How do you price yours?

I don't. I entrust display ads to a rep firm, which has far better contacts and negotiating skills than I do.

Personally I would never sell below AdSense earnings

How do you define "AdSense earnings"? The eCPM for your site as a whole, or for specific channels?

Plus, if you're running both AdSense and display ads, wouldn't it make sense to define "AdSense earnings" as what you'd get from a second AdSense unit if you didn't have the display ad?

And finally, if you're trying to diversify, wouldn't it make sense to treat display ads as a whole separate revenue stream instead of comparing it to AdSense?

On my own site, I have three major sources of revenue: AdSense, display ads, and affiliate links. Of the three sources, affiliate links generate the most income, but I'd never consider dumping AdSense or display ads and turning my AdSense and display-ad spaces over to affiliate ads just because affiliate sales generate a higher eCPM. Having all of my eggs in the affiliate basket would be as risky as risky as having them all in the AdSense basket.

Having all of my eggs in the affiliate basket would be as risky as risky as having them all in the AdSense basket.

==========================

How safe is it to carry three baskets of eggs? Personally when I collect eggs I use one basket.

":^) ®

Mike

Hello EFV,

How do you define "AdSense earnings"? The eCPM for your site as a whole, or for specific channels?

I price based on the channel eCPM.

Plus, if you're running both AdSense and display ads

Nope, I never have more than one ad per page, AdSense or direct advertiser, so that answers your following question too, no second AdSense unit for me.

wouldn't it make sense to treat display ads as a whole separate revenue stream instead of comparing it to AdSense?

Why? They are both ads, and to price one you have to weigh it against what the other would generate in the exact same spot.

So after deducting the rep firm fees, how does the earnings compare to your AdSense?

I agree that, if you have only one ad unit of any kind per page, the decision is pretty easy.

As for how my net CPM from display ads compares with my AdSense eCPM, that's hard to say. Some ad flights pay much better than AdSense does, and some pay less. To calculate an average, I'd have to figure in "house ads" that run when no paying ads are available, and I haven't taken the time to do that.

I'd say that, on the whole, I make somewhat more from AdSense than I do from display ads, but quite a bit less than I do from affiliate links. (OTOH, I've only been running display ads since last fall, and sales didn't really take off until I dumped 468 x 60 banners--a dying format--for 160 x 600, one of the four IAB "Universal Ad Package" formats. The CPM trend is definitely upward, which isn't surprising since a recent report by one of the big research firms said that the market for Web display ads is growing even faster than the market for search-type ads.)

Let me ask it in another way for those that have multiple ad units:

If an advertiser wants to book the exact same spot where you have an ad unit, how would you price it?

If anybody would contact me for direct advertising, I'd be very suspicious about their goals, who they are, what they intend to run etc., as that market has been basically dead for a while now.

But let's assume I get a big brand name that wants to buy a substantial amount of impressions. I'd probably start pretty high as they've shown they wanted the space.

Supply and demand ... you've only got a limited supply.

If anybody would contact me for direct advertising, I'd be very suspicious about their goals, who they are, what they intend to run etc., as that market has been basically dead for a while now.

Dead? Not if you're in the right sector and can deliver an audience that advertisers want. ClickZ reports that Internet display advertising grew 19.4 percent in the first quarter of 2006. Online brands represented about 50% of that activity, with blue-chip companies coming in second with 25 to 30 percent of total display advertising.

Jupiter Research predicts that display advertising will continue to grow, and that it will represent about 36 percent of online advertising in 2001 (compared to 43 percent for search advertising). Some other experts think that display advertising will grow faster than search (a claim that Jupiter disputes), but either way, the experts agree that Internet display advertising isn't dead or even ill.

Last month 50% of my inventory was booked and the rest had AdSense.
(not every month is like that, but hey, my sector is far from dead)

[edited by: Hobbs at 9:29 pm (utc) on Aug. 11, 2006]

How do you define "AdSense earnings"? The eCPM for your site as a whole, or for specific channels?

I'd go for the "channel" rather than the site as a whole unless we were talking about a ROS ad.

But I usually just tell people to click on over to Adwords and sign up there.

