Pricing and Selling Banner Ads

I wanted to research how to actually price and sell banner ad space on a website outside of what has been discussed in class.  I came up with some general thoughts below.

 

I think the first step is to try to understand the factors that affect pricing.  The appropriate price to set can be difficult to ascertain and can be influenced by the traffic the website receives and the general state of the economy.  The former in my opinion would depend on, among other items, SEO results and social media presence.

 

There is also the added complexity of charging different prices for different sizes of banners and where they are placed on the website.  One idea to potentially manage this process is to gather data, and one way to do that (outside of using Google Analytics) is to ask a brand that you like if they would be willing to be placed on your website so that you can track metrics such as click through rates on their particular advertisement.  From here, you will have a better sense of your website’s value and what can be charged accordingly.

 

The next step is to join a banner ad network.  These networks generally help with recruiting advertisers, tracking revenues, and the placement of banners on your website.  They in turn charge a percentage of the advertising money generated from your website.  The benefit is that you do not have to worry about selling to brands individually, which can be time consuming and very difficult if you do not have a very large following, or the technology to monitor the traffic or to invoice the advertisers.  The downside is that you do not necessarily have control over what ads are placed on your website, which is a potential risk.