Well, we were all a Twitter today about advertising on blogs. What's the standard? Is there one? What's the formula you're using? My rates are no secret (if you ask, I send them) so here they are:
$85/month for top placement
$65/month for below the fold
I figure if there's gonna be a discussion, we have to be honest about what we're all charging! Of course, there are many factors that go into figuring out what to charge, and I don't pretend to understand them all myself. Obviously, readership (uniques and pageviews) are a huge piece. As is content, size of ad, type of ad... on and on and on...
SO, why don't we start with this. What are your questions? For those of you who are already charging, how did you figure it out? Do you have a secret formula? For those of you who haven't started yet - what do you want to know? We'll take it from there...!
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I've not had any ads up yet but would love too--it would be terrific to make my blog pay a little back into all the time, blood sweat and tears I put into it!
But not only do I not know where to start in terms of finding advertisers and charging them, I also worry about changing the aesthetic of my blog. How do I control the look and feel of the ads that go up on the site?
One thing I have done for a few business who have inquired is put their keyword terms in a list i have called 'sponsored faves'. this helps improve their google rankings apparently, and the list is way at the bottom of my site, labeled as sponsored, and frankly i don't even think people notice it which is fine by me. for doing this, I've charged $75 for a full year of keeping the link there...sort of a number that i pulled out of the blue. oh, and one company couldn't afford $75 so they sent me a free tent instead, which was timely because we've been wanting to start camping...but I digress.
Clearly I need help on the issue!
I am a huge fan of Coco + Kelly and have wanted to begin my own blog for some time. I also don't know the logistics of finding advertisers and what to charge them?
Do you contact the advertisers, did they contact you? Does the price depend on how long your blog has been around and how many views your site receives?
I think you (coco + kelly) do a great job with the advertisements on the site, it looks professional, sleek and not at all distracting!
Okay, so I just recently started offering ads on my blog, so I'm still on the learning curve myself.
I didn't have a magic formula - just contacted a couple of blogs that I admire and asked them what they were doing. I tried to base my rates off of blogs with similar traffic/stats, while also keeping in mind that I want to focus on small businesses.
I also figured I'd start offering rates that were a bit on the low side to generate interest, and then raise rates as my readership (hopefully) continues to grow. I'm offering two sizes, one at $45/month and one at $80/month. I'm not differentiating between ATF or BTF at the moment, although I like that idea.
I'm most interested in the idea of a pricing scale based on business size. I've gotten some queries from larger businesses that I know can pay higher ad rates (and do pay them elsewhere), but I don't want to price out the calligraphers and one-person letterpress studios.
So that's where I am...
@The City Sage (sorry the twitter-speak helps)
I'm sure Chelsea will chime in on this a bit later, but we both "style" our ads. Basically that just means that we give guidelines to the company about the design of the ad - no background, text only, simple graphics, etc. So for me, I say a simple background is okay, but minimal graphics w/ a focus on the company logo. Since part of the reason that the companies want to advertise is because they like the design and style of our blogs, it hasn't caused any problems so far (at least for me).
But you can really only do that when you're selling ads directly and not working through a service like Google Ad Sense. I'm also not offering any skyscraper or banner ads - just small/medium sidebar tiles. I think you lose control when you start using ad services, since even though I guess you get to "approve" the companies that are advertising, you don't get to approve the look of the ad.
I was hesitant to go with ad networks for the exact same Nole mentioned, but the reality is for us CPM ads pay the bills better than smaller flat rate ads(at least for once wed). Flat rate ads certainly help, and I am offering them as an option on Once Wed currently, but because I'm writing Once Wed full time we need something more.
I think its all about balance, and what you think works best for you and your audience. We're in the process of trying to block a lot of annoying/tacky ads, so hopefully once those are cleared out the site will aesthetically look better.
Ohh, I love sitting in on this conversation. I a newbie blogger {though I've been a reader for several years now} and I am holding out until I have a real, solid focus.
My question for you more seasoned bloggers is:
How many unique page views should you have before you start considering advertising?
I read somewhere that 1000 viewers nets you about $90/month. Does that sound accurate? And is it safe to assume that you can build from that formula?
Huge thanks to Cassandra for opening up this discussion!
Such a great discussion..haven't started contacting advertisers on my blog either, mostly for esthetic reasons.
But since we are being open here, does anyone have any parameters for advertising fees vs. page hits? For those of you advertising, how do you measure success? do your clients want CTR stats. (click through rates) and do you know of a widget that helps count them. I am doing a little test ad on my site.
Ok Cass, first of all, I love the idea for us design bloggers to have somewhere to congregate. I'd love to see a phbb forum eveolve out of this! Let me know if you need some pro-bono help with setup or design because this is much needed! That aside, here are my thoughts on ads:
My traffic isn't staggering, but it isn't shabby either. I charge much less than 80 or even 40 per month, and I offer a discount if the buyer buys a year and pays in advance. I have a 2 month minimum and a small fee if they would like me to design the ad for them. I charge more for above the fold than below, but I'm new at it so I'm still basic.
