How to Sell Ads on Your Site

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by Kevin Nunley

Just about every Web site owner has thought of a day when they will be able to harvest huge profits simply by putting other people's ads on their site. Put up your site, insert ads, and wait for the checks to arrive.

And why not?

TV pulls down billions, your local daily newspaper probably gobbles up 80% of the ad money spent in your town, and your favorite top five rated radio station practically prints money. Media earns. So why can't your Web site get in on the media money frenzy, too?

While Internet advertising has been a bit slow to get started (banner ad rates aren't any higher than they were in 1996), online advertising is starting to show signs of real promise.

Optimistic predictions peg online ad sales topping $23.5 billion by 2005. That is even MORE than network TV earns. To make matters even more exciting for the small business owner, there don't seem to be many mammoth corporate sites running away with all the audience. Even Yahoo, the king of Web traffic, is having problems keeping Wall Street happy.

What To Expect.

Most Web sites ads are in the form of banners. Banner rates are based on how many visitors your site gets. Just like advertising on TV or print, rates are CPM (cost per thousand visitors). The CPM rate for banners has been at $35 for years.

I would be sloppy if I didn't also mention that a great many sites discount their rates if you ask. In reality, the average CPM rate (when you ask) is well below $35. This sort of thing isn't at all unusual in the media world. I once worked for a radio station that had a published rate of $75 per commercial. Most clients got their spots for just $30. One major supermarket who had a knack for negotiation was getting the same commercials for just $12.

One way to tell if a site isn't getting any advertisers is to note how many of their banners advertise their own site. Either they aren't getting anyone to buy their banner space or the rates are so low it is more profitable to advertise the company's own products.

When you publish your ad rates, try to keep them high. It's much easier to negotiate a lower rate than to raise low rates later on. Most media profits come from higher rates. When your unique visitor count goes up, raise your rates. When an important writer regularly sends you content, raise your rates.

Here's Who Can Place Ads On Your Site.

Fortunately, there are some very large and growing ad networks that bring thousands of everyday Web sites together. These well-organized packages of sites are very attractive to advertisers. Even for big companies, they are the way to go if you want to do an ad campaign on the Net without spending a month going from site to site setting up the deal.

Make your first stop at TheAdStop.com. They include how-to advice and a host of reviewed ad networks that can get you started.

eAds.com pays from a nickel to 20 cents per click and won't accept sites get less than 100,000 impressions per month (an impression is when a visitor sees a banner).

A site that is highly focused on a specific topic of interest to a certain valuable audience will produce better results for banners. eAds will negotiate a special price for sites with banners getting more than 500 clicks per month.

BurstMedia.com has taken the specialized site concept to a lofty level. They believe highly specialized site content provides better results for advertisers. On a recent visit, Burst was featuring LongHairLovers.com, a site for women with long hair

You may have noticed, as I have, that many women highly value their long hair. They regard that aspect of their person as very dear. You can imagine how personal the articles, products, and ideas featured at LongHairLovers.com can be to that specific audience. It turns out to be an outstanding place to advertise hair care products.

Other ad networks go for hugely impressive numbers. ValueClick delivers ads to a global audience - including over 30% of Internet users in the US. Banners range over 10,200 sites before 14 million people.

In almost all cases, banners are served up on sites according to standard subject areas like Automotive, Business & Finance, Careers, and Consumer Technology.

Mostly I've been thinking of small business sites. If you are in charge of advertising for a larger corporation, you may need a more extensive and personalized campaign designed by an ad agency. Most top agencies, especially those hailing from New York City, have either established their own Internet ad departments or acquired smaller firms specializing in developing online ad campaigns.

The big guys don't seem to have any special secrets. The current method is to search the Net for appropriate sites and negotiate a price. A recent report figured an ad agency worker placed dozens of calls and emails to get a campaign going. There are now efforts to build a database network that will speed up the process.

How To Measure Your Site's Audience. Most ad networks pay according to cost-per-click (CPC--how many people click on a banner) and cost-per-impression (how many people see a banner, usually sold on the classic CPM model I mentioned earlier).

Before you get into the game, you need a good way to measure the number of visitors you get on each of your pages. Your numbers of unique visitors is most important.

Your Web host may already have a hits measuring feature in place for you site. There are also software packages you can buy off the shelf and online services you can connect to.

Perhaps the most popular and full featured is the free service at WebTrendsLive.com. The basic service requires you put their button on every page of your site. You can pay more to go buttonless. You get real-time traffic analysis and a gaggle of reports on visitors, page views, ad campaigns, and revenues.

One trick radio and TV use is to take advantage of all those reports. When you can view your audience from every which way, you can bet there is at least one perspective that makes your site look extremely attractive to advertisers.

Maybe you don't get a whole ton of visitors, but those who come spend an hour clicking through every page on your site. That shows visitors value your content and don't mind giving up a considerable helping of their valuable time. That is a a quality that would mean sales for many advertisers.

In the end, you may find it's the MEASURING and not the ads that make you the most money. Keeping a constant eye on your site's stats lets you make better decisions on where you place content, what kinds of content you use, what products and services you sell, and how you run your own ad campaigns. This invariably helps your site make more money from the sale of products, services, subscription fees, and through more efficient spending.