generates between 30,000-130,000 uniques monthly and between 300,000-1,500,000 page views monthly.

I was recently contacted by an advertiser who wants to place two banner advertisements on my web site for an entire year. The ad dimensions of those two banner advertisements will be 728x90 and 160x60.

Now, I have an idea of what I should charge, but I would love if I could have a few opinions from you guys at Earners Forum that would maybe solidify my position?

Keep in mind that I don't want to undercharge and sell myself short. I also don't want to overcharge and risk offending the advertiser.

I appreciate anyone who takes the time to respond. Thank you for taking the time to read my post. I look forward to talking with all of you in the future. :blush:

**handsome rob** · 05-19-2007, 12:53 PM

I would be careful selling banner ad space in more than 3-6mo. blocks. Use that time period as your testing ground to see if you are, in fact, undercharging. Test with analytics.

But also consider if you could make more than he's offering by putting your own CPA banners up there.

**Ganceann** · 05-19-2007, 04:35 PM

Are you currently using other adverts on your site like adsense?

Do you currently have both ad formats available in the site?

Have they quoted you a figure already?

I would look at using adserving software and selling at a CPM rate ideally. Although a monthly rate can also work well enough provided you work it out based on a CPM rate.

If 750,000 impressions is the average monthly page views and each advert appears on each page (ie 1.5mil ad views), and you want at least $1 CPM on page views (not ad views). Then a figure based only on page impressions would be:
750,000/1000 = $750 per month.

The $750 per month is what you hope to achieve based on 750k impressions on average. ($1500 per month at $2 CPM and $3000 per month at $4 CPM)

Ideally tying up a longer orders for advertising will help improve your cashflow but also limit how the site is developed a bit.

When considering longer term advertising you would look at Bulk Order discount rates (just a rough example below):
Monthly: $750 per month
Quarterly: $700 per month ($2100 per quarter)
Half yearly: $650 per month ($3900 every 6 months)
Annually: $600 per month ($7200 annually)

I am not sure if the figure seems high - but that would likely mean they were the only site sponsor. Obviously if you had 8 advertiser spaces available you wouldn't necessarily charge each $7200 per year as they would get a lot less impressions and it would translate as a much higher CPM rate.

This is not an answer to your question, just something that can be considered and hopefully it helps you work out a fair rate for advertising on your site.