Hacker News Reader

Comment by proexploit | Hacker News Reader

If your site generate a relevant amount of traffic, you shouldn't have any trouble finding advertisers (example: if you run a televisions comparison website with a healthy readership, Samsung should come to you).

As far as payment, it's going to depend whether they're paying by the amount of views their ad receives, the amount of clicks there ad gets, or the amount of sales they receive (you could start affiliate advertising for large companies today depending on the niche). The more info you can provide on your users, and the more targeted they are, the more they are worth.

View on HN

Thanks for your input.

Do you have any idea how much I should charge? My website is www.thathigh.com and it's growing pretty constantly, sometimes exponentially. It's a fairly niche website, but I've never negotiated with advertisers.

Should I offer $50 and work them down to $20? Or is that too many? (we're talking eCPM here, i guess?) are there any other types of payments out there (monthly for an ad or anything like that?)

thanks, i'm a complete newbie with advertising, i've been thrown into a really good challenge and have alot to learn.

Unfortunately, the "stoner" niche isn't known for having a lot of money (or at least spending it online) so it can be harder to find advertisers for. In your case, it would depend on the number of visitors you're receiving and where they come from. Visitors from search tend to do well with adsense or similar advertising. You may want to try buysellads.com or a similar service. Also helpful could be reducing the number of ads on the right side, focusing on the more relevant ones with hire payouts and present them as something more than advertising. Write a blog, make it a sponsored post like textsfromlastnight.com does, etc.

proexploit, exactly the information I've been looking for, I'm in a similar situation, very timely, thank you.

Do you know of any other services like buysellads.com?

text-link-ads.com might also be worth your time. All of the really great advertising platforms are often niche specific or limited by some of your site statistics so it's hard to give examples.

$20 CPM is absurd unless you have brand advertisers going after an incredibly lucrative demographic(like middle aged women). As an advertiser, in order for my ad to be profitable, I need to pay no more than $2-$3 CPM for highly targeted niche sites. You might have better luck with affiliate programs, but other than that, even getting $2 CPM would be very good. If I were looking to advertise on your site, I would probably consider it lower tier traffic and try to run mobile/gaming offers.

Email me at ilya[at]unviral.com if you want more insight into the reality of online advertising, it's funny I saw your comment on HN, I was just recently talking to one of your cofounders :)

"Samsung should come to you".

This is the exact opposite of what we are experiencing at the moment. We have reasonable traffic (500k UVs / month, 9million PVs), but regularly miss out on campaigns that would fit our site perfectly. Infact, we usually see them on other websites (same industry, different space) and then call up the buying agency who have "already spent all the budget".

Frustrating! We have an advertising agent which is currently taking 35%. Between them and our backfill we still only monetize around 50% of our inventory each month.

If you're unhappy with ad sales, and your agent is taking a moderate percentage, perhaps he's not doing a good enough job. If you could manage the same ad sales as current yourself, your advertising revenue would increase just by dropping the agent.

For anything more specific, I'd have to see the site and have some questions. If you feel comfortable, post it, or feel free to email me at proexploit@gmail.com and I'll see what I could recommend in terms of advertising improvements.

Thanks PE.

Yes, we know our agent isn't up to scratch but we are struggling for alternatives. I'll drop you an email.

Have decided against due to a recent development, but thanks for the offer!

Your situation is entirely normal. Most ad agents take around 30%. If anyone charges you significantly less then they are probably new and inexperienced (which isn't always a bad thing).

Most websites only monetize 50% of their ad inventory. The rest is called "remnant" inventory and is usually given to ad networks or adsense. They're going to pay you next to nothing for it, though.

The best way to make more money is to take sales more seriously. You really have to do it the old fashioned way...keep talking to samsung and similar companies until one of them listens. Your agent is supposed to be doing that for you, but it's not the easiest job in the world.

I'd be happy to talk with you more. My hn name @gmail.com

Reply on news.ycombinator.com