How much should I charge a drink companies to advertise on my wesbite?

Question

I would like to charge a drink company to advertise on my nightclub website. It is 4 month old, and already well placed in search engines. Last month we had 14 900 page loads and 2900 unique visitors.

I was thinking or creating some kind of bidding wars between drink companies to get the best price I possibly can but my partner think they may not respond well to this kind of strategy and proposes to ask for a fee and wait for a positive answer from one of them.

If it isn't clear already, only one drink company will be advertising on my site (exclusivity).

What do you think the best strategy would be?
If you think we should ask for a fixed fee, what kind of price range you think we should ask for?

Thank you in advance for any informed answers.

Answer 1

This is one of the hardest questions you will ask as a Website business business owner. Website advertising (from a buyers perspective) is challenging because you are either interested in receiving traffic or branding.

Buyers would probably be interested in a CPM (cost per thousand impression), CPC (cost per click) or CPA (Cost Per Action) offer.

If you choose to go the CPM route, I don't think it's out of the question to charge $15-20 CPM for the amount of traffic you currently have. As your traffic grows, so will your revenue. The problem is, it's all about branding and some advertisers will want access to your traffic. Plus, if your traffic gets any less - it won't be worth the time to advertise.

If you choose to go the CPC route, you'll need to have reporting features for the advertiser. Advertising on such a niche site will require a lot of work for the advertiser (who will have to create a custom campaign for you) and have to actively monitor their success and conversion rate. You could conceivably get a few dollars per click in a situation like this. The downside is, no clicks, no website revenue.

If I was going to advertise on your site, I would ask for a CPA deal. Find out what the advertiser wants (e.g. they want people to sign up to receive something like a free drink coupon) and for every lead you generate (say through a form) they pay you a fixed fee - say $5 per lead which is very reasonable. If you have 3000 Unique visitors a month and 10% act on the offer - that's $500.

Answer 2

10¢ per unique visitor as long as the banner will be seen for each and every unique visitor. $290 dollars per month.

Thats the price that google or yahoo start at for pay per click advertising. You bid on certian keywords and on google and yahoo the benefit is that if someone clicks they are interested. Not so on your site. Also they could buy a name nationally like alcohol or nightclub. This is the justification for the lower price.

Another possible alternative is a barter deal or case discounts for the free advertising tradeoff. You are likely to come out far better this way. They have the capabilities of giving you large case discounts. Add it up and see how much you will be making in higher profit per sale. I will make a bet you will come out nice here. Approach them as if you would like to discuss a mutually beneficial business relationship and talk up your web site while telling them how they could benefit you as well.

Your friend was right. They wont even respond to a bidding war because your site is peddily compared to the entire internet and you may be happy that your site is doing well in your town but there are many sites that are doing well in the entire US and have many many more unique views than 2,900. Also, when some little company trys to throw their weight around with them they will just see it is a joke and it will make a fool out of you. Good business to business relationships arent formed that way.

Look at this as a win win and you will come out shining. Look at it as you have something hot that everyone would die to have and you will be sorry.

Answer 3

I think you could set tier rates, so its so much for one month, less pm for longer term. As its quite new site your hit rates could change quite dramatically (up or down) so maybe the ideas of pay for performance (CPM etc) may/may not be so attractive. If you offer a fixed rate then its open and predictable which is good for most business.

Answer 4

hey, i just started this great marketing idea for companys.

I just launched me site the other day and am willing to put a ad up for your site for free.

http://www.milliondollaradvertisement.com is the site and it will drive tons of traffic to your site once it gets going. We give out 150k every 2 weeks to random users!

anyway email the website support and just mention this and i will advertise your site for free. This will help alot!

Thanks!

Answer 5

500.00