This is one of the most repeatable questions our fellow bloggers asking me all the time about advertisement pricing, so… I thought it would be nice chance to help someone out there pricing their ads, probably because I am taking the BuySellAds adventure in person.
I am going to share with you my experience with BuySellAds service and try to answer that hard question, and I will also share some thoughts and additional information about pricing BuySellAds advertisements after more than four months of a double face experience being an a BuySellAds advertiser and publisher at the same time.
This experiment is a little expensive
First of all, I want you to know that this experiment is a little expensive, and while everyone try to earn from selling ads, I had to pay almost all my blog earnings from BSA ads to try advertising on the same service.
I really don’t care that much when it’s about learning how things works for real by myself, I will not depend on this matter on reading some poor articles or blog posts that can be found here and there!
Actually the real main reason behind all this is that I want to learn, then I will be able to write some useful references that could help someone out there to make money from selling ads on their blogs, and to learn how to make money, you have to spend some money. (Do you agree?!)
One advertising thing I haven’t try yet!
One thing I haven’t got the chance to try yet, which is buying an expressive ads on some really high traffic sites, I really want to do this but I need to think very well about this step, I need to know what exactly I am going to advertise for, as this will cost me big money comparing to my blog earnings as a publisher!
Selling ads at Buy Sell Ads
Generally speaking, if you decide to sell ads using any service exists in this world, you will never sell from the first day, and maybe it will take you more than month to sell ads on your blog depending mainly on your blog traffic, and some other important factors.
How do I set a proper Price for my Ads?
It’s kind of love story between You and the advertising company or service!
It will take some time to find your truly advertising service, so.. never rush when it’s about making money from the internet by selling ads on your blog, feel the love of what you are doing, and try to find your own ways!
I have searched for information about pricing ads spots all over, I have found some basic info about the topic, but nothing really helped me, so.. I am sure that you will not find a complete guide that explain it all, you will not even find an advice that helps for real!
So I am going to tell you how it worked for me, then you can decide your price, just put in mind that this prices are taken from a “Blogging Tips, Making Money, Marketing” niche blogs, probably everything will differ if you are from another niche for example the design niche which is very popular at BuySellAds directory.
So, let’s talk now about Pricing your Ads on BSA!
Visit the BuySellAds directory
There is a magical panel that you can use to find exactly what you are looking for, scroll the bars and adjust the results, then check those blogs in your niche, remember that you need to look for this particular information about :
- How publishers are pricing their ads
- How many spots at the same time
- Where they display their ads
- Which spots are already sold
- Who purchases those ads
It’s highly recommended to take some notes while you are following these steps, this will help you to focus! (maybe build a table of content will help most)
Put in mind that it’s extremely useful to have the eye of advertiser at this moment, so.. let’s think that we want to buy some ads on those blog we are about to discover, this will help a lot on fixing ads on your own blog!
Now, let’s talk a little about each point that you should concentrate on, or at least let’s try 🙂
- 1- How other publishers are pricing their ads?
This is very important step to start with, using the BuySellAds directory is amazing to discover the unknown about other publishers, it’s an awesome tool if you think about it, so.. even if you are out of the service and not willing to participate selling or buying any advertisements, it still a very good directory for blogs, and a nice tool to find some interesting blogs to visit.
Pick up some blogs in your niche that has similar content and traffic of yours, don’t just look into the numbers, you must visit them!
- 2- Where they display their ads?
Now that you are visiting those blogs you can see where they are displaying ads, and you will have the chance to check out their blog layout and design, it makes a lot of sense that a blog with a good layout and ads placements will actually sell more ads!
- 3- How many ads spots to display at the same time?
This is very dangerous, so I think we better take care and try our best to minimize ad spots on our blogs at the beginning of offering them, I always believe that sold ads bring more sold ads, advertiser will look into your blog and will not like it that much to have their ads between tons of other ads, so don’t start with adding so many spots, actually one or two will perfectly do the job!
- 4- Which spots are already sold?
Now you can compare the information you have got from several bogs at this point, I imagine that you have now some nice stats, prices and other elements in the table of content you have created, so… start to check how many ad spots are already sold and build you knowledge, and try to feed all this into your mind.
It’s now all between your hands, you probably know how to price your ads!
- 5- Who purchases those ads?
One cool idea is to take notes and list those advertisers when you see their ads repeated in some of the blogs you are discovering, now you are able to check their services, prices and probably you will have a source of the most advertiser on your niche at the BSA directory which leads to another sub step, we call it “Finding Advertisers”!
Finding Advertisers at BSA
I have came across different ways and behaviors of advertisers, the most interesting thing I discovered that a very high percentage of advertisers in the BSA directory are actually affiliates.
Yes… They are not advertising their own services or products, they are just trying to make money from affiliating to other products and services, this is why the process of finding advertisers became more difficult as you might not have a chance to meet the advertiser face to face, there is no contact information provided, all what you will find is an affiliate link and sometimes it’s has a redirecting link that is hard to track!
So, to find the original advertisers you must check the link (URL), you don’t have to click on the ads, you just need to put your mouse over an ad to see where it will lead if you click on it, this will show in your browser status bar message!
By following this instructions you will then can filter your advertisers list, and break it into two useful lists!
Breaking your list into Advertiser and Affiliates
Yes! This is what you will have at the end of your “finding advertisers journey”, you will get a list of pure advertisers who buys ads to promote their own services and products, as well as another nice list of the most popular affiliate programs that affiliates are actually promoting by buying ads to making money from it!
What’s the most easy to Sell Ads Spots?
Ok, here is my notes, taking them or leaving them will always depends on your blog niche and traffic, so this is not a final!
I have sold every single 125×125 ad spot I have placed on this blog since I started with BSA service, this makes me believe that the 125×125 banner advertisements are the best to go for, stick it to your sidebar, price it well after comparing your site to other blogs in your niche, and you will sell it for sure, it’s just a matter of time!
I have also sold a few advertisements in the after content (after the article), this is actually a very interesting area in out blog, almost all readers has to pass over it, especially because the related articles links and thumb images, social buttons, tweet box, and some other important stuff are located right after content (after the post).
I have also sold one advertisement which is not related to the blogging niche from any side, it was a 728×90 ad placed on the blog footer for a few months, it was actually the first ad I have sold by BSA service.
I haven’t got any luck yet selling any of other sizes and placements, probably because of the pricing or the size itself as it’s not stander, so .. I am thinking how to fix this problem, I need to set a stander banner ad size on the top of articles spot without touching the blog header. (Any suggestions?!)
But anyways, now you know the most preferred and easy to sell ads spots banner size which is the magical 125×125 image banner.
How I started to price my ads at BSA?
In the last 4 months I had to play a lot with my ads prices at FamousBloggres.net just to find the best price that will attract advertisers, I will share with you the history as I remember it, so maybe some of these numbers are not %100 accurate but for sure it will help you start pricing your ads for the first time depending on your blog traffic (impressions), put in mind that this information is from my personal experience and it’s the way I see it, so… you can always put your own touch to it, and don’t forget that your ads pricing strategy should be “Test.. and test.. and more test!”.
| Page impressions | Ad price per month |
| 10000 | $10.00 |
| 20000 | $19.00 |
| 35000 | $39.00 |
Take a look into FamousBloggers BuySellAds page:
Looks awesome 🙂
Visit FamousBloggers BuySellAds page to take a closer look, and maybe buy some ads 🙂
I hope this information will help you on setting your ads prices and finding advertisers, I wish you good luck with your money making strategy! And like always, I love hearing from you, your thoughts is so important to me!