I think a huge part of successfully running ads is the look of your site - ads need to look like a part of your site and not stick out like a sore thumb, plus I strongly think a blog with aspirations to become bigger needs to invest in a professional design if they don't know their way around photoshop and XHTML.
I'm lucky that I'm a graphic designer - I even started my blog to compliment my business... little did I know it would take on a life of its own!
Ads are a tricky thing, but I definitely think you need to put together a media kit with stats, rates, and more info about your blog at the bare minimum.
I have approached every advertiser I have. I just send out emails to companies I think my readers will jive with and hope to hear back. Plus I put out my feelers to contacts I've made over the years blogging and to people who approach me about wanting me to write about or promote something on my blog.
By the by, if you're looking to update the look of your blog or make it more ad-friendly, email me at jessica@thelovelist.net and we'll chat
Oh this is heaven sent! I often feel like I have a hundred blogger questions and nobody to go to for answers. I think this forum is going to be a huge resource for me. Thanks Cassandra!
My question: How big does your daily readership have to be before you can ever consider approaching people to advertise on your blog? I heard 500-1000. Does that sound accurate?
For the more seasoned bloggers, would you mind sharing the approximate range of your readership when you got your first advertiser? That way I can gauge when I'm here :)
Thanks everyone for sharing!
whew! some awesome questions coming up here! while we work on creating more of a forum format, what i'll do is take some of these common questions and start doing posts - starting with one tonight! thanks gals!
So when I first wanted to try ads I only had 800 readers a day. I don't remember what my pageviews were. I emailed a bunch of blogs and here's the scale that seemed to be somewhat of a standard at that time:
20,000 readers per day- 1000/mo
15,000- 500
1000+ - 150
So I sized my ads smaller and charged a flat rate of $50 and rotate the ads. Since then, I've had lots of people email me to ask what my rates are and then they've turned around and sort of undercut my prices- which I guess is, in a sense what I did!:) So there are some blogs with about 10,000 readers a day who charge exactly the same as me (not saying this bitterly.. because there are many other factors that come into play- how many ads they have, do they do sponsored posts?, the aesethic of the site, their brand?). I also sell larger ads for $100 a month and it is 10x harder for me to sell those spaces. Even if I only had the larger ads, I do not think I could sell enough. It is much easier for me to sell 40 spaces at $50 than 20 spaces $100.
I could say lots more but that is a bit of my perspective at this point:)! Hope that helps someone! It's great to hear all your thoughts. I think I am going to learn a lot from this blog. I think ad programs are going to evolve and we need to stay on top of it!! It's wonderful that we can all share information! That's what I love about blogging! :)
thank you chelsea!! my readership is at around 3,000 uniques/day on a good week... like during my style (e)scapes series, if that helps answer a few of your questions. but there are a lot of other factors to consider that i'll get into in some more blog posts...
Hey Cassandra!
Yes... that's about what my readership is at right now. Now, originally I had planned on raising my rates especially when I hit 2000. But, because so many blogs with twice the readership I have started charging the same- oh and also because of the economy! I've stuck with my original rates. Just adding in the larger ads at 100 a month. I am afraid to raise prices because the ad program I've had til now has been really successful. So.. it's a hard call! I think your rates sound completely reasonable.
Has anyone ever considered a co-op agreement of rates to keep them fair and profitable for the bloggers and those buying the media space? You are all reputable and popular bloggers, which would make you more the blue-chip type that could set a standard. Sure, someone else will always try to charge less or more than you, but that does not guarantee the clicks that you all can.
First off, I have to say this blog is a FABULOUS idea!!! Victoria and I are still new to blogging, and there are so many things we need to learn.
With regard to ads, we both decided that we don't want ads on our blog. The main resource that we put into our blog is our time. Of course, our time is valuable, but we both love blogging and we hope that our blog will open some doors for us, so it's worth the time we put into it.
That being said, we're thinking of having a blog designer design a new blog for us. And we may move our blog to WordPress, where we would have to pay to get the full benefits of having a WordPress blog. If we go ahead with those two plans, ads *might* be an option to help offset the costs.
We're still small potatoes compared to a lot of blogs out there, though -- we've never had over 1,000 hits in a day. Will anyone want to advertise on our blog??
I hope it's OK to make suggestions for other discussion topics...
1. Which blog host(s) people prefer.
2. How to get more visitors to your blog.
3. How to encourage visitors to leave comments. It can be discouraging to see that you've had 500 visitors in a day, but only 6 left a comment.
Thanks!!
Kelly @ DesignTies
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