Selling Ad Space for Banner Advertising - 5 Things to Consider

Here are five crucial factors that need to be considered when offering Ad Space for private Banner Advertising:
1. Locating Advertisers
How are you going to find sponsors? You can either carry out this task yourself or advertise your Advertising Space for sale on a Banner Auction website.
Finding advertisers yourself:

• The most likely sites that would want to advertise with you would be those directly corresponding to your target audience;
• Sites that are advertising with your competitors are a good start. You can also contact websites which are advertising on those sites.
• You will need to contact each prospect one by one with a professional email asking if they are interested in buying Advertising Space on your site. The email should include an attachment or link to your media kit including analytics, prices and a description of your website.
• Personalise the email stating where you found the website and why you believe they would wish to advertise with your site. You won't get a favorable response to a a standard and impersonal email.
• Keep a record of who you've contacted and their response.
• Remember to follow up on an email and offer some great deals to get noticed.

Advertising Space For Sale:

• Sell Ad Space at an auction website to spare yourself the hassles of looking for individual advertisers one by one ;
• Ad space Auction websites enable you to list your space together with details of your website and analytics. You can either set a specific buy-out amount or put the Ad Space up for auction.
• Potential buyers are able to contact you direct and make you offers.
• You can create a store which displays all the Advertising Space you have available, standard information about your website, your acceptance policies, ad specifications, analytics and anything else you desire.

2. Positioning, Quality & Quantity
What advertisers look for:

• Positions above the fold (where their Banner Ad will be displayed without viewers needing to scroll down to see it);
• Larger Banners (the bigger, the more you can charge);
• Wider Ads are more readable and tend to perform better than vertical Banners;
• Not too many competing Ads on the same page (large volumes of space taken up by other advertisers on your website takes away their quality).
• Your traffic is only one indicator of the worth of your Advertising Space. Many advertisers seeking to reach a specific target audience in their niche would rather advertise on a directly related site than a site with huge traffic but no relevance.

3. Costing Method
How should you charge? Below are the method of how to charge for Ad Space: 

• Pay Per Click (PPC) - the advertiser pays you the agreed amount each time a viewer clicks on their advertisement;
• Cost Per Thousand Impressions (CPM) - an amount is charged for each thousand times the Ad is to be displayed on your website.
• Pay Per Action (PPA) / Cost Per Lead (CPL) - payment is made each time the Advertisement is clicked and the customer undertakes some type of approved action (such as registering, subscribing or making a purchase);
• Cost Per Time - this is the most favorable method of costing for private Ad sales. Sponsors simply pay to have their ad displayed in your slot for an agreed period of time (such as one wee, month or quarter).
• Most publishers do not offer costing methods reliant on specific events or actions taking place (as the income is too dependent on the quality of the Banner Ad and the offer contained in it). In addition, more reporting is needed to undertake such campaigns.

4. Ad Specifications
Before placing the Advertising Space for sale, you should consider the advertisement requirements and creative specifications, including:

• Ad dimensions;
• Maximum file size;
• Animation restrictions (example: loop maximum, maximum animation time);
• Preferred / allowed format;
• Flash requirements;
• Video requirements (example: loading with sound off, rollover activation, maximum run time, visible stop icon, who pays additional service costs, polite download).
• Expandable creative specifications (example: maximum dimensions, file size, animation restrictions, user-initiated, close button, expansion delay, additional serving costs);
• Appropriateness of content (example: no adult material).

5. Analytics
You should prepare a .pdf or image file of your website analytics.
There are various aspects to selling Advertising Space. With many decisions to make, some site owners just take the easy way out and put their space in the hands of an ad network, where profits are slim and sometimes inventory is sold for scraps due to the overabundance in supply. When done effectively, selling Banner Advertising direct can be very profitable and worthwhile.