How much to charge for advertising?

Mixposure · #1 (**permalink**) 03-29-2005, 06:59 PM

Hello, is there a good general chart to use to tell how much to charge for advertising? I launched a website in January and for the month of March we are up to about 25,000 unique visits, 70,000 visits, and 1,223,000 page requests.
We planned to launch advertising in April and our rates were apparently too low and made a few "potentials" suspicious.
Can anybody please be so kind as to tell me how much you would charge for advertising on my site?
Here is a link to our home page:
http://www.mixposure.com

Look for ADVERTISING at the bottom.

I really appreciate it, thank you for your time. If somebody could at least get me in the ballpark I'll be grateful.

EJRS.COM · #2 (**permalink**) 03-29-2005, 09:26 PM

Maybe $20 - 30 a day might be what you oughtta be looking at. Frankly if it's anything less why even bother?

Best wishes and much success.

Mixposure · #3 (**permalink**) 03-29-2005, 10:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EJRS.COM

Maybe $20 - 30 a day might be what you oughtta be looking at. Frankly if it's anything less why even bother?

Best wishes and much success.

Hello and thank you. :)

Is that in consideration that ads will be rotating or should I just bag the rotating banner idea?

EJRS.COM · #4 (**permalink**) 03-29-2005, 10:29 PM

Well if ya can get multiple advertisers at $20 - 30 a day and have em on rotation, hey, More Power to Ya! :)

Best wishes and much success!

ADAM Web Design · #5 (**permalink**) 03-30-2005, 05:53 PM

It's not the low rate in itself that made me suspicious: it's your traffic claim. For a site that's three months old and in an industry that's rather competitive when it comes to things like that, your traffic level claims are awfully high for the return you want.

I'd suggest one of two things:

1) Go with an ad network, like Fastclick. http://www.adbility.com will help you pick out one of those. They review all the ad networks, weed out the scams and what not.

2) Offer some form of tracking for the ads. You don't seem to have anything there to do that so that a customer can see how effective his ad is.

EJRS.COM · #6 (**permalink**) 03-30-2005, 06:15 PM

I on the other hand think it's very possible to achieve that kinda traffic. It took me 6 mths to achieve 16K viewerships daily. If he had done a lot of work in advertising the site well and is knowledgeable in marketing 3 mths is possible for his kind of niche market. Afterall music is a big big industry. One way is to have radio mention, and any other media. Once you get that kinda publicity, you are able to use that to push the site further.

Not an impossible task at all.

planetalk · #7 (**permalink**) 03-31-2005, 01:47 AM

Put some Google Adsense on your page ... you should make more than $20-30/day if your traffic is as you describe.

Kirk

kigoobe · #8 (**permalink**) 03-31-2005, 02:45 AM

EJRS is quite interesting ... how did you manage 16k viewerships in 6 months ... ??? I thought you need 8 months minimum to come out even from the sand box ...
any marketing secret to share ???

EJRS.COM · #9 (**permalink**) 03-31-2005, 07:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kigoobe

EJRS is quite interesting ... how did you manage 16k viewerships in 6 months ... ??? I thought you need 8 months minimum to come out even from the sand box ...
any marketing secret to share ???

It's no trade secret... just strategize....

Yep... very easy actually... get mentioned on radio (which happened to me... funny thing is I am in Malaysia and they featured my site in Des Moines. An author named Roger Polt wrote me coz of that feature to tell me he heard of my site in that feature and then I began having partnerships with companies. My site went from zero to hero. Everything is very possible. Fast way is print lotsa business cards and go crazy giving em to every person in sight. I also printed all printable materials to do with my biz in full color. See my story at http://ejrs.info and look for the story called "I was a noodle seller". Hope that inspires you to greater things.

Best wishes and much success.

kigoobe · #10 (**permalink**) 03-31-2005, 08:27 AM

Jeremy,

Ur story is inspiring, no doubt ... amazing at the same time ... thanks for the article ... i've just send that to one of my friend in Doha, he is also a geocity lover at this time ... also, I think the purchasing power of 500$ in Malaysia is much more then it is in Paris, unfortunately ... but that makes sence anyway ... getting into the radio is the best part ... I wish had that be so easy for everyone ...

Anyway, best of luck ...

EJRS.COM · #11 (**permalink**) 03-31-2005, 10:26 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kigoobe

Jeremy,

Ur story is inspiring, no doubt ... amazing at the same time ... thanks for the article ... i've just send that to one of my friend in Doha, he is also a geocity lover at this time ... also, I think the purchasing power of 500$ in Malaysia is much more then it is in Paris, unfortunately ... but that makes sence anyway ... getting into the radio is the best part ... I wish had that be so easy for everyone ...

Anyway, best of luck ...

Heya Kigoobe
Actually in some ways US$500 can buy lots of stuff in Malaysia esp food, but because a lot of stuff is imported they can be more expensive here mainly due to tax. Much of the stuff I use in my biz is from the US such as my servers etc.
I'd say the most economical way is print thousands of business cards and just go wild distributing em in any way you can. Not kidding.

My view is, "If I won't invest in myself, why should anyone else invest in me?" - More of my views at http://ejrscom/viewpoints

Best wishes and much success.

EJRS.COM · #12 (**permalink**) 03-31-2005, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by EJRS.COM

Quote:

Originally Posted by kigoobe

EJRS is quite interesting ... how did you manage 16k viewerships in 6 months ... ??? I thought you need 8 months minimum to come out even from the sand box ...
any marketing secret to share ???

It's no trade secret... just strategize....

