View Full Version : What is advertising worth?
Traffic on my web site, particularly the message boards, is growing quite fast, and I'm considering the introduction of some appropriate ads in a column on the right hand side.
Trouble is, I have no idea what to charge, and wondered it there's a rule of thumb or even some research that indicates an appropriate rate.
I'm in Australia, so realise that most of the information available will have a North American flavour, but at the moment I have no idea whether I should be charging $200 or $5000 a year.
don Arnoldy
06-28-2005, 03:21 PM
...wondered it there's a rule of thumb or even some research that indicates an appropriate rate.What's your demographics? I suspect that your equestrians are more valuable than a general population.
What's your demographics? I suspect that your equestrians are more valuable than a general population.Some are, but many of them also work in fairly ordinary jobs to feed, rug and transport a single horse, and pay for regular lessons.
My initial contact is with a feed company, and most horse riders spend $50 a week or so per horse on feed. Other possibilities are saddlery stores, both chains and sole outlet operators, horse float manufacturers, health product manufacturers and dressage wear makers. I've got
The site has a very targeted readership, and a personal flavour. I may be flattering myself, but I do think it has a certain amount of credibility among the people who visit it. At a major dressage show at the weekend, quite a few people made a point of telling me how much they like it.
Any ideas?
don Arnoldy
06-28-2005, 08:10 PM
Any ideas?Well, equestrian mag is charging $15/1000 for online banner ads. Sidelines and Dressage Today are charging $35 - 40/1000 for a full page b&w print ads. I'd bet you could get something between.
On another forum I frequent, a Canadian site operator speaks highly of these folks (http://www.accelerator-media.com/index.html) who are UK-based aggregators.
Well, equestrian mag is charging $15/1000 for online banner ads. Sidelines and Dressage Today are charging $35 - 40/1000 for a full page b&w print ads. I'd bet you could get something between.
On another forum I frequent, a Canadian site operator speaks highly of these folks (http://www.accelerator-media.com/index.html) who are UK-based aggregators.This is all new to me. I gather that CPM is based on the number of times an ad is viewed on screen, rather than the number of times it's clicked on. Is this so?
I followed the link to the aggregators. Not sure if they would consider my site as having too much message board content, but it certainly wouldn't hurt to approach them for their opinion. The message boards certainly are the busiest pages on the site by a long way.
At the moment, I'm depending on the raw logs for usage statistics. Is this sufficient, or do I need to install something else to monitor the usage?
don Arnoldy
06-29-2005, 08:44 AM
This is all new to me.Its pretty new to me also.
What I gather is that there are two methods of pricing ads--by "impression"--and the CPM is quoted was for that; and by click--which is a much higher price.
Not sure if they would consider my site...Worst that ould happen is that they never answer your email.
I'm depending on the raw logs for usage statistics.I think that's good for now. If you sign up with someone who pushes ads, they should have a mechanism for counting impressions (and clicks) on their end.
donmcc
06-29-2005, 06:11 PM
I think that's good for now. If you sign up with someone who pushes ads, they should have a mechanism for counting impressions (and clicks) on their end.
I think this is often and easily done by incorporating an image into the ad that is stored on the aggregators' server. It can be as small as a 1x1 pixel gif. They can then count the number of hits they get on the image to know how many hits in total.
If they are counting clicks, I suppose they would want to serve the ad completely, so they can count those. I don't know of any way that you could do that remotely.
Don McCahill
I think this is often and easily done by incorporating an image into the ad that is stored on the aggregators' server. It can be as small as a 1x1 pixel gif. They can then count the number of hits they get on the image to know how many hits in total.
If they are counting clicks, I suppose they would want to serve the ad completely, so they can count those. I don't know of any way that you could do that remotely.That sounds like a good idea, and something I could do myself, Don. I could have a separate directory for the ads (which would be gifs or jpegs) and count thenumber of times they were requested.
Because my web site is in such a niche market, and also has a readership in such a small geographic area, I'm considering managing the ads myself, and having them served every time a page is loaded, rather than rotated. Is this advisable, or should I do the rotation bit and try to sell a lot of ads? Or should I really use an aggregator? I know how pissed off people on CompuServe are with the inappropriate ads there, and feel that if I am serving ads at all, they should be very relevant and very focused. I've worked hard to build up the traffic on this site, and don't want to put people off.
