Advertise on Blogs

Advertising costs money, even online where the cost of

promoting a brand can set you back by a few hundred

dollars to a few thousand. John Chow's blog, for

example, one of the most popular blogs currently

active, sells 125 x 125 sidebar ad spots at $500 a

month. The same ad placement will cost around $1,500

with Copyblogger. If you're wondering how much it

would cost you to advertise on blogs, consider the

following:



Traffic and popularity Blogs thrive on the number of

traffic that visits their sites and on the subsequent

popularity this generates. This is also a major

consideration for advertisers. More traffic simply

means better exposure. Targeted traffic means you'll

be selling to more people who are likely to buy.



Between a blog that has only 50,000 page views and

another that has 100,000, who would you choose? The

latter obviously offers a wider market and more

potential buyers.



The mille matters. Traffic or the number of page views

a blog page receives also determines the cost of

advertising on a particular blog. If a blog generates

about 100,000 page views monthly, for example and it's

fairly new, you might have to pay as little as $50 a

month for a 125 x 125 sidebar ad.



To understand how the price of ad spots is computed,

consider the mille. Bloggers will generally use the

unit cost-per-mille or CPM. One mille is equivalent to

1,000, a unit you will be able to use later to compute

for the cost of placing an ad based on the number of

page views it generates.



Bloggers will consider the number of page views their

blogs receive and use that as a basis for coming up

with the cost of advertising. As a result, a blog with

a higher amount of traffic will charge you a higher

price than a blog with a lower number. That means

placing your ad on blogs with sufficient traffic can

range in cost from about $50 to a whopping $10,000 a

month. The bigger number, of course, means your ad

will receive millions of page views.



In conclusion, remember that to determine whether a

particular ad space is worth paying for, consider the

cost of the space versus the traffic it will receive.



Size of the ad The bigger the ad spot you require, the

higher the cost of advertising on a blog. A 125 x 125

ad spot, for example, will be cheaper than a larger

300 x 250 ad. Placement will also affect the ad price.

Header ads, for example, will cost more than sidebar

ads or footer ads. Below the fold ads will cost

considerably less than those that will appear above

the fold or integrated with the blog's content.



Test periods You might want to consider saving a few

bucks by asking the blog owner if he/she is offering a

test period of ad runs. If your ad will be placed on

test period, that means the blog will display it for a

limited time but won't charge you for it.



After a specific period, you can then decide whether

to continue with the placement (at which point you'll

have to start paying) or to pull your ad, depending on

how well it performed in the blog. This usually works

on blogs that are relatively new and are still

building momentum.



Look for blogs that offer renewable ad placements you

can pay for on a month-to-month basis. This will help

you manage the cost of advertising on blogs and help

your bottomline in the process.