How To Sell Your Advertising Spots Directly

There are many of us out there that create websites because we have a passion about a certain topic.  We regularly update our websites with the latest information, so that our visitors can stay on top of our topic of interest.  A time comes in many websites life that enables the creator to start monetizing the traffic.  There are many great ways to monetize your visitors that include third party ad networks like Google Adsense, which is the most popular way for most bloggers and website owners.  You can also monetize with affiliate networks, which is a lot harder, but it can be very lucrative if done correctly.  Many website owners do not even think about selling the ad space on their websites by themselves though.  This is a technique that has been around for quite some time, but many website owners just don’t do it.  It can be hard to do and you may not succeed, but if you do, you will make more money on that ad space than with the likes of Google Adsense.

There are really two way to sell the ad space on your website.  You can either sell it directly, with the help of a well developed advertising page on your blog, or though a third-party system.  You can have visitors pay through a payment system such as paypal, or email you for more information if you want to sell spaces directly.  A third party system allows you to setup that ad spaces with some code and then the system will place your listing on a directory for advertisers to see.  Advertisers can purchase your ad space for 30 days or whichever the network provides and then you are paid.  I will go into more detail on both forms of direct selling advertising space.

If you want to sell direct and you want to do it on your own, then you have to take the time to setup a proper advertising page on your website or blog.  The main reason for this is that if/when you sell your spaces, you keep all of the cash, minus the payment gateway fees.  With adsense, you only get a small portion of the click cost, so it takes a while to get money from it.  Direct on your site enables you to charge what you want and to pocket about 99% of the money.  Advertisers want to know how well your website performs before they give your money for advertising space.  Fellow Blogger, John Chow, does a great job with his advertising page.  Everything is setup properly with great information and breaks out each zone that is available.  He brings his potential advertisers to a paypal subscription page that will capture the sale and in a subscription.  Many companies and advertisers forget that they create paypal subscriptions, so they tend to continue them without notice.  This is usually good for the publisher.  You can see a quick screen shot of John’s page with just the information.  You can see his entire advertising page on his website.

If you look at John’s page, then you will see a good example of how an advertising page should look like.  While I know that John Chow is great at what he does, anyone can create a page like this with their own stats.  Keeping your statistics and accomplishments up-to-date is key to succeeding in selling your advertising space directly.  Without a good page, you will not bring in the cash that you wish.

If you do not have the time or technical knowledge to setup your own advertising page, which I hope it is you just don’t have time, then check out 3rd party services like AdvertiseSpace or BuySellAds.  Each site has its own perks with AdvertiseSpace being newer, but still growing strong.  These services are great for quick setup and little work on your end.  They do take around 25 to 30% of your sale price for providing the service.  While this may seem alot, you still are getting 70 to 75% off the money with a lot less work.  You sign up for an account and once you get approved you add your blog.  Each blog has to be approved by the website, so make sure it follows their policies.  In the past,  BuySellAds was hard to get into, but they have really opened up their acceptance to smaller publishers.  This has really flooded their website, so it may take time to sell an adspace.  AdvertiseSpace has their own set of rules, but it is much easier to get into their program.  If you are not accepted, then ask them why.  They might be able to give you a quick roadmap on how to get accepted, while making your website stronger.

AdvertiseSpace has a simple sign up form that just creates your account.  Once you have signed up, then you must click on the Sell Ads tab at the top of the page.  This will allow you to create an ad zone on your website.  Currently, they only allow you to sell ad space in the following sizes: 125 x 125, 260 x 125, and 88 x 31.  While they don’t provide many sizes, 125 x 125 seems to be very popular among advertisers.  You then pick the price per month and the style of ad banner.  They currently offer 25 different ad banners that you can choose from.  These banners tell people that the advertising space is currently for sale.  If they click on it, then they are directed to your own page on AdvertiseSpace with stats and prices.  They can checkout there if they want to purchase the spot.

If you have some of these size spaces available, then AdvertiseSpace might suite you.  You have to then add your blog information, with the title, description, and then category.  Each spot is for one ad, so if you have 5 different zones, then you need to create 5 different ad spots.  This can be time consuming, but once you get it down, it gets pretty quick.  Each zone will give you a small piece of code that you will need to add to your website, so that they zone will become available.  Once you have placed the code on the website, you are done.  AdvertiseSpace will take care of the rest.  If you are interested in using this service, you can sign up for a Free Account at any time.

BuySellAds has a very similar concept, but they provide you with more options on the ad zones that you can have.  It can take some time to get accepted if your site does not meet their standards.  Some have said that they were declined the first time, but after changing the description of the site, they were accepted.  They allow you to sell ads with any dimension, but provide you with the best performing ad sizes which are: 125 x 125, 180 x 150, 200 x 125, 260 x 260, 300 x 250, 728 x 90.  I am surprised that they don’t have 468 x 60 on that list, but you can create if you wish as it is a very popular size for advertisers.  You can accept just image ads, image and text ads, or text and description ads.  You have to create ad zones just like AdvertiseSpace, but they provide some more options like banner rotation.

After you create a zone, you have to install the code.  BuySellAds needs code to be installed in the header as well as where you want to sell the ad space.  This is just how their system works, so without the header code, no others will work properly.  BuySellAds does not provide you with different ad banners to show that you have space for sale, but only provide a gray box that says “Advertise Here” with a small mouseover effect.  This box is well known around the industry as many people use BuySellAds.  Once all of your zones are created and your code is installed, you just have to sit back and wait for sales.  You get a listing in their directory, which you can change your listing based on changes to your website or topic.  Advertisers can find you through the listing or directly on your site if the ad spot has not been sold.  If you are interested in BuySellAds, then sign up for your free acount and then submit your blog for approval.

So, as you can see, it is simple to start selling your advertising spots on your website directly without losing most of your revenue with CPC or CPM networks.  As your website or blog becomes larger, then you can change the pricing and continue to make more.  They best part about direct selling is that you have the control over the ads, which you don’t with other networks.  While you can have AdvertiseSpace or BuySellAds auto approve ads, you can tell them not to as well and keep all control.  It won’t hurt to try and sell your available ad space, unless you are already making a lot of money with networks like Google Adsense.  Good luck to everyone that wants to sell their advertising directly.

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