a million page impressions

Hi Jonathan,

Half a million uniques is good going. It sounds like a property ripe for monetisation.

CPMs range from 25p - £180 (at least that's the highest number I know of), depending on ad format, placement, targeting, etc.

Anything over £10 CPM net to the publisher is considered pretty good, but it depends on the sector. If debtworthy students are worth £3k a pop to banks then it could be that £10 per 1,000 impressions is too low. You can only experiment.

You can look at the affiliate networks to see what banks will pay you as a commission on eg new loans, new accounts, credit cards. It won't be £3k CPA though. Again, you can run a trial to see which pays you better - CPM or CPA ads.

A sponsor / tenancy deal would be a good thing, but make sure you get the right valuation on that deal. if you *can* hit an average rate of £10 CPM then it will help you work out what a three month tenancy might be worth. Otherwise it's guesswork and blind negotiation. Don't undercharge! But if you only sell 5% of inventory @ £10 CPM and 95% of the ads come from a network, @ eg £1 CPM, then make sure you don't overcharge!

Pulling in a dedicated sales person might work, but only if you get the right person with the right contacts book. I'd be tempted to see what the ad sales houses can do for you. They'll take a cut, sure, but they already have existing relationships with the media buyers, so things might happen more quickly if you go down that route. Just don't lock yourself into any long term 'deals'...

Let me know how you get on.

c.

On 07:22:30 9 March 2008 JonathanDavey wrote:

 

thanks chris...

currently all the visitors are organic... 500k monthly visitors to 1.6m pages with 40k using 430k training pages.15 - 25 years old

the idea is to employ an individual to sell space... my head is telling me to aim for 1 main sponsor who would like to grab the attention of potential customers.

banks are the logical target... I heard, a few years back, that the banks would pay £3k for a student with an overdraft... is that still the same?

what wouid be a fair deal in today's market place £20 - £30 per thousand pages?