How Do You Set Ad Rates?

[AlmostFrugal]

Hi All,

I'm going to start selling ads on my blog (in addition to using AdSense, Commission Junction and some independent referrals).

I'm looking for information on rates. People don't like to publicize their rates, which is understandable, but I'd like to get some ball park figures.

FYI, I have about 3000 visitors per week, 360 subscribers.

TIA,
Kelly

[Xin Lu]

I think it depends on what kind of ads you are going to sell. For sitewide ads you could price it by your traffic. Set a price per 1000 impressions. I think the normal going rate is $2 to $5 per 1000 impressions. Some people charge less. I have a variety of ads on my blog. Some are just links in one post and I charge $5 a month for them.

[AlmostFrugal]

Thanks Xin Lu. I was thinking of 125 x 125 ads, site wide, above the fold. If I priced the ads at the most conservative end, that would be $20 to $25 per month, per ad, which is what i was thinking.

And, I just realized, you're the Baglady! I like your site.

[Xin Lu]

yeah $20 to $25 a month sounds pretty reasonable. I sell my links through TNX, and it is good for blogs with pages with pagerank. It has a bit of a learning curve to use, though. However in some months TNX has been my best revenue source.

Heh, thanks for the compliment.

[Greg]

What a great question! Lynn recently spoke about selling ads on blogs at the BlogHer conference.

Her session notes (in a Q&A format) can be found here and here. She talked a bit about how to get started with direct sales and how to determine ad rates.

I think the $2-5 base CPM for a 125x125 button above the fold is a good start. You may want to up or lower your rate based on your fill rate -- lower it if no one is buying, increase it if there's lots of demand. If you can get $5 or more for a button ad, you're a superhero (and we'd love to hear how you did it)!

And even though you use CPM as a basis for determining your ad rates, you don't have to charge that way. It'll be easier to sell 125x125 button ads on a monthly tenancy basis. So try charging $25 / month / button, and work to up the rate based on your increasing number of page views and feed subscribers.

Good luck!

[AlmostFrugal]

Hey thanks for the links Greg! There is a lot of good information there.

I'm definitely going to sell ads by month. I thought about doing it by week, but even that will be too much admin work for what I'm able to handle at the moment. No way I'm going down the day route!

[AlmostFrugal]

Originally Posted by Xin Lu

yeah $20 to $25 a month sounds pretty reasonable. I sell my links through TNX, and it is good for blogs with pages with pagerank. It has a bit of a learning curve to use, though. However in some months TNX has been my best revenue source.

Heh, thanks for the compliment.

I think I don't have a high enough PR to go through them, but I've bookmarked them in my Potential Ads folder. Thanks for the link.

[Jason White]

If you are willing to make a longer-term commitment, I've had good luck offering a 5-1 deal. Pay for 5 months up front and get 1 month free. It lower the CPM figures a bit for the full six month term, but puts more cash in your pocket up front. Just something to think about.

[purplefdu]

I would head over to Digitalpoint as well as Sitepoint and ask or look for information on pricing. They are normally very helpful about such things and have lots of information from other people asking similar questions.

[Greg]

Check out BlogAds.com.

They seem to be doing a good job helping bloggers sell ads on a weekly or monthly basis. You can set your own prices, and even offer discounts for multi-week/month buys.

They only take a 30% cut -- much less than the industry standard of 50% for ad networks -- and offer some unique ad formats.

It seems to be popular with a lot of blogs. We don't use them on Wise Bread, but some pretty big blogs uses them. (eg., DailyKos.com)