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What would you charge for this ad space?

by samsunday
10 replies
I have a website promoting a famous European tourist destination. The town attracts wealthy visitors from all over the world (~ 2 million/year, with half the visitors staying in first class or luxury accommodations).

Getting to the town is slightly tricky. The final stretch is_only_accessible by train or a local taxi service. Although my whole destination website gets 30-50,000 visitors/month. My webpage on "how to get there" is my top landing page, attracting 3500 visitors/month, each staying on that page five minutes, on average. Google PR is top 3 for all "how to get there" keywords (and plenty of other keywords).

I am looking to sell adspace to the private taxi company. I'd like some advice on what to charge them. They contacted me years ago and I had been running their phone number for free. The services they offer are lifts by taxi to town (US$ 30-40, one way), or lifts from the nearest airports (~US$ 1000, one way).

Taking their taxi is the easiest way to get to the resort, especially from the airports, and two-thirds of my website visitors would be coming direct from airports. I plan to promote both the taxi service and the airport shuttle service seamlessly within my content, in several paragraphs with links and phone numbers, one above, one below the fold.

I am considering charging a flat rate quarterly or yearly, since I am a bit of noob and it would be easiest to manage.

What would you charge?
#charge #space
  • Profile picture of the author Sid Hale
    It sounds like the "exclusivity" of the vacation spot works as much against you, as for you.

    From what you are telling us, there are only 2 potential advertisers (income sources), so you are really more in need of them, than they of you.

    They can resort to totally "free" advertising simply by ranking their own web sites for the same terms that you are targeting, as well as buying from more popular advertising venues than your site. Google AdWords comes to mind, as just one choice.
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  • Profile picture of the author samsunday
    Thanks for your sobering reply, Sid.
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  • Profile picture of the author David Beroff
    I'd offer a coupon code that gives your visitors a certain amount off the trip (which works out to a 10% discount), and then have the taxi company pay you based on the number of coupons redeemed.
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    • Profile picture of the author samsunday
      Thank to everyone for their awesome and very helpful contributions to the discussion. Every post has been enlightening for me.

      Originally Posted by David Beroff View Post

      I'd offer a coupon code that gives your visitors a certain amount off the trip (which works out to a 10% discount), and then have the taxi company pay you based on the number of coupons redeemed.
      Great idea! Is their any web-based coupon service you recommend? I'd love to explore the mechanics of this. Presumably I would be best asking for a 5-10% cut per coupon, in addition to the customer getting their 10% off?
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      • Profile picture of the author David Beroff
        Originally Posted by samsunday View Post

        Is their any web-based coupon service you recommend? I'd love to explore the mechanics of this.
        Don't overthink it. I've seen plenty of offline businesses use a simple graphic that gets printed and then presented.
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        • Profile picture of the author samsunday
          Originally Posted by David Beroff View Post

          I've seen plenty of offline businesses use a simple graphic that gets printed and then presented.
          Thanks for your thoughts David. But with that simplicity there seems plenty of room for error by staff collecting the redeemed coupons and losing/forgetting/not reporting the real total back to me.

          If I was to charge per click-through to their website, what would people recommend charging? I know it depends a lot on how many of those click-throughs convert for the business, but would an estimate of 3-5% be a reasonable one?
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          • Profile picture of the author David Beroff
            Originally Posted by samsunday View Post

            But with that simplicity there seems plenty of room for error by staff collecting the redeemed coupons and losing/forgetting/not reporting the real total back to me.
            They could also simply lie.

            If you have a good relationship with them, you will treat each other right, and both sides will continue the arrangement. If not, no high-tech gizmo will change that.

            If you want to play with estimates and click-throughs, each side could come up with whatever numbers suit them. At the end of the day, the only thing they're really going to care about is how much additional business you brought them, and that's precisely what the coupons will measure. (It sounds like they already have a certain amount of "captive" business that they'd get with or without you.) Sure, there will be tracking errors, but I'll wager that these will be far lower with physical coupons than trying to figure out if a click resulted in a sale.
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  • Profile picture of the author FreedomBlogger
    Thats awesome!

    You should do some math here - to come up with a price. First, think about an average of how many people would actually get the services in a Month - and that will give you an average of how much the providers (taxi and shuttle) will make *in a month.

    Once you have that number, you can charge for a percentage off that. And give them a few options to make them happy to advertise with you. For example, you can offer a discounted price if the buy for 3 or 6 months in advance, and an even better discount if they buy 1 or 2 years in advance!

    You get what I mean?

    For an instance, lets say the taxi service would make an average of $3,000 a month advertising on your site - you should charge 15% - 20% or more. And that would be $450 to $600 a month for you.

    Of course, the percentage number is up to you!

    All of these numbers will be "an average" and not accurate. And it all starts with the traffic number to your site. Just think about an average number of visitors that would buy these services, then multiply that by an average cost per costumer, and go from there!

    I hope this helps!
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    • Profile picture of the author alimov
      rate quarterly, and after months you will see results of that ad, and if they responding well and their sales went up increase price for your advertisement
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  • Profile picture of the author Silentkiller1
    Do it monthly so that you have flexibility between advertisers in case others are interested. Also the coupon idea is great as suggested above.
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