Once you’ve decided that there’s an opportunity to monetize your website more efficiently through direct sales — and you’ve made the commitment to tackling the process — it can be tough to know where to begin. You can’t just wander down Madison Avenue knocking on doors. You need to focus on a relatively small universe of the most likely potential buyers, which can be done by creating your “wish list” of advertisers who should be advertising on your site.
This becomes the list of potential advertisers you’ll want to target with your outreach efforts; eventually, these names will hopefully be converted to paying clients. Here are three strategies for coming up with your wish list of advertisers. (For more monetization tips, browse the rest of our ad sales articles or sign up for the free MonetizePros newsletter.)
Before we dive in, you might want to check out Daniel Scocco’s overview of the pros and cons of direct ad sales.
Ask Yourself Some Questions
Start by brainstorming: which advertisers would derive value from advertising on my website? A few questions to ask yourself in coming up with this list:
- What topics are regularly covered on my site? Are there obvious companies who offer these products / services that would be a good fit?
- What is unique about my audience? What companies would derive value by highlighting their products / services to my audience?
It’s best to be creative here; when starting our, err on the high side in your brainstorming activities. And don’t get too caught up in seeking out hyper-targeted potential advertisers; think a bit more broadly in terms of what might fit with your demographic.
For example, a website about pregnancy/motherhood would probably be a great fit for advertisers looking to promote items like diapers, baby clothes, etc. But if you think more broadly, you’ll realize that this type of site would be a great for fit for any company looking to reach a primarily female demographic.
Here’s a screenshot from TheBump.com, a website for expectant mothers. Note the ad for “beauty balm” at the top of the page:
Keep in mind that some of the ideal advertisers you come up with in this manner won’t be worth pursuing if they aren’t actively engaged in online advertising as part of their marketing efforts.
“Ask” Your Competitors
OK, so you’re probably not going to pick up the phone and ask your competitors to help you make more money. But you can certainly spend some quality time on their sites to figure out if they’re having any success with direct ad sales. This is something you probably do already (reading up on your subject matter) but with a slightly expanded focus. Keep a close eye on the ads on the web sites in your niche, and you’ll quickly get a list of the advertisers whom you should be targeting.
This exercise is valuable because it will fill out your list with companies that you know are spending on digital advertising. Your off-the-cuff list of advertisers who would be good fits is likely to include several who don’t spend a penny online–which obviously doesn’t do you a whole lot of good. But if you’re seeing ads on competitors’ sites (or elsewhere on the Web for that matter), you’ve effectively “pre-qualified” the lead already.
Ask AdSense
If you’re interested in selling advertising directly, odds are that you’re currently using either Google AdSense or an AdSense alternative. Finding potential advertisers may involve going no further than your home page; ad networks generally do a pretty good job of showing relevant ads to your audience. (Of course, you should make sure your AdSense settings allow for targeting.)
It may seem overly simple, but often the best direct advertisers for your site are already advertising on your site. Your challenge in this case becomes cutting out the middle man, which can create significant value for both you and the advertiser.
Remember that AdSense takes a cut from every dollar of advertising revenue your site generates. For display ads, it’s a 68 / 32 split (in the publisher’s favor):
In other words, there’s an opportunity to boost your earnings significantly by going directly and capture that 32% for yourself without the advertiser paying a penny more.
If you want to force certain advertisers to go through you (and not AdSense) if they want to advertise on your site, there’s a quick and easy way to block them from buying inventory through AdSense. Within AdSense, click on “Allow & Block Ads” and then enter the URL associated with the advertiser you want to force to buy direct:
Bottom Line & Next Steps
Maintaining focus and prioritizing opportunities is a major component of successful ad sales efforts–and it starts with sketching out your list of potential clients. Of course, coming up with a wish list is one of the easier parts of the process; from here, you need to move on to figuring out who you should contact, and then begin “breaking through” to your direct advertisers.
Robert at My Multiple Incomes has some good follow-up reading on this topic; be sure to sign up for our newsletter (it’s free) for more ideas on how to conquer direct ad sales.