In my last post I looked at what Aussie Mummy Bloggers are charging for advertising banners on their blog. That post looked only at one factor, traffic, that needs to be considered when setting a price for advertising. There are of course many more factors that need to be considered:
How many banners you sell
I have six banners on my main blog so need to take that into account when setting my rate. Each banner is 125 x 125 with a clickable link through to the company’s website. But I would charge a different rate if for example I was only going to have two banners say 125 x 250.
I have been thinking about changing the size of my banners recently and opting for banners which are larger and fewer of them. There is admin work involved with each sponsor, so if I can structure my advertising space to have less ads, meaning less admin work, for similar or greater revenue this may be a better option for my blog.
Discounts for longer terms
I offer a 15% discount for sponsors who sign up for three months. This incentive suits me because as mentioned above there is admin work involved with having blog ads and if the ads change frequently it means more work for me.
Inclusion on RSS feed
I use a wordpress plugin called RSS Footer to display my sponsors at the end of the RSS feed of each post. This means those who subscribe via email or reader and don’t visit the blog will still see the name and tagline of the sponsors of the blog. The number of subscribers you have via RSS will determine how much this inclusion is worth.
Inclusion of Review and Giveaway
Posting reviews and giveaways on your blog takes time and uses your asset of your reader base. If you don’t feel comfortable charging straight out for reviews, you may like to include them as part of a three month term and increase the price for the blog ads to factor in the review.
Sponsor Profiles
I choose to only take on one sponsor per niche. For example currently I have a blog ad for an invitation and card company. When approached recently by a new business who also sells invitations and cards, I explained that I would only be able to take their blog ad on, once the existing card company had ceased advertising. I did not want two businesses competing for the same audience as I did not feel that would bring value for money for either sponsor.
Social Media Promotion
I make no further deliberate mention of my sponsors other than in the RSS Feed on any social media. However for some growing blogs that might have larger facebook and twitter audiences, you might decide to give them regular shout outs on your page, for example listing their sales or special offers. Making a commitment like this may allow you to ask for a great ad rate for your blog than you could have other wise charged.
Inclusion In Newsletter
Email newsletters are still one of the best forms of direct marketing. I have a monthly newsletter that I have chosen not place ads on. The main reason is my overall aim for Planning With Kids is to create a diversified revenue stream. My newsletter so far has helped me sell my first e-download and my book. I am keeping my newsletter ad free as I wish to use it as a vehicle to promote my own products. I have seen bloggers successfully do both, but my comfort level is to just stick to advertising my own stuff.
If you don’t have your own products to sell and have a growing newsletter list, you can either sell ad space separately for this or tie it into a larger package for overall blog advertising.
Additional Thoughts
In the comments in the first post on rates for blog ads, there were many insightful comments and I just wanted to touch on a couple of points made that I think are worth considering in the whole big picture of blog ads:
Christie from Childhood 101 noted:
I think bloggers need to be realistic about what companies will pay, especially small businesses or mumpreneurs in the current online climate, and also stop relying on banner ads as their source of income as that is no way to make your millions!
And I totally agree. I will continue with blog ads as one stream of my overall blog revenue. As I work towards building my online ventures into a solid part time income stream, I would like to making the majority of my revenue from my own products and services.
Liss from Frills In The Hills noted:
I don’t see anyone charging CPC instead of CPM – it’s risky but I think would help niche bloggers with lower traffic gain the trust of a targeted advertiser.
I have never tried CPC (payment for every time someone clicks on an ad) for two key reasons:
- I think the admin involved would out weigh the benefit of the revenue received.
- Banners provide brand awareness. Readers may not necessarily click on the ad, but may enter the brand name straight into a search engine at a later time when the find a need for the product. I have found it too hard to price this into a click rate.
Would love to hear your experiences with the packages you offer for blog ads. You don’t have to give dollar amounts, but if you would like to share the type of offers you have put together, it will be a great help to those who are starting out with paid blog ads.
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