Banner pricing strategies

From: Tom Lehman <tlehman_at_ansible.com>
Date: Thu 01 May 2003 10:42:46 -0600

Hi folks,

As a long time lurker and very occasional contributor, I always found this
list to be very informative and stimulating reading. Advertising is not my
main focus and I've learned a lot from these discussions. I'm hoping that I
might get some insight into an advertising pricing question.

I'm working with a group that has had a single horizontal banner at the top
of a directory search page. This is a trade association website that
promotes its members to a B2B audience. The banner is purchased in six
month periods and has been fully booked for the last couple of years. This
is a specialized audience. Advertisers are apparently willing to pay a
premium to be associated with this group and reach this audience within
that context. The CPM is like $500 as it is a relatively low traffic, but
highly focused site. While it is a single banner, because of the current
frame layout of the page, the actually banner is no more than 1/3-1/2 of
the full page width.

A redesign of this site will result in the possibility of splitting the top
banner into two horizontal positions (side by side), and the addition of up
to three square positions vertically on the left hand margin. Each of the
horizontal banners will be a bit smaller in size compared to what exists
today, and of course, there will now be two there instead of one. The
traffic on the site does not support a rotation of these banners in our view.

So, the question is pricing. If the current banner costs X for six months,
how do they think about pricing for two side by side banners. Obviously it
is not simply X for each side, but unless it is significantly more than
1/2X, there's really no point in going this route. Thoughts? Suggestions?
Any rules of thumb out there?

Similarly, for the vertical square positions, if a top banner goes for X,
is there any rule of thumb that will help us price the side positions.
We're assuming the top of these three would be marginally more valuable
than the other two.

As I said, any reactions / feedback / suggestions or pointers to a resource
that might help would be greatly appreciated.

And thanks for all the good discussion that has taken place on this list of
the years. I'm really impressed with the expertise and experience
represented here.

Thanks

Tom





Received on Thu May 01 2003 - 11:42:46 CDT