How much should I charge for ads on my website??

How much should I charge for a banner ad?

• I am working with a company that has recently launched a niche market website that sells tickets to sporting events and concerts. We are interested in selling banner ads on the site. Our current traffic is approximately 400 unique visitors per day, so we really don't have high enough numbers for CPM or CPC (or should I say we don't have high enough traffic to make money through those right now). We are interested in charging a monthly flat rate per banner ad, yet we are unsure how much to charge. Our goal is to target local businesses in each of the major sports teams' cities who are interested in being affiliated with the sports industry and who want to attract a target audience of young, educated, affluent males (our demographic). How much is a reasonable amount to charge these companies for a banner ad on our site? Again, this would be a monthly charge and not based on cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) or cost-per-click (CPC). Please ask for clarification if necessary, as I will be happy to provide more information. Thank you!

• Answer:

  <What to charge for banner advertising. I have taken a look at what other ticketing sites are charging and what low traffic sites targetting the 18 to 34, sports fan demographic are charging. A wide variety of prices are being charged and there seems to be no consensus. Judging by what some low traffic sites are charging, it seems that there is scope for sites to achieve higher rates than they are currently asking. Many ticketing sites do not have advertising. Those that I found charged between $30 per month and $927.00 per month. The site charging the most had just 80,000 unique visitors which is fewer than your 146,000 visitors. This site has commercially exploited all avenues of generating income. They also give a clear demographic analysis of their audience which advertisers like to see. With sports sites, a site with just 10,000 unique visitors is charging $250.00 a month and appears to have its advertising fully booked. Whereas a site charging $450 per month appears to have no takers. There is certainly scope to convince advertisers to pay over $900 per month and it is certainly possible to attain $250 per month from a low traffic site targetting sports fans. When pricing your banners you will need to bear in mind that companies may try to negotiate the rate down so it advisable to leave some room for negotation. It might be an idea to try out a test marketing exercise, initially offering advertising at several rates to different potential advertisers to find out the optimum price. --------------------------------- What other sites targetting sports fans are charging. Talksport.com and ScoresLine.com Sports fans. 10,000 unique users. $250.00 per month. The advertising space on these sites is fully occupied. http://www.microbro.com/adrates.htm Sportsco.com $150 to $300 per month. http://www.sportsco.com/spglobal/adrate.htm Collegesportscareers.com 320 unique visitors per day. $50 per month http://www.collegesportscareers.com/advertise.aspx 18-34 male demographic $125 to $500 per month. 80,000 unique visitors per month ? approx 2,700/day http://www.maddenmania.com/advertise.php Ravens 24x7.com ? football site. From $100 per month. http://www.ravens24x7.com/default.aspx?SectionName=classifieds&ContentID=508 Allsports.com, a sports site charges $450.00 per month. They do not specify how many visitors they have. However they don?t have any advertisers. The adverts are all for their own products. http://www.allsports.com/advertise.htm ---------------------------------------- What other ticketing sites are charging. Chicagogigs Sells ticket to concerts in the Chicago area. $125 per month. http://www.chicagogigs.com/mediakit/advertise.htm Ccauthority.com Tickets to christian concerts. $50 per month http://www.mmiworld.com/rates.htm PtownTix Sells 13,000 tickets a year. Static banner ads - $30/month. http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:L-6lCOGugx8J:www.ptowntheater.org/binary-data/PTT_BIN/binary/2-1.doc+tickets+%22+static+banner%22&hl=nl&ct=clnk&cd=4 EIFF 85,000 visitors £1500 for 3 months. Approximately $927.00 per month. http://64.233.183.104/search?q=cache:iiamn9EWsOcJ:a.edfilmfest.org.uk/downloads/professionals/2006/EIFF_2006_Media_Sales_Pack.pdf+events+tickets+%22+static+banner%22+advertising&hl=nl&ct=clnk&cd=25 Ricoh Arena £75.00 http://www.coventryricoharena.co.uk/default.asp?id=50 This site with 250,000 visitors is charging $99 per year and $149 for animated banners. http://www.daffodilvalleytimes.com/advertising.shtml> <Search strategy:> <tickets " static banner"> <://www.google.com/search?hl=nl&rls=GGLG%2CGGLG%3A2006-12%2CGGLG%3Aen&q=tickets+%22+static+banner%22&lr=> <"banner ad" "per month" "sports fans"> <://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-12,GGLG:en&q=%22banner+ad%22++%22per++month%22++%22sports+fans%22> <"banner advertising" "sports fans"> <://www.google.com/search?q=%22banner+advertising%22+%22sports+fans%22&hl=nl&lr=&rls=GGLG,GGLG:2006-12,GGLG:en&start=30&sa=N> <Hope this helps.>