Hi, I am looking for some help on general pricing to charge for advertising on a startup website. I am starting a Wash. D.C. based web site that is expecting localized web traffic of up to 100,000+ unique hits a day. What type of traffic is necessary to charge X amount of dollars for banner ads? Or is there a better way to make money off what will be alot of localized web traffic? Can someone direct me to a good starting point for pricing/organization of ads? Thanks
Is this a political website? For starters you need to do some studying on proper adsense ad placement. You want to make certain you are placing the correct adsense ads on your site. That will be income stream number 1. With 100,000 hits per day it should do well. Find some way to monetize the site with selling physical products like campaign tee shirts, buttons, etc. (assuming it is a political website). You could even do catch phrase products or comedic products (making fun of the candidates -- like wendy's rudy commercial). I would go after the clients looking for exposure. Banner ads don't do that well for people looking for sales. You can have separate banner types like exclusive and rotating banners. You can get some cheaper pricing for the rotating ads and command a premium based on impressions for exclusive placement, particularly on the main page or a niche page. Then there is also ways to monetize it through affiliate income. If it is a political site, you could find affiliate products to promote related to the election or a cause or something like that. As far as pricing goes... I don't think banner ads do that well especially for a startup site, since there is no proven record of incoming traffic and uniqueness of that traffic. I think the going rate is usually $20 to $30 for 10,000 impressions. You could pitch a deal like $100 for 100,000 impressions for rotating ads, and then a different rate for monthly ads or link ads, etc. You might want to check the warrior forum. There might be some tips on their site for pricing structures. My figures are just guesstimates based on prices I have paid in the past.