When you have an established audience on your blog, you’re sure to want to dabble in selling advertising space to help with monetization … but how much should you charge? Setting advertisement rates for your blog is not an easy formula. There’s no set price, although there are definitely factors that will impact how much advertisers will pay.
Traffic
First and foremost, advertisers want to see traffic – most specifically unique visits and page views. Many blogs will set their advertisement rates based on their CPM (cost per mille, or 1,000 page views).
Size of the Advertisement
The size of the advertisement is an important factor for setting the price. Is it a banner advertisement (728×90), a smaller square advertisement (125×125), or something inbetween? You’ll want to have different advertisement rates for different sizes.
Location of the Advertisement
Like the size of the advertisement, the location of the advertisement is important as well. Is it in the header or on the sidebar? Is it above or below the fold (the section visible without a reader scrolling down)? These advertisement locations will determine different ad rates too.
Blog Subject
The subject of your blog will directly impact your rates. Some advertisers will pay more or less based on the topic. It also dictates what advertisers you’ll be able to solicit.
Length of Advertisement Run
Most bloggers offer a discount for an advertiser who commits to a long-term advertisement. You may want to offer a tiered structure for weekly, monthly, 3 months, 6 months, and a year.
So where do you start? The best way is to look at your competitors. Find their advertising page and take a look at how much they charge. Then evaluate their site … do they have more pageviews than you? What is their Alexa rank?
For a new blog starting out, I’ve seen experts suggest starting your rate at $0.50 CPM (for a 125×125 above the fold in the sidebar) and increasing it from there. Others say to start even lower. Luckily, you can always adjust your rates!
If you sell advertising, how did you determine what to charge for your blog?
Nikki Katz is the Managing Editor for the BlogWorld Blog. Feel free to follow her Twitter @nikki_blogworld and @katzni
Image Credit: SXC
I don’t have adverts on my blog, and have no direct revenue stream or intention for it. But if I did, I think I would starve on $0.50 CPM. I would not be able to earn enough for a Big Mac… in a whole month. But I think that my blog is reasonably respected in my field. I would suspect that if that’s the going rate I would be much better off on a cpc basis. I think that I would make even MORE out of being an affiliate. So my thinking is that the more targeted your audience, the less you should consider CPM and the more you should consider CPC or CPA based deals.