While I was hiking, a poll was running that a few people participated in. The question posed was "Assume that a blog has a Page Rank of 3, an Alexa Rating of about 150,000, and receives 150 pageviews a day from 80 unique visitors. What do you think would be a reasonable price for an ad on that blog?" The choices ranged from "under a dollar a month" to "more than ten dollars a month."
The results of the poll:
2 responses at "under $1 a month,"
1 at $1 a month
1 at $3 a month
3 at $5 a month
I thought this was interesting since I also think that about $5 a month would be a reasonable charge for a blog at that level. However, I did a little subjective research. I found several blogs that offer the chance to buy ads apart from services such as Project Wonderful, Entrecard or Adgitize. The few I found line up from most expensive to least like this:
$20/month - Alexa rank 386,381, Google PR 4
$18/month - Alexa rank 537,347, Google PR 4
$10/month - Alexa rank 52,611, Google PR 3
$5/month - Alexa rank 98,487, Google PR 0
$5/month - Alexa rank 659,666, Google PR 3
$3/month - Alexa rank 656,187, Google PR 3
$3/month - Alexa rank 54,122, Google PR 4
As you can see, this is too small a sample to mean much. You can also see that the values are all over the map.
Of course, in a field as volatile as the blogosphere, the correct answer is "whatever people will pay." Most of the blogs noted above had at least one ad running in their available spaces.
Interesting questions might be:
Which is more meaningful for advertisers to note, the Google PR or the Alexa rank?
Do you think people are more likely to click ads paid directly to a blog rather than through Entrecard or Project Wonderful?
Are you thinking about offering private sale ads on your site?
What is a Reasonable Ad Price on a Blog?
| web ad income Oct 13 (4 blogs, 2 web sites, writing): Adsense $..08 Adgitize $.55 Project Wonderful $.02 Chitika $.07 ______________________ Total: $.72 |
4 comments:
80 visits per day = 2400 per month. To achieve a reasonable CPM ($0.50), the blog could charge $1.20 a month for an ad.
Assuming the ad is above the fold and there aren't many other ads, the advertiser should get a CTR of about 0.3%, approx 7 visitors, $0.07 CPC.
There are plenty of bloggers with 500 monthly visitors who think they can sell ten ads at $10 each. :-(
I have 7000 visits per month to English Wilderness. If I planned to sell ads, I'd probably sell two ads at $3 each.
I agree that many people overvalue their blogs (what is that goofy "how much is my blog worth" thing?). I'm kinda more in the $5 a month feeling, assuming the blog is focused and the ad is appropriate. A blog can really deliver a targeted audience. It's really all about gaining enough of a readership that someone would value a blog as an advertising medium.
I only have a couple of experiences of selling ads. One advertiser was paying me $3 per month, but have now just paid me $67 for 3 months!! Their offer, not mine. I was also offering an ad to another advertiser for $10 for 6 months, but they never paid :(
Hi Mark- Thanks for adding to the dialogue. It is really strange how the values are all over the map, isn't it? And I too have had experiences where people don't seem to take paying for web advertising seriously. In some ways it all still feels like funny money and games rather than the primary communication medium of the future (if not already in the present)
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