Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Hosting : How much to charge advertisers?

[tomturd]

Hey guys, little help please!

Its got to the stage where I need advertisers to keep my site running (I cant afford it any more). We get about 1,000,000 page views per month, but its a forum so it racks up views pretty quick.

Id like a rough figure on how much I should be asking for off advertisers, I know there would be companies interested in advertising on my site as theyve asked before (but ive told them no). Should I be charging per click, or per view? In either case, whats the going rate? I really have no idea so some rough figures would be appreciated.

I plan on having a max of 3 banners rotating at any one time, so each advertiser should get 333,333 views (ish!) per month.

Any rough figure would be appreciated as I dont have a clue.

Cheers
Tom

[snickn]

Charge them what it takes you to run the site, if you need to pay for all of it, than divide costs by 3

I don't think you'll get much if you try to make profit off of it.

[tomturd]

Hmm, yeah. It doesnt cost much at the moment, but it certainly has lots of potential (I think). BUT.. to get this potential, ill need some cash to invest in a better server, and for some new software (its a forum, and id like to install a few mods which cost money) and turn it into a full blown website.

Ive just been looking through some other threads and it seems people are interested in 'alexa' stats - which is at 1,150,374 (traffic rank), and unique visits which is averaging about 2700 a day.

At the moment, if I divided the costs between 3, it'd cost about $10 per advertiser, for a third of my traffic pper month, which is a little disheartening after a couple of years of keeping it running

Is $10 a month really the going rate?

I guess what I really want to know, is if I bought a server, could I expect to get $60 - $80 a month from advertising, to cover costs? Or am I being too ambitious

Cheers for the advice so far anyway

Tom

[morehost]

why don't you give a try to some good affiliate programmes too. eg google adsense or you can have one as a fourth banner

[BF-Gary]

Tom,

What type of forum is it? I missed that in your post.

If it is about fluffy pink bunnies then maybe the price would be different then if the site was about hosting.

[ldcdc]

Advertising prices tend to differ heavily depending on the market/subject of the website/forum. If you decide to use Adsense or some affilate programs note that the placing of the ads can be everything. Place them in such a way that the visitors will surely see them on every page and yet not be annoyed by their presence.

Good luck!

[tomturd]

Originally posted by monster123
Tom,

What type of forum is it? I missed that in your post.

If it is about fluffy pink bunnies then maybe the price would be different then if the site was about hosting.

Hey, its a 'bike trials' (kind of 'extreme mountain biking') forum, probably doesnt mean much to you, but there is a whole market on the subject. You might compare it to... err... kite surfing. Not a mainstream sport, but it gets its coverage on eurosport and there is a market associated to it.

You could consider my site to be the google of the sport, and my competitors as lycos and hotbot (not sure about the details but you get the idea). Once\if I expand it should be pretty much THE bike trials site on the internet.

Ive had a few manufacturers of bike components, and bike shops ask about advertising (specifically for trials parts) but I honestly dont know how much to charge them, I dont want to under charge, nor overcharge - and having no experiance in the area im lost.

Domainwala - Im not too interested in affiliate programmes, ive never really heard anything that good about them and I dont really want completly random banners on my site, id prefer to have banners which at least 'fit in' with the subject.. but cheers for the advice

ldcdc - thanks very much for the advice, I plan on having them in basically the same place as they are on here!

[morehost]

Hi! tomturd,
If you don't wish to join affiliate programs at all then that is different thing but it is not necessary that you have random banners on your site. For instance, Google Adsense shows ads relevant to your page(for each and every page) content..

[mpalamar]

A highly targeted and busy forum like that should be able to get $50/month from the right three advertisers. Good sales/marketing skills will get you more and poor sales/marketing skills will get you less.