UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums General Off Topic advertising rates

ok, this may seem like a no brainer to you guys, but what is a fair price to charge someone for advertising?

I have an auto parts store that wants to advertise on my site, and I have no clue what to ask!

I'm in the same boat... I have no idea what I should be charging. I'm pretty sure I'm not charging enough, though.

I have been surviving on google adsense but I have someone from an auto parts site asking me for rates, don't know what to tell him.

been searching around and have seen form $600 for a year, to $2500 a month for sites with similar traffic.

The best amount to charge is the amount your customer is willing to pay for the amount of traffic your site is generating and the ad presentation to your viewers.

but how do I figure that out? I don't want to ask too little, now do I want to ask too much and scare him off.

What I've normally seen as the average is $1.5-$2 CPM (cost per thousand impressions). Closer to $2 if the ad is going to be at the top of the page or somewhere highly visible, and lower if it's going to be buried a bit on the side of the page or something of that nature.

That's a pretty rough average though as prices really do vary.

is it acceptable to ask them for references? like other sites they are advertising with? I would be interested in asking them how their experience has been and what kind of rate they are charging them.

I have tried something like this a couple times before, and got burned both times.

Do a search for "auto parts" in google's keyword tool to find out what the normal CPC is. Then use this information to come up with a reasonable CPM.

And you know what else to check? If it is a local or regional advertiser you are competing with the want ads, craigslist, and the newspaper for advertising dollars. Be aware of what the rates are for those mediums as well.

Our board has been up for 9 years and we have had ads for about 6 of those. Here are some seldom mentioned considerations.

Snowballing - Make rates affordable enough to where you get multiple advertisers and they stick around. Email their competitors about advertising opportunities on your site. The more advertisers the more people will feel left out who aren't. It doesn't make sense to have a 3x$ rate if you only have one advertiser and they drop after 6 months. In my mind having 3 at 1x$ is better.

Run Ad Software - Use OpenX and give them statistics. Make sure they understand that CTR is usually in the 0.25% range. If they are running Analytics they will be able to track their clicks and conversions.

Don't drown your visitors - Sites typically use too many ads. I'm not a huge fan of 1st post ads, maybe for unregistered visitors, but not for registered. We have daily visitors from people who have been with us since day one and their contributions have made the site it is today. Don't punish them with a bunch of irrelevant ads. I would say if you are not making over $100/month from AdWords keep them to a bare minimum.

AdWord Insanity - Having too many AdWords ads can actually drive down the keyword rates for you site and you will actually make less. I think there is a post about this on W Revenue somewhere (Scott from PhotoPost). It's simple econ really, if supply outstrips demand your price will go down.