Ad rates for a newsletter

May 13, 2005 9:05 AM

A co-worker is trying to determine reasonable advertising rates for a newsletter we publish. Any ad buyers out there able to help us out?

The newsletter is a finely targeted consumer publication on a medical condition. It's currently four pages, published quarterly, with a circulation of approximately 50,000. It's free.

There are a number of pharmaceutical companies who would love to get ads in front of such a narrowly focused audience. We've never dealt with advertising before, so we're not sure what to charge.

posted by me3dia to media & arts (4 comments total)

Hmm... I'm no expert, but here's what I'd do:

1. Find comparable publications and contact them about their advertising rates.

2. Figure out what you'd like to make on advertising revenue, double it, and then go to the street with those rates planning on negotiating down.
posted by TurkishGolds at 9:50 AM on May 13, 2005

Just make up numbers and try them on to see how they feel. A dollar a reader, $50,000 a quarter, if you can guarantee that all of your readers will buy an expensive product. But you can't.

So pretend you can sell to one in a hundred, and cut your rate to a penny a reader. That's 500 dollars. Not so much money, but still pretty good for 4 pages a quarter, unless you're killing yourself over those four pages.

But a penny a reader? You have dreams. You want to go somewhere. Maybe a dime a reader, 5,000 per ad? That sounds not too unreasonable and it would be good money for banging out four pages about this medical condition.

But what is this condition? Can you say? Mightn't it make a difference in the sort of readers you get and therefore the sort of ads and the sort of potential money we're talking about?
posted by pracowity at 10:23 AM on May 13, 2005

The first comment is just about right. Contact your competitors, or newsletters with a similarly desirable and hard-to-reach audience, and ask for their rate cards.

Generally, what your are trying to figure out is the cost per thousand (CPM) of reaching audiences similar to yours. Take their rate for a single full-page ad, and divide it by the number of readers...e.g. $10,000 for a full page in a magazine with 20,000 readers -- 10,000/20=$1000 cpm.

Once you know what they charge, figure out if you think you can charge more because you are provided something better.

There are some good resources on setting ad rates available from magazine publishing associations like the IPA.
posted by girlpublisher at 11:29 AM on May 13, 2005

But what is this condition? Can you say?

Can't divulge that, but there are around 15 million American sufferers of the condition. We're the only publication targeting this disorder, but I definitely plan on checking what other newsletters around our size charge.

Thanks for the formula, girlpublisher. That'll come in handy.
posted by me3dia at 11:51 AM on May 13, 2005