What percentage of a magazine's total readership should I expect to answer a full page ad?

Question

I'm trying to decide if advertising a service for travelers in in-flight magazines would be cost-effective. If one of these magazines' readership is, say, 2 million, is it conservative enough to say that 1% of those readers will answer my ad? (by "answer" I mean actually contact me about my service, not just look at the ad) If not, what would be a good percentage to work with. Remember it is a service for travelers and I would be advertising in in-flight magazines. Thanks!

Answer 1

1% of readership is dreamland. If there is a post-card that can be pulled and mailed, I would plan on .05% (five out of 10,000) circulation. If there is no card, just a phone number, I would expect less. This is assuming a full-page four-color ad. Note this is of circulation which is only about 20% of readership.

I understand that you would expect the response to be higher because you are targeting people who travel. But also remember that folk on airplanes cannot immediately respond. The have to take the magazine, or page, or write down the number and remember to phone later. (When was the last time you did that?) Also, people on the plane are either business travelers (who have people at work who do their travel planning) or vacationers (who just spent their money and can't consider another vacation for a year).

The 2% referenced above is an old guideline for targeted and tested direct mail lists which includes a compelling offer to the responder (ie they get something for free just for responding). I don't know whether mail still gets that kind of response but it is way to high to expect for magazines (especially on readership rather than circ.).

Look into small airlines first. You want to go as cheap as you can to test the idea.

Answer 2

Usually you should expect a 2% response rate. Give them a reason to respond ... perhaps add a contest or something ... then you would have contact information for the people ...

Does buying the ad give you rights to a story inside the magazine? That is worth far more than the ad ...

Good luck!