As an alternative to ads you might consider sponsorship -- then provide links to sponsors' site etc. With small communities that can sometimes work better as readers then feel benevolent towards sponsors and somewhat indebted to them -- rather than being put off by brash, commercial advertising.
It also helps to reinforce the image of a community sight rather than suggesting that it's a site run by someone out to make money.
As an alternative to ads you might consider sponsorship -- then provide links to sponsors' site etc. With small communities that can sometimes work better as readers then feel benevolent towards sponsors and somewhat indebted to them -- rather than being put off by brash, commercial advertising.
It also helps to reinforce the image of a community sight rather than suggesting that it's a site run by someone out to make money.I did give that a lot of thought, as some of the companies I want to advertise on the site are sponsors of equestrian events in the area, and I've done my share of sponsorship hunting over the years.
And while I realise that sponsorship and advertising are inextricably linked, I doubt if they will consider sponsorship of a site that is owned by a commercial enterprise, as mine is. ;-)
donmcc
06-30-2005, 12:18 PM
And while I realise that sponsorship and advertising are inextricably linked, I doubt if they will consider sponsorship of a site that is owned by a commercial enterprise, as mine is. ;-)
Why on earth would you think that? Do you think all the golfers and race drivers at PGA and NASCAR events are volunteers? Yet companies are vying to pay millions to sponsor those events (and cars and golfers within them). If your page has value, sponsors will be interested.
Sponsorship is just an amplified type of advertising, where the sponsor gets identified with the website, hopefully in a mutually beneficial way. People buy from the sponsor because it is supporting a site they use and like. You start recouping for your time and effort.
I would not shy away from looking at sponsorships. So long as they realize that it is a valid promotional opportunity, and not a donation, then companies should support it. (And you have to put forth the benefits in that way ... selling the sponsor on the benefits they will receive, rather than appealing to donation-type suggestions.)
Why on earth would you think that? Do you think all the golfers and race drivers at PGA and NASCAR events are volunteers? Yet companies are vying to pay millions to sponsor those events (and cars and golfers within them). If your page has value, sponsors will be interested.
Sponsorship is just an amplified type of advertising, where the sponsor gets identified with the website, hopefully in a mutually beneficial way. People buy from the sponsor because it is supporting a site they use and like. You start recouping for your time and effort.
I would not shy away from looking at sponsorships. So long as they realize that it is a valid promotional opportunity, and not a donation, then companies should support it. (And you have to put forth the benefits in that way ... selling the sponsor on the benefits they will receive, rather than appealing to donation-type suggestions.)In my sport, the sponsors give tiny or zero amounts of money and large quantities of product as sponsorship. I am very experienced in this area, and it's a huge tussle every time we conduct an event to get enough sponsorship money to cover the prize money which is infinitesimal anyway. At our recent international dressage event where I was the show secretary, the first prize was only AUD 400, which didn't come close to covering the winner's total entry fees and stabling, let alone the cost of petrol to get to the event and accommodation for rider and groom. The naming rights sponsor supplied $2,000 worth of vouchers and a small amount of cash. It's a different scene in Europe, and probably North America.
I do not need a new saddle (usually supplied as a raffle prize, and rarely attracting sufficient ticket sales to cover the cost), or the latest fashion in ratcatchers, or floating boots, or a half-price horse float with 'sponsored by x horse trailers' on the side, or feed for a horse for a year. I need dollars every month to pay the bills... ;-)
I think that's good for now. If you sign up with someone who pushes ads, they should have a mechanism for counting impressions (and clicks) on their end.I'm in the process of installing phpAdsNew (http://phpadsnew.com/two/), which seems to have a lot of good features. I was looking at JavaScript auto ad rotators, but decided that it was much better to have it done on the server and in php. There were a couple of simple scripts out there, but then I came across phpAdsNew and decided to give it ago, as it's free but powerful.
Well, I've got phpAdsNew set up, but had to use the JavaScript option, because I couldn't get the invocation code for teh php version to work. I've got some test ads to work on a test board at http://dressageit.com/phpBBtest
You need to select a forum and then a topic to see the ads, because they only appear on the viewtopic.php page. Please don't select a topic with an attachment. That doesn't work on the test board.
The reporting to advertisers is very good, and the ads can be set up in all sorts of ways. Quite amazingly good for a free application.
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