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Why sell your ad space directly to advertisers?

helping puzzle hand Let’s imagine for a moment that you have created a website that is really starting to take off in terms of the number of visitors it receives. It is at this point that you should really start thinking about ways to monetize your site without affecting the quality of the space. Ad serving is one of the easiest ways to do this, and most people go the easy route by simply signing up for AdSense or a similar advertising platform. After all, putting a piece of code into the available ad space on your site is easy, and you can be making money in a matter of minutes. There are drawbacks to going that route, though, and there are some definite reasons why you should consider selling your ad space directly to the advertiser. Let’s take a look at a few of those reasons:

No commissions

One of the most obvious reasons for selling directly to the advertiser is that you get to keep 100% of the advertising revenue that you earn. If you receive 50 cents for a single click from an AdSense ad running on your website, you might consider that to be a pretty good deal. However, that is only a percentage of the money the advertiser actually paid. You can bet that Google is getting the best of that deal.

Set your own pricing

When you have your own website, you should be in control of every single aspect of it, and that includes deciding how much you are going to charge for ad space on your pages. Setting the pricing when you first start out can be difficult to figure out, but the beauty of this is that you can negotiate directly with advertisers to come up with a rate that makes both sides happy.

Choose your advertisers

Supply side platforms and ad servers do the best they can to deliver ads that are suitable for your site, but they do not always succeed. You should know exactly what sort of ads will resonate with your audience, and choosing your own advertisers means getting premium ads that you know people will react to and will actually want to know about. That is beneficial for everyone involved.

Flexible payment terms

There are a lot of advertisers that are nervous about making a major commitment because they do not have a huge advertising budget to work with. As well as being able to set your own rates when you sell directly to the advertiser, you can also agree on payment terms that are suitable to both sides. An advertiser may be more inclined to buy ad space if they know they don’t have to pay everything up front or if they can work with someone directly on the pricing.

Building relationships

There is a real opportunity for publishers and advertisers to thrive together if they can build a solid relationship. Selling ads directly allows you to develop those relationships so that you can ensure a long-term future with a number of advertisers who trust that you have their best interests at heart and really take care of their ad campaigns.
Posted in Selling Ads Directly by John Z December 21, 2020 (first published April 2016) Was this helpful? Yes / No

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