By industry
Ad server for niche publishers
You have a small, specific, valuable audience. Display networks pay you as though it were generic traffic, because to them it is.
What Pyrobid does here
Your Advertise Here page becomes a place to buy. A reader's company registers, funds an account, picks a slot and uploads a banner, and you approve it. You set the price once, keep all of what they pay, and AdSense, if you run it, stays underneath for the space you have not sold.
Why this is harder than it should be
The same product, a different obstacle. This is what stands between your advertisers and your inventory.
Networks price your audience as a commodity
A generic network cannot tell the difference between a thousand random visitors and a thousand people who care intensely about one subject. An advertiser in your niche can, and will pay accordingly.
Sponsorship enquiries arrive and then evaporate
Someone emails asking about rates. You reply two days later with a number. Half of them never write back. The deal was real, the delay killed it.
One-off deals never become recurring revenue
Each sponsorship is negotiated from scratch, so nothing compounds. A portal with standing placements and published floor prices turns a one-off into something that renews itself.
The bar the ad networks set
AdSense has no traffic minimum, but every site goes through a review that Google says usually takes a few days and can take two to four weeks. It allows other ads on the same page, as long as there are not more ads than content.
The premium networks set entry bars most niche blogs have not reached: Raptive asks for 25,000 pageviews a month, Mediavine for $5,000 a year of ad revenue, and Ezoic for 250,000 monthly users on new sites.
None of them asks what your readers are worth to a business in your niche. That is the one number a direct advertiser cares about, and selling the slot yourself is how you get paid it.
Who buys placements on sites like yours
Tools and SaaS in your niche, course and book authors, conference organisers, specialist retailers, and other creators in adjacent spaces.
What sells on sites like yours
Package your space around how these advertisers already buy.
One sponsor slot, by the month
The simplest thing to sell on a blog is one visible slot at a flat monthly price. One advertiser at a time, and easy to renew.
Your most-read posts
A few evergreen posts bring most of the traffic. A slot inside them, priced on its own, is worth more than a banner across the whole site.
The slot that sells itself
When nothing is booked, an Advertise Here card in the slot tells readers who run businesses that the space is free, and links them to where they can buy it.
Both of those are the real product. The demo is open if you would rather click through it than look at a picture of it.
How to set it up
- Start with one or two slots and a floor above what AdSense pays for them.
- Keep AdSense as the fallback on each slot, with the Advertise Here card taking one unsold view in ten.
- Approve every banner before it runs.
- Take payment however suits you and your advertiser, and credit it as a voucher.
I only get a few thousand visitors a month. Is it worth it?
At small scale the network cheque is negligible, which is exactly why direct matters more, not less. One advertiser paying a few hundred a month for a well-placed slot on