Text/Image Advertising costs

[ArthurKay]

Someone recently contacted me about placing an advertisement on my website (WhyILoveChicago.com). While I need to gather more information about the ad (I haven't responded yet), I figured I might as well see what (if any) standard advertising rates are.

What is reasonable for me to charge for a month-long ad (image or text)? Do ads typically run monthly?

My background is strictly programming, so I have practically no business experience to go on. I don't want to price it too high to scare away the client, but I also want to get what the ad space is worth.

[mono]

Well it really depends a lot on how popular the page is and how well it is targetted for the ad. It's basically what the market would bear. What I would do is call a competitor whose site is similar in size and scope to yours and pretend youre interested in buying ads from them and ask what they charge.

You could charge him X per impression and track hits on the page. I think running the same ad for a month would get boring for regular visitors. they are used to banner ads that rotate. Be sure and get payment up front before running the ad, and let him tick it down, rather than running it for a month, having him decide not to pay after a month because it didn't explode his website traffic.

[kylegetson]

I agree with mono. get paid up front, and figure the cost based on your average amount of hits and factor in the ads relevance to your visitors, and how much a lead you generate is worth to the advertiser.

I would definately track clicks on it as well so you can see what your really providing. If you get alot of clicks you may want to charge more, seek higher paying advertisers or if you feel its stealing your visitors drop ads altogether...

But bottom line get paid up front.