>click on over to Adwords

That's like giving away the cow for a chance at a daily glass of milk if you are lucky.

I only send advertisers I don't want to hear from again that way.

...giving away the cow...

I'm fine with that. I don't want to be in the ad sales business. That's the attraction of programs like Adsense and YPN.

That's like giving away the cow for a chance at a daily glass of milk if you are lucky.

That may be a valid argument if your entire site is about a single topic and you don't gain any special benefit from page-targeted ads.

However, some of us have editorially diverse sites, and contextual ads (such as those served by AdSense) are a much better fit for small advertisers or esoteric subtopics than more general display ads are.

Example: If I get an inquiry from somebody who wants to advertise a B&B in the capital of Widgetonia, I know perfectly well that the prospective advertiser can't afford 160 x 600 skyscrapers throughout the Widgetonia section of my site, and I don't sell text links. So it makes perfect sense for me to send the B&B owner to Google, which can give him exposure on my relevant pages and on other targeted pages across the AdSense network. He's more likely to get a positive ROI with AdSense (and to keep on buying ads) than he would with a display ad that reaches too broad an audience for his needs and is more expensive than he can afford.

EFV,
An advertiser comes to me wanting to spend a few thousand dollars advertising on my site and I send them somewhere else because it is better for them?

Even if they are better off going to AdWords, my responsibility ends at explaining clearly my offerings, laying out my traffic type and topics covered, also if they are a long term prospect, a little heads up on how similar campaigns historically performed on my site, then I am more than happy taking the money.

If an advertiser wants to book the exact same spot where you have an ad unit, how would you price it?

I sell advertising on my sites directly to advertisers AND I run adsense ads on those pages (just not in the same exact spot :)

If an advertiser wants to book the same exact spot where there is an ad unit, I would probably suggest that they try google adwords :)

I usually sell my ads on a "monthly" basis to simplify things instead of making the advertisers learn about CPM/ecpm/CPC, etc.

So in that case, I have just looked at my adsense reports for that channel and see how much that spot made me last month (or previous months) and then I tell the advertiser a dollar amount ABOVE that number.

An advertiser comes to me wanting to spend a few thousand dollars advertising on my site and I send them somewhere else because it is better for them?

Even if they are better off going to AdWords, my responsibility ends at explaining clearly my offerings, laying out my traffic type and topics covered, also if they are a long term prospect, a little heads up on how similar campaigns historically performed on my site, then I am more than happy taking the money.

On the first part, that's what we do. I send them to adwords.

On the second part, I don't disagree with how YOU choose to define your responsibilities, but I certainly have told people they are better off advertising elsewhere because it will be more effective, or provide advice that would reduce the amount of money they give to me. I do similar things in my management consulting business, and have done so for many years.

Some things are more important than money to me. Actually, there are many, many things that are more important than money to me.

An advertiser comes to me wanting to spend a few thousand dollars advertising on my site and I send them somewhere else because it is better for them?

I'm not telling you what to do on your site. I'm simply explaining what I do on my site, and why.

Yes I know EFV, I was disagreeing with what you do on your site :-)

I don't. I entrust display ads to a rep firm, which has far better contacts and negotiating skills than I do.

EFV, could you give an example of a good rep firm to handle this and is it expensive? Thanks!

It can't be that only Rodney and I are the only AdSensers selling directly to advertiser.

Possibly the first 4 words in the original post were more accurate than I though!

Question still not answered.

EFV, I second the request for more info on what it means to have a rep firm. I know you can't name names, but what is such a company even called? ie what would I search for to find one? "Advertising reps"?

If we can talk about CJ, FastClick, and other companies by name, I guess I can mention--in response to questions-- that my rep firm is the Travel Ad Network, which also represents sites like Lonelyplanet.com, Roughguides.com, and Cheapseats.com. It works only in the travel sector (as its name would imply), and I believe it has a minimum-traffic requirement of 500,000 impressions per month.

I don't know if similar firms exist in other sectors, but if they don't, they should. A New York-based rep firm that has strong advertiser and media-buying contacts within a specific industry can reach advertisers that aren't likely to buy direct from anything smaller than a megasite. It can also aggregate and sell impressions for multiple handpicked sites within its industry.