Yep... very easy actually... get mentioned on radio (which happened to me... funny thing is I am in Malaysia and they featured my site in Des Moines. An author wrote me coz of that feature to tell me he heard of my site and then I began having partnerships with companies. My site went from zero to hero. Everything is very possible. Fast way is print lotsa business cards and go crazy giving em to every person in sight. I also printed all printable materials to do with my biz in full color. See http://ejrs.info and look for my story called "I was a noodle seller". Hope that inspires you to greater things.

Best wishes and much success.

EJRS.COM · #13 (**permalink**) 03-31-2005, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by planetalk

Put some Google Adsense on your page ... you should make more than $20-30/day if your traffic is as you describe.

Kirk

Well, you can get http://ejrs.com/google-adsense-secrets and use it to tweak your websites and make over $5,000 easily for that kind of traffic.

Mixposure · #14 (**permalink**) 03-31-2005, 03:00 PM

Thanks for the help! :) :) :)

If I'm not mistaken, I was just called a liar? I'm not sure if I used the correct terminology so I will post my stats.

From an advertising point of view, which of these stats would you recommend that I place for potential advertisiers to see?

Mixposure · #15 (**permalink**) 03-31-2005, 03:06 PM

BTW,

EJRS, I really appreciate the help and I will be setting up that referral stuff later tonight. :)

EJRS.COM · #16 (**permalink**) 03-31-2005, 04:29 PM

Nice stats!
(: Never thought I'd say that to a guy :)

Like I said... Nothing is impossible.

Bows to Mixposure... So guru what is the secret to your success? How'd you get so many people to participate on your site in such a short time?

EJRS.COM · #17 (**permalink**) 03-31-2005, 04:32 PM

I hope that you will continue to draw many many more viewers and go real big in the biz.

DIRTYDISCO · #18 (**permalink**) 04-01-2005, 03:57 PM

hello im running a site called dirtydisco over in the UK and was wondering if you fancy doing a link swap we are For DJS and unsigned artists that are into house trance breakbeat and hip hop

how would you feel about that and I would be quite happy to link out all other genres of music that we dont cover to you.

I dont have a banner just yet as the site is still being edited we launch with music on the site in two months or so

http://www.dirtydisco.net
webmaster@dirtydisco.net

ADAM Web Design · #19 (**permalink**) 04-01-2005, 04:21 PM

FYI: I wasn't calling anyone a "liar" (if I were, I'd have no problem using the word). I was simply stating that if I was suspicious, that would be the reason. I was looking at it from the standpoint of an advertiser; what would make me question the value of the ad? That was the answer I came up with.

Anyway, having said all of that, I would only put the page views and the unique visitors from that graphic on there. The "hits" is the one that misleads people the most, and the bandwidth really isn't relevant to your users.

One thing I did notice is that you have about 100 page views per unique visitor. Is it possible that at least some of your recorded traffic (and I really don't know the answer to this, since I'm unfamiliar with Webalizer) is crawler/bot traffic and/or traffic that stems from ongoing design/development?

I'm asking these questions because advertisers might ask the same ones; I am in no way trying to cast any doubt on what you're doing, other than the doubt a potential sponsor may have.

Note: I don't think traffic levels that high are impossible; I simply think that they're unlikely.

Mixposure · #20 (**permalink**) 04-01-2005, 11:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ADAMWebDesign

I would only put the page views and the unique visitors from that graphic on there. The "hits" is the one that misleads people the most, and the bandwidth really isn't relevant to your users.

One thing I did notice is that you have about 100 page views per unique visitor. Is it possible that at least some of your recorded traffic (and I really don't know the answer to this, since I'm unfamiliar with Webalizer) is crawler/bot traffic and/or traffic that stems from ongoing design/development?

I'm asking these questions because advertisers might ask the same ones; I am in no way trying to cast any doubt on what you're doing, other than the doubt a potential sponsor may have.

Note: I don't think traffic levels that high are impossible; I simply think that they're unlikely.

Thank you, I appreciate that. I havent seen too many other site's stats so I really don't know what I'm looking for. I can tell you that my site is dynamic. There are seperate pages for each band and each song.
Could all of that jumping around be driving the page count up? If so, is that a good thing or a bad thing? :)

If you could be so kind, how would you manage the following if this was your site?

Would you suggest that I show my total visits in addition to my uniques? For one reason or another the standard visits stat on my site is far more impressive.
How much would you charge per week? I've sent proposals strictly to music companies so that they have a targetted audience.

I really appreciate all of the advice, thanks.

DrTandem1 · #21 (**permalink**) 04-02-2005, 11:10 AM

I completely agree with ADAMWebDesign here. Why? Not because I think you're lying, because I visit the site and I don't get it. Granted, I only looked at it for a minute and only at the Home page. However, that was far too much time for me to spend looking at a site without being able to identify what you are trying to convey.

Yes, I could tell it was music, but I'm really not sure of its purpose. So, I looked at some of the sites linking to yours and found a banner ad. Looks like you offer MP3 downloads. That tells me its a site targeting people who don't want to spend money. Why in the world would I pay to advertise on a site whose target audience is people who won't spend money?

If you had a verifiable membership/subscription base, as a magazine or newspaper does, you could then charge rates accordingly. Since this is a bit difficult to do in the cyber world, I would simply offer a free trial. If your numbers are high as you claim, you should have no problem in convincing prospective clients with a free sample, especially as you have no track record.

Oh, I almost forgot to add, the banner ad I saw was sourcing the image from YOUR site. So, everytime such a site has a hit on a page with such a banner, you get a hit. This can also explain bandwidth drain. I think you should research this and then take another look at your numbers.

Good luck.