1. Pricing (How much should I charge?)
I am asked this question daily. Here are some questions you should be prepared to answer before we can figure out the *right* price:
- Approximately how many impressions (page views) will the ad get in a 30 day period (since ads at BSA are sold at fixed 30-day rates)?
- Do you have current advertisers? If so, how much are you charging them per month and are they happy?
- What size ad(s) are you planning to sell and where will they be located on the page?
Answers to these questions will help us figure out the right price for you to set. A useful metric we use when we talk about price is called eCPM (estimated cost per mile). eCPM represents an informational factor in our directory so advertisers know approxitamely how much the publisher is charging per 1000 impressions.
eCPM = cost / ( total impressions / 1000 )
What’s a good eCPM?
Let’s say you are in the design niche, you own a photoshop blog for example, your next smart move would be to check out the BuySellAds.com directory and you’ll definitely come up with PsdTuts+ : they have fantastic stats, eCPM is showing $0.26 for the 125×125 spot, this is very attractive for the advertiser, you might not be able to pull down such a good price if you’re thinking of competing with them, but you should take this as a reference.
What’s a low eCPM?
It really depends on the niche, a low eCPM might be hard to guess. Never go too low, always do some calculations on how low your eCPM can be.
What’s too high eCPM?
Based on what I’ve seen, $2.5+ eCPM is a very high eCPM, and the risk is simple, advertisers might feel that they are paying too much for that amount of traffic. It might still work though, it all matters on the niche and how other factors bind together, so don’t get discouraged but keep eCPM in mind and do a bit of research in the website directory.
Now, we have set our price by comparing the BuySellAds.com directory of sites and checking the eCPM and overall traffic.
2. Ad placement
This can be even more important than pricing, and here’s why: pretend you are the advertiser, would you enjoy paying $20 for a small banner at the bottom of the website that will generate 5 clicks – or – pay $100 for a big 720×90 leader board on the header which will generate 200 clicks?
You will be able to charge more money for larger ads (300×250, 728×90, etc) and more money for ads that are placed above the fold or in highly visible areas of the site. Google AdSense has some nice graphics and advice on this as well. This doesn’t mean that you can’t or shouldn’t use smaller sized ad units and units that are not above the fold. There are actually some great places below the fold to monetize.
3. Content
Content is king, for real. Therefore, imagine yourself having a website with huge traffic but the content is a bit doubtful, maybe too much text, maybe a bad layout. Who will the advertiser pick, you or a website with a great design and a good overall feeling that the webmaster really invests money in it’s usability and design? You guessed right.
Produce quality content and you will have advertisers that stick around for months and months. They might test the waters with multiple sites, if yours has better quality content and is updated consistently, chances are you also have a decent following and will be able to produce results for your advertisers. Remember, when you sell ads with BSA you’re not just trying to get a quick hit for a 1 month campaign from an advertiser – you are trying to make them an advertiser for 3 months +.
Consider content as the best long-term trap for advertisers.
Conclusion
- Breaking the ice should be the first priority, thus setting the price should be easy with a bit of research in the BSA directory of sites.
- Ad placement is vital, the advertiser needs results and you must give it to them by placing the ad in the most proper position.
- Quality content should persevere on your website, this is the best way to attract advertisers on a long term.
Follow these 3 golden rules and you’ll make more money.
I need to update this. Let's make it short, I'm in the web industry for a bunch of years now. When I was 19 I got recruited by BuySellAds to manage and optimize ads. I'm 22 now and even more web savvy.
I've never ignored a mail in my life so feel free to email me at sergiu[at]buysellads.com
Great tips, I’m still yet to sign up to BSA but I’ll be using these rules when I do.
I think it’s very hard to value yourself and your website, always a tricky situation to be in.
Thanks for sharing these guidelines. It would be nice to get feedback from the advertisers as a site owner – maybe a new feature for BuySellAds ?
yep, definitely a nice idea.
Yeah, definitely a great suggestion!
Useful info. Thank you!
Fantastic blog post Scorp, got it from your blog
Great tips!
Great Post! My problem is getting advertisers in the first place. Your tips will definitely help though. Thanks!
For most advertisers, AFTER they approve with placement and content, they check the price.
Breaking the ice is important, try to be flexible and offer more to the advertiser to gain notoriety.
Oh, and always “bonus” the first advertisers! ;)
Good tips. I try to follow all of these. Content is definitely key. When I first started PSDFAN I wasn’t retaining advertisers, but now most of my advertisers (almost all of them) have stuck around for month after month.
Trap them with quality content, I wish you all the best.
Thank you. It was very helpful :)
Hello.
I’m using BuySellAds too. But i have a question. Why my total impression shows n/a?
Do a little market analysis as well. What I do is calculate how many clicks I would expect advertisers to get from my site from a certain time period. From the analysis I will know about how much they are used to paying per click so I then set my fees up that way.
Example, advertisers for niche x are used to paying $1 a click. If you estimate that the ad on your site will generate 30 clicks for them over the course of the month, then the ad should cost $30 a month.
Good added tip!
True but this totally depend on the kind of niche we have…
and the kinda advertiser we are getting…
That should be “cost per mille” not “mile” — as in Latin for “thousand.” Threw me for a second.
I changed my blog layout and that helped me to get the advertiser in easy steps…
Thanks for the tips :)
Thanks for the article… this is all really helpful. We’re new to BSA and it’s hard to know where to price our ads. This gives us a great start.
I’m happy it reaches it’s purpose!
I definitely agreed on this one :) nice tips :)
nice tips :)
Indeed good tips! Content is king! You must give your users something to stay and keep coming back!
Shame on you for creating another terrific post! Awesome stuff, keep up the good work. I see a lot of potential!
Well its great info..! Well great things for publishers.. ;-)
Cheers, thank you!
As a Newbie, I am always searching online for articles that can help me. Thank you
Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your
post to my blog?
Hi Rob, thanks for the kind words.
Sure, make sure you link back to the source and the author :)
Just a heads up, “Rob’s” comment is auto generated comment spam. I’ve been looking at his footprint all day. Total amateur hour going on.
To reply on topic, what’s the minimum amount of traffic to get started with BSA?
Cheers!
Thanks, that made me look silly but heh :)
We recommend a minimum of 100,000 pageviews/mo to have a good start, there has been a debate around this number so one thing to keep in mind, if the design is fantastic and the content is fantastic and if we see the site really has value and it would be easy to sell at a good price for the publisher (okay, I just said a lot of “and”s) it can join even if it has lower traffic.
How I understand the approval system is more like “common sense”.
Cheers,
Sergiu
I would certainly choose the best looking website as an outsider looking in, if I knew nothing about either of the sites!
Really informative. helpful for Newbie…
I aim for $0.10/eCPM, would that be considered low?
It seems I’ve been selling ads at a really cheap price, 500,000 impression at just $10.
I guess that’s sheer ignorance. Will update the price to at least an average level now.
Thanks for this wonderful post!
Thanks for the useful tips.
Really nice post
My initial bid is 10$ for 100k Alexa rank website
and i think that valuable price
i must consider these tips for my website.
Slowly slowly increase your bid, if your traffic is useful for publisher and he got some leads from your traffic than surely, he will purchase again. So if your demand increase you need to increase your Bid value :)