Typical CPM rates?

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Permalink Reply by Marcus on November 11, 2009 at 12:44pm

Those rates are pretty high, but not unheard of if you've got a focused audience that your advertisers can't reach effectively elsewhere.

I buy web ads. The way I do it is fairly simple. I know what a lead is worth to me and in a matter of weeks I can see the click-through rate on the site I'm buying the ad. From there, I work backwards to arrive at a CPM price.

There are, however, exceptions. There are places where I'm paying a higher CPM even though the click through rate isn't good. I do that to bolster my brand.

In general, the more general your audience and the lower the price of what the advertiser is selling, the lower you need to charge.

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Permalink Reply by Katharine on November 11, 2009 at 12:47pm

Thanks Marcus. I've since revised my expectations dramatically lower, to about $1 cpm for banner ads on a small website. We would have a fairly targeted audience of Moms, which is perennially desirable, so hopefully I could do better than that over time.

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Permalink Reply by Marcus on November 11, 2009 at 12:58pm

With a passionate group buying a large quantity of lower-priced items (compared to say computer servers or dump trucks), I'd try to build something around key sponsorships, so that given brands can "own" all the real estate on a given page or section.

As more and more brands participate in social media, there might be a place for the right brand to participate in/sponsor a section in the forums. It's a newer type of engagement that can keep you out of the CPM conversation..... but you'd need the right sponsor for it.

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Permalink Reply by Keith Gregory on November 14, 2009 at 11:17pm

Katherine - not sure those numbers effectively will hold up. In the b2b world, you would be good with that kind of range, and perhaps more.

However, in the consumer realm, your effectively competing with other sites that provide much broader reach.

I know that we have general biz type campaigns that come to us through 3rd parties, and they are often in the $6-15 cpm range.

There are other networks which we don't participate in, but which do have CPMs of $2.

I think one question is who is how are you going to sell the media - through your own sales efforts, or through a network?

And how are you defining your audience? The unfortunate truth is Google is able to deliver to so many marketers any audience they want on a CPC basis.

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