How to Find Advertisers for Your Website: The Ultimate Guide

[Firstly i would just like to give credit to Daniel Scocco at www.dailyblogtips.com for this arcticle that i have reposted here. its an excellent article. Make sure you visit their site for tons more great articles on blogs.]

Direct advertising sales is arguably the best method to monetize a
website. Finding advertisers for your site and actually closing the
deals, however, is not as straight forward. Over the past 6 months I
had more than 10 high profile companies sponsoring Daily Blog Tips, and
through out this article I will share what I have learned along the way.

The Pros

• More money: The first advantage of selling your
  own ads is the fact that you will cut the middlemen out, increasing
  your revenue potential. Suppose you sell text link ads on your sidebar
  through a certain company, and the text links sell for $50 monthly.
  Since you are using the company network to sell the ads, they will eat
  50% of the price, and you will end up earning only $25 monthly for each
  text link. If someone is willing to pay $50 for a text link on your
  site, though, it means that they are getting $50 of value out of it.
  Why, then, should you share that with someone else?
• Independence: Sure, large advertising networks
  have access to a wider pool of advertisers, and they have more
  credibility to close the deals. But if you have all the requirements in
  place (see the section below) and spend some time looking at the right
  places, I am sure that you will be able to sell your own ads just as
  efficiently as the larger networks.
• Flexibility: The third advantage of selling direct
  advertising is that you will have much more control over where and how
  the ads will be displayed (i.e., you can avoid intrusive advertising).
  Google Adsense is nice, but unless you blend it with the content –
  annoying some of the readers – you will get terribly low click-through
  rates.
• Credibility: Finally, having sponsors and direct
  advertisers on your blog might help your credibility. Even small and
  poorly crafted blogs can stick some Adsense units here and there.
  Having established companies that are willing to partnership with your
  site, on other hand, can signal that your content has quality and that
  the site is somewhat professional.

The Cons

• Time consuming: While selling your own ads has
  many advantages, it is no panacea. The first drawback of this
  monetization option is the time that it will consume. This time will be
  spent optimizing your website for the ads, finding potential
  advertisers, negotiating with them, and handling the administrative
  matters (e.g., making payments, tracking statistics, delivering reports
  and so on).
• Many requirements: Selling direct adverting is not
  as easy as making money from Google Adsense. As you can see from the
  section below, you will need to have a popular blog, a professional
  looking design, special software and the like.
• Unstable: Unless you close deals for very long
  periods, which is unlikely, you will find your self looking for new
  advertisers or optimizing your website to attract new ones every other
  month. The opposite is true for most advertising networks, where you
  just need to plug some code and they will do the rest of the work. (If
  your site or blog is just a hobby, therefore, direct advertising might
  not be the best option)

What You Need to Have in Place

• A popular website: Before landing direct
  advertising deals you will need to have a good amount of traffic on
  your site. There is no “magical” number here, but a good rule of thumb
  would be 1000 daily unique visitors. If you are below that mark you
  should focus on building traffic instead of looking for advertisers.
  Other factors like Google Pagerank, RSS subscribers and Alexa rank
  might also help. (Notice that small websites might also be able to sell
  direct advertising, but usually the time spent on that will not justify
  the results)
• A clear focus: You might have the most popular
  site on the Internet (well, not as extreme as that, but you get the
  point), but unless your site also has a very clear niche and a defined
  audience, advertisers will not find it very attractive. This means that
  you should avoid rambling about 100 different topics on the website.
  Advertisers want to deliver a message to specific people, and the more
  specific the better.
• A professional looking design: If you are planning
  to monetize your website through sponsors, you probably should invest
  some money into a professional looking design. Advertisers will be
  associating their product or service with your website, and not too
  many of them would be willing to get mixed with an ugly, MySpace
  looking site.
• Give visibility to the sponsors: This point is
  connected to the previous one. Not all templates and themes will be
  suitable for selling direct advertising. Preferably you want to have an
  idea of what kind of advertising you will sell (e.g., 468×60 banners,
  125×125 banners, text links) and design your website according to those
  objectives. Advertisers want visibility, so reserve a good spot for
  them.
• Adserver software: In order to serve your ads,
  rotate banners and track statistics you will need to install an
  Adserver. If you are looking for a simple solution you should try WP-Ads.
  This Wordpress plugin will serve ads for specific ad zones that you
  create. The only drawback is that it does not count clicks (only
  impressions). If you need a more sophisticated solution check OpenAds. You will need to spend some time learning how to use it, but it offers virtually all the features you will ever need.
• 
  “Advertise Here” page: It is very important to have an
  “Advertise Here” page. On this page you want to give some details about
  the website, like audience, traffic and any other factor that might be
  of the interest of potential advertisers. Secondly, make sure that you
  have some link to that page on the navigation bar and if possible close
  to the zone where the ads will be displayed. You can see a perfect
  example of such layout on Copyblogger.com.
• Standard letter to approach advertisers: While
  some advertisers will contact you after reading your “Advertise Here”
  page, the rest of them will need to be directly approached by you. In
  that case, it is a good idea to create a standard letter to contact the
  advertisers. There is no “one size fits all” solution here, but you can
  follow some general guidelines:
  

