This is a basic check list for any new publisher, blogger to sell ads directly to advertisers.

Understand your audience

Before advertisers sign the contract, they want to know who view their ads. In order to provide potential advertisers this information, you need to know who visits your site, reads your blog and uses your products. Demographic data with age, gender, income, and interests are useful to match ads and your site. This information can be obtained from user registration data, surveys, polls and your own interactions with visitors.

Think about relevant products and potential advertisers

Your blog and website might a strong focus into a particular industry. In such cases, potential advertisers are easy to identify. For example, a travel blog should target airlines, hotels, destinations, attractions. Some websites need more scouting than others. General social networks, portals target a much broader audience.

Determine your ad rates

This is one of the most frequently asked questions from our clients. We wish there was a machine that outputs a specific number for how much you should charge for advertising. Too bad such machine does not exist as there are too many variables for it to consider. However, you have several questions to answer before setting a price:

• How much your competitors charge for a similar campaign?
• How many visitors, pageviews, impressions you have daily?
• How much does it cost you to design, develop, operate and maintain the website, or blog?
• How long is the advertising contract? Are they likely to continue their ads after the first campaign?

Prepare a media kit

Once you understand your audience, you can show off the value of your advertising program. The media kit should describe your website and its audience. Additionally, it should list all available ad placements and ad specifications (ad dimension, file size, animation length).

General Tips

• Don't afraid to approach potential advertisers if you believe you have a great offer
• Do check out your competitors to see their advertisers