Hey DPers, I'm really sick of Adsense seeing as it doesn't pay me worth a crap compared to the amount of exposure many of these advertisers are getting on my site. But this isn't an Adsense sob story. I own a gaming fansite (for the game of Neopets) with a predominantly teen audience (13-17) with a minority younger child audience (6-13) and a minority adult audience (17+). The younger child audience is larger than the adult audience. According to Google Analyics, on average I receive about 10,000 visitors a day, with up to 32,000 page views a day. I'm currently redesigning my entire site design to better accommodate my ads (to make them look nicer) and keeping up with web standards... it's just time for a site design update. On my new design I will be selling advertising space directly through myself. What I'm stumped on is how should I go about charging and calculating the price for these advertisers? I'm leaning more towards the CPM way of doing things (totally opposite of Adsense, heh) and charging $$ per thousand impressions. It's just easier that way. On my new site design I will be selling two advertising spots to advertisers. My new layout is a 3 column layout and the first advertising spot is a 250x250 square ad in the top-middle of my layout in the content area. Off in the very right hand column is another 125x125 graphical ad. How much should I charge for these spots (again, trying to use the CPM method)? I heard funky crazy stories of big advertisers paying up to $8 per thousand impressions. I imagine that that is wayy too high, but at the same time I think that anything lower than a buck would just be shooting myself in the foot. Based on the information I've given about my site, ad positions, and audience type, how much should I charge per thousand impressions on my ads? Feel free to ask any questions if you need any other necessary information to make an accurate calculation. Thanks in advanced. Tip
The only correct answer is that it depends on your site. There's one sure-fire way to find out what advertising on your site is worth. Set a price and gauge reaction. If you're marketing properly, but not getting the desired result, a price reduction may be in order. If you're always sold out, perhaps a price increase is wise.
Yeah, put an ad which says "request quote." That way you can set different prices for different advertisers based on a number of factors.
I was looking into this for another website that I will be making in the next few days. Both ideas giving are the best way to do it. But things like the number of vistors and their average time browsing you site will set your rates. If your site is only visited by 10 people daily and maybe a few rnadoms wanderers you see that people wont pay much. Also placement will make a difference too. I think it will be easier to charge someone per month then per impressions may work in your favor better.