What is the cost to advertise online?

benefits and cost

Impressions -- the number of times that an advertisement is downloaded, and subsequently viewed by the user

Pageview -- the viewing of a page by a user

Click Through/Ad click -- clicking on an advertisement by a user

CPC (Cost Per Click) -- the cost per every person that actually clicks on an advertisement

CTR (Click-Through Rate) -- the percentage of users that click on an advertisement

CPM (Cost Per 1,000) -- the rate that reflects the cost per thousand ad views for a particular site

CPA (Cost Per Action) -- the amount paid for a user clicking on an ad and subsequently committing an action, such as filling in a form, submitting a survey, or subscribing to an E-zine

Interstitial -- based on the television commercial model (where viewers have to sit through ads to get to what they want to see), an interstitial advertisement appears in a new browser window while the user is waiting for a page to load

Rich Media -- refers to advertising that utilizes new technology such as Flash, Java applets, streaming video and interactivity.

If all of these terms sound like old hat, then maybe you want to jump right ahead to Webmonkey's Advanced Online Advertising article.

Another thing you should know is the different formats that advertising takes on the Net. Advertisers are always hard at work finding cannier and more creative ways to grab the attention of readers (more on that later), but most advertising is centered around banner ads, which come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes:

Internet Advertising Bureau standard ad sizes
Size (in pixels) Name
468x60Full Banner
120x600Skyscraper Banner
234x60Half Banner
125x125Square Button
120x90Button1
120x60Button2
88x31Micro Button
120x240Vertical Banner

Now that you speak ad sales, we're ready to get started. The first thing you need to do is to get advertisers to trust you. This means more than just telling the truth -- you have to prove it.

It's important to realize that advertisers won't just take your word for it when you tell them, "You can have your banner on my front page and it gets one million pageviews a month -- I promise!" Unless you can prove to advertisers that you're giving them value for money, and that they're getting what they paid for, chances are you won't make too many sales. So what do you need to allay concerns and make sure that advertisers get what they paid for? Ad-rotating software!

An ad rotator cycles banners around your site and provides advertisers with an account that lets them track clickthrough stats, impressions, and the success of their campaign. There are many ad-rotating solutions out there, and they accommodate all budgets and types of sites. To get you started, let's just focus on the turnkey, easy-to-use solutions which can be implemented with a minimum of fuss (for an in-depth look at the art of crafting a perfect ad server, check Caryl's Ad-Serving Tutorial).

PhpAds
Price: Freeware

The rundown: If you're looking for a good, free solution for rotating HTML, GIF, JPEG and PNG advertisements, phpAds is a very impressive script: You can manage multiple clients with multiple banners; view daily, overall and summary statistics; target banner based on keywords; and send statistics via e-mail to advertisers. Most impressive of all, however, is its speed and size (or lack thereof).

In short: Since phpAds eats up an amazingly small amount of server resources, it requires few database queries to display a banner, and it's relatively easy to configure (even for those with no prior scripting experience). It's an excellent advertising management solution for small sites.

WebAdverts
Price: Shareware -- $50

The rundown: WebAdverts is a set of very basic, widely used PERL scripts. Banners can be displayed using SSI tags, IFRAME tags or standard IMG tags, and facilities for multiple client login and most basic features (clickthroughs, average impressions, daily, monthly and overall statistics, etc.) are available. The areas in which WebAdverts really falls short, however, are its size, speed and display capabilities. Because of the enormous amount of server resources used by WebAdverts, it isn't suitable for sites that display over 30,000 impressions a month, and it has been banned by many hosts due to the amount of problems that the scripts cause for them.

In short: It's fine for very small sites, but if you go with WebAdverts, be prepared to upgrade as your site grows, and unless you're very familiar with CGI, you can expect to spend hours installing it.

AdJuggler Classic
Price: $395 (for up to 500,000 impressions a month)

The rundown: AdJuggler Classic is a reasonable, midrange solution for sites with fairly large amounts of traffic. Claiming to be able to serve 7.5 million impressions a month, AdJuggler Classic also allows rich media ads using (Flash, Java, and HTML) to be served, and it gives day, week, and overall figures -- all of which can be accessed 24/7. AJ Classic, with its anti-caching and anti-fraud facilities, also tracks impressions more accurately than the lower-end solutions. The distributive features (over time, impressions or clickthroughs) are also superior.

In short: Ad Juggler Classic is a reasonably priced, highly satisfactory solution that will allow sites to grow from mid to high traffic with relative ease. Best of all, it is written in very quick C and is very easy to install.

AdRunner
Price: $39.50 to $490.00, monthly

The rundown: AdRunner is a top-of-the-line solution for elite websites, but it can also be a very good, if expensive, solution for smaller sites. Priced on a sliding scale based on traffic, which means you don't have to pay for what you don't need, AdRunner's main advantage is that it is effectively a server just for your ads. No messy scripting, no server resources, no bandwidth problems -- just some simple cut-and-paste HTML, and you're on your way. In addition to ease of use, AdRunner also has extremely advanced features that put it at the very top of the chain for ad- rotating solutions. As well as having most of the features of the lower-end solutions, AdRunner has superb targeting, anti-caching and rich media capabilities, plus load times for banners are very quick. AdRunner also offers frequency capping (so a user doesn't see a banner too many times) and dynamic weighting (ensuring that campaigns meet their scheduled delivery dates), it exports advertising reports to easy-access spreadsheets, and best of all, there's an easy-to-use control center.

In short: AdRunner is a high-quality solution, and though it may seem slightly pricey, with the quality of the features included, it's a good value.

DoubleClick DART
Price: varies based on number of impressions

The rundown: The DoubleClick DART system, which many people consider to be the No. 1 advertising-management solution, is the benchmark that the rest of this industry sets itself by. Used by nearly all of the Web's biggest sites, including About.com, Altavista.com and even Webmonkey/Lycos, DART offers all the features of the other systems and much, much more. Like AdRunner, DoubleClick is a third-party solution, and with just under 800 servers to handle clients' advertising, it has an incomparable track record as far as up-time and speed, and it is capable of serving over 50 billion ads a month, worldwide. It also features innovative technology that provides better targeting capabilities and improved clickthrough rates, plus it lets advertisers test their banners before deciding which ones to run.

In short: Although it is pricey, DoubleClick DART is far and away the best product on the market. If you can afford it, it is a must-have. Once you select and install an ad-serving system, you're ready to start filling that ad space. There's only one thing missing: a price tag.