May 11, 2004

9:49 AM

Are there 'standard' rates for text and banner advertisements? Are there any generally accepted pricing guidelines? Is there a formula a webmaster can use to determine how much they should charge for banners or text ads? What about exclusivity? (More Inside)
posted by cup to (3 comments total)

One of my websites (a relatively new one) is starting to take off. Although the traffic is low, it is being linked to from popular sites, traffic is steadily increasing and search engine position is improving. It is highly focused.

A company (which makes a product much desired by my highly focused audience) has contacted me for advertising rates and they want exclusive banners (i.e. I would no longer be able to accept any banner advertising from other companies in the same line of business).

I have no idea what to charge them and Google didn't turn anything up. Does anyone know of any pricing standards, guidelines or general rules regarding banner advertising or text ads? Anyone have any experience in this area? Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

P.S. I would prefer to charge per month rather than per impression or click-through. Is that generally accepted or will that be a problem?

P.P.S. Sorry but I will not provide a link to the website in this thread, my profile or via e-mail out of respect for the community policy regarding self-linking. Thank you for understanding. :)
posted by cup at 9:56 AM on May 11, 2004

Lets see the site.
posted by banished at 10:59 AM on May 11, 2004

Selling text link ads can be a great source of revenue for a small or medium sized site.

Resources for you include LinkAdAge.com and TextLinkBrokers.com.

You do want to be careful about the types of ads that you accept; you don't want to end up here.

Based on my experience, you should re-evaluate your prices from time to time. Make sure to get paid up front, and definitely reserve the right to reject any ad which does not meet your standards (be sure to state these up front). Automate your entire process of accepting and displaying links. Be careful about making promises about search engine rankings, page views, demographics, and so forth.

One very interesting observation I have is that when I had no links on my site, no one asked about placing them. As soon as I had the first one, queries started to come in with some regularity.

Finally, and I cannot overemphasize this enough: In my experience, it is a lot easier and more satisfying to deal with individuals and small organizations. Once you start getting involved with ad agencies, things get complex and time-consuming really fast. I spent days implementing some special logic requested by a big-name agency, only to have the ad campaign cancelled when the strategy changed.

As far as actual prices, drop me a note to the email address in my profile, and I will tell you about the rates I have been able to get for one of my sites.
posted by jeffbarr at 12:47 PM on May 11, 2004