What's a fair price to charge for advertising?

Alien · Feb 7, 2011

Hi guys,

Just after some opinion and advice.

I have a site and associated forum (which has over 30K members and regular post content of thousands) - combined site/forum attracts around an average of 2K UVs per day.

I've had some interest in advertising on the forum and site, although I'm unsure as to what to charge.

What would be a reasonable price for a banner/text/link etc on the forum or site in your opinion?

What do people normally do/charge when offering advertising space - do you charge monthly, weekly, yearly, etc and offer set contracts of time or leave it open, etc, etc? Any advice welcome.

Thanks.

Blossom · Feb 7, 2011

Basically it depends on what advertisers would want from your site. Would they be more interested in advertising their brand/product, or do they want a good backlink? Text links (dofollow) tend to work better for the latter, whilst nofollow banners often generate more money.

If you're going down the backlink route, then cost will largely depend on your PR and which other sites you have advertising on there. E.g. if you attract a couple of decent web hosts, you will start getting plenty of offers from other web hosts.

Text & banner I would offer a rate per month, with possible discounts for 6 months and yearly options.

One good tip is to set up a PayPal auto subscription for advertising (with an option to contact you directly as well) - because then people buy on the spur of the moment and don't really negotiate on price.

If you're limiting the number of advertisers then say so - you can push prices up & it makes existing advertisers feel more confident about the value of their link.

Alien · Feb 7, 2011

Thanks Blossom, that's really helpful.

I think the main value in the site/forum would be for advertisers to sell their products/services more so than a linkback etc.

Paypal subs is a great idea, thanks.

I still am unsure as to what to charge monthly etc, say for an advertiser who want a 468px banner to advertise a product/service on the forum community.

Any further thoughts?

techtimmy · Feb 7, 2011

Sounds like a popular and well used forum.

Your best bet is to create some sort of advertising document showing what u have to offer to potential advertisers. Allocate different areas of the site and charge different amounts for different sized adverts. Let them choose a predefined package that suits them.

People are happy to pay a fixed monthly fee for a slot. From experience you could easily charge £50 a month. Offer this to your customer. If they accept for a few months, next time when there 'lease' expires you can always ask for more.