Selling Banner Ad Space

I am not too familiar with this topic, but I am just trying to do my part to contribute to the community

For those of you who own a blog, you might be wondering how to make money from it. Selling banner ad space is without a doubt one of the simplest methods to use, and it’s also the most reliable way.
But in order to do this, you’ve got to have traffic coming into your blog or else nobody’s going to buy space from you.
Selling ad space works very simply. You rent space to advertisers and place their banners on your site once they pay a fee. You can sell space two different ways. Each one offers its own set of pros and cons. Your choices are selling direct or selling through ad networks.
Selling Direct
When you sell ad space directly there are a number of benefits that come with it. Not only can it be a better method as opposed to selling through AdSense, but you won’t lose any commissions. If you have a blog that is not seeing much traffic, it’s still possible to sell space to others. Before you can sell ad space to others you need to know your blog. Using analytics can help monitor the amount of traffic your blog sees on a daily basis. You need to set it up and wait a month or so before doing anything else.
Pros of Selling Direct

· As far as the pros are concerned, you’ll find losing commissions is eliminated. When you work with an ad network, you lose 20-50% of your commission which comes from placing ads on web pages.
· You are in control as to who is advertising on your page.

· You have the option to sell your space using time as opposed to click or impressions.

Cons of Selling Direct

Selling directly to advertisers is going to require you to contact other websites directly. This is hard for some people since forcing sales is not in everyone’s skill set. Selling directly to advertisers is tricky for some and when you work with ad networks this is eliminated, or at least reduced some. You’re in a network of people looking for a place to advertise.

How Much to Charge for Banner Advertising

Pricing your ad space can be difficult since charging too much is going to turn potential advertisers off. If you don’t charge enough, you’re cutting yourself out of profit.

Do some digging around to other sites. See what they charge, and when setting a price, you need to think about the amount of traffic your blog gets. Even if you are new, you need to think ahead and set a price you’ll be happy with in the future once traffic picks up.

You can look at the “advertise here” page to learn what they charge. You want to take into consideration the following when pricing your ad space:

• Cost Per Thousand Impressions
• Cost Per Action
• Cost per Time
• Cost Per Click

How to Find Advertisers

Finding advertisers is tricky only because many of them still are not aware that it’s often a better spot since the blog is more relevant. This makes it easier to make sales since it’s a targeted market. Do a search for websites that are relevant to your keywords and get on touch with sites that are not in competition with you.

Send an e-mail and explain why advertising on your blog is a great decision and how it’s going to benefit their business. Offer some details about the pricing and also details about your analytics. If you have an “advertise here” page, link to it.

Make sure you take the time to make each e-mail personal. General e-mails can be spotted and often seem too salesy. Offering a personal touch can show your in-tune to their needs and have a genuine interest. Make sure you keep a record of you who send e-mails to. Using a spreadsheet keeps it all organized.

Selling Through Ad Networks

When you sell ad space through an ad network it can boost your potential profit, but as far as finding advertisers it becomes a little trickier. These days it seems there are more people offering ad space than there are advertisers.

If you’re looking for advertisers, the best method to do it without going broke is joining a banner network. These networks are great for a number of reasons because they’ll locate advertisers, track your earnings and monitor the banners you have on your site. Keep in mind that these will cost some money and in some cases will take a good portion of your commission.

Pros of Selling Through Ad Networks

The more traffic your website gets, the more money you make obviously. For those who don’t feel comfortable writing e-mails or talking to advertisers, this reduces the amount of interaction you have with them. You are not going to have to force sales either since the ads come from a network.

In addition, because you’re on a network, advertising ad space on your site allows you to reach more advertisers. However, you are still going to need ad management to help manage your inventory for several ad networks.

Cons of Selling Direct Ad Networks

When it comes to the downfall of selling through ad networks, you find that you get a percentage of your commission yanked from you. Some networks take anywhere from 30-50%, so if you have a CPM for $5 ads, you’re only going to earn $3 per CPM. But, if your site gets a lot of traffic, you’ll get a check for $300 a month from ad space alone.

Overall, people these days utilize both methods. They may sell premium ad inventory to advertisers directly, but they’ll leave the remnant inventory to the networks.