A reader asks;
Right now I’m using adsense for my advertising. However, I would like to start selling my own ad space. Do you have any advice or tips? In particular, I’d like to know how I should figure out what to charge.
If you’re a small job board with say less than 10,000 monthly visitors you can certainly manage your own banner ad rototion though various ad banner software like Adbutler or BanManpro. They will help you manage impressions and rotottion among different advertisers.
I’ve had a variety of sites in the past where I sold my own ad space. When I ran JobBoarders.com I had 5 spots available along the right side and charged $100 a month for those. I kept it at 5 slots so as not to overwhem the site with ads. The more you add the less clicks each ad will get so you need to maintain some sort of balance.
Only big sites with big traffic can charge on a CPM basis so I just recommend picking a number and charging a flat monthly fee for it, maybe $50/mo for a 125×125 ad is a good example. Just ask the advertiser to send over a certain size ad (whatever fits your site) You can charge more for bigger ads like those horizontal or vertical skyscarper ads (160×600)
It would be helpful if you could create the ads for clients as it may take them time to get it to you to display. They also might not have the ability to create the ad themselves. A lot of times I would just grab their logo and add a headline to it and throw a border around it.
Potential advertisers for job boards could be local resume writers and other sites that cover the industry you serve. One trick I like to do to get started is give one away for free for a few months so it looks like you have advertisers. No one will know the difference. The other thing you should do is create blank ads that say “Advertise Here”, so people know there is an opportunity to do so. You’ll need a landing page if some should click that with information on your site traffic and audience and how to submit the ad (specs) etc.