  1. Introduce yourself and quickly explain what the email is about
  
  2. Explain why you decided to contact them and what they have to gain
  
  3. Give details about your site (traffic, subscribers, topic, audience)
  
  4. Give details about the advertising options (location on the site, max number of advertisers, monthly price)

  
  

  That is it, after that information the advertisers should be able to
  decide if they are interested or not. If they reply, then you will fix
  the details. Bear in mind that all the info I mentioned should be
  contained in 2 or 3 paragraphs. If you send an essay to potential
  advertisers they will just skip it altogether.
  

• Accepting payments: You might have
  everything in place, but if you are not able to cash payments – or more
  importantly, if advertisers are not able to pay easily – you will end
  up losing deals. PayPal is the best option here. Notice, however, that
  a personal account will not suffice. You will need at least a premier
  account to be able to accept credit cards.

Where to Find the Advertisers

Once you have your direct advertising program established, you will
start to receive inquiries from people. On the beginning, however, you
will need to hunt advertisers down. Do not get discouraged if get
turned down initially, provided you have all the aforementioned
requirements, sooner or later you will find someone willing to take a
shot on your site.

• 
  People linking to your site or articles: If a company
  is willing to link to your articles or to add your website under its
  “Links” or “Resources” section, it is also probably willing to discuss
  about advertising on your site. Keep track of those incoming links.
• People leaving comments/e-mails: The same
  principle applies to people leaving comments on your blog or sending
  you e-mails. If among them you see an employee or the owner of a
  company that could be interested on your website, bingo! Contact him or
  her and get the conversation going.
• 
  AdWords advertisers: Through out your search for
  advertisers you will notice that most of the established companies are
  not aware of the benefits of online advertising. If a certain company
  is already spending money on Google AdWords, however, it is very likely
  that it would also be open to other forms of online advertising. Think
  about some keywords that are related to your topic and Google them.
  Check the sponsored links that will appear and contact them. (You can
  also check the advertisers that appear on the Adsense units of related
  websites)
• 
  Other advertising networks: While Google AdWords is by
  far the largest advertising network on the Internet, there are many
  others that could be useful. Check the companies that are spending
  money on AdBrite, Text-Link-Ads, BlogAds, SponsoredReviews and so on.
• 
  Banner advertisers on similar sites: Check out popular
  websites on your niche and see what companies are advertising there.
  Provided you offer them an interesting deal (i.e., a reasonable price
  for your size), I am pretty sure they will be interested.
• Create a “Potential Sponsors” bookmark folder:
  This technique produced outstanding results for me. I have a bookmark
  folder on my browser called “Potential Sponsors.” Every time I come
  across a company or website that could be interested in sponsoring my
  website, I bookmark it. Currently I have over 100 bookmarked sites on
  that folder, and I have not approached half of them yet.

How Much to Charge

• You need to provide value: It is all about value.
  A potential sponsor or advertiser will want to see some returns for the
  money he will be spending on your site, and this can be seen as
  visibility (impressions) and leads (clicks and possible sales). Make
  sure, therefore, that your advertising deals will deliver.
• The numbers: Remember that there are some pretty
  cheap advertising options out there (e.g., Google AdWords), and you
  will need to be competitive. Provided you reserved a good spot for the
  sponsors (sidebar or header, preferably) you could start charging a
  $0,5 CPM (cost per 1000 impressions). If your blog is generating
  100,000 monthly page views, therefore, a banner spot on your sidebar
  should cost around $50. Start low and build your way upwards. Popular
  blogs (e.g., TechCrunch) have a higher CPM, sometimes as high as $10,
  but you will need a huge credibility to arrive there.
• Cross-check: You can easily check if you are
  charging a suitable rate by using Adsense units on the places where you
  will sell direct advertising. Analyze how much you would gain with
  Adsense, and adjust your rates accordingly. Secondly, you can also
  check similar sites that are already selling direct ads.
• Be flexible regarding the terms: Flexibility is
  key. First of all make advertising agreements on a month-to-month
  basis. People don’t like to commit to something they are not completely
  sure about. If someone proposes you a longer deal, offer a discount in
  exchange.
• Offer test periods: Unless you have a very popular
  website, you will find potential advertisers reluctant to spend real
  money. If you are confident that the deal will create value for both
  parties, however, you can use that on your favor. Offer a free test
  period whenever needed. Some of the times the advertiser will turn you
  down after it, but other times they will confirm the deal. Either way
  you have nothing to lose.