As a local publisher, banner ads are probably the least interesting thing you can sell but are still an integral part of the digital landscape.
They are great for highlighting a call-to-action such as "Get 10% off" or "Call Now" or to simply remain top of mind so that people think of the advertiser when they have a need.
Essentially, Banner Ads allow advertisers to leverage your brand to help them reach a more local and engaged audience.
When you are first getting started, we recommend focusing on filling 5 primary ad slots:
Once you've filled these spots, you can expand revenue from banner ads by selling additional ads in each slot as traffic increases. This is called share-of-voice.
For example, if you had 2 ads in the Pushdown slot, each ad would only show 50% of the time or have 50% share of voice. If it were 3 ads, it would show 1/3 of the time, and so on. We recommend up to 3 ads per slot.
You can also introduce new ad slots specifically in your email newsletter.
While publishers don't want to compete on CPM (Cost per 1,000 impressions) against media giants like Google, a CPM calculation can be helpful in determining appropriate prices.
Typical CPM's with Google Ads vary widely by industry but can range from pennies to $15 or more so using a $20 CPM would definitely represent a premium. However, as a local publisher, you bring both a more targeted and engaged audience but also non-traditional ad types that can produce better results so a premium like this is justified.
So as an example, if you have 10,000 monthly pageviews, you can use an adjusted CPM of $15-20 to calculate your initial pricing and would be looking at a price of $150-200 per month (10,000 / 1,000 = 10 x $15-20 = $150-200).
A similar calculation can be done for newsletter sponsorship ads. As an example, if you have 2,000 subscribers, a 20% open rate, and use a $.50 per subscriber rate which is fairly typical, you would price your newsletter sponsorship ad at $200 per month (1,000 x 20% x $.50 = $200).
To be clear, this is simply a guideline to help you feel comfortable with your pricing and banner ads should be packaged with other components, but in summary, our recommend prices are as follows:
More on pricing and packaging in the upcoming section, A Repeatable Sales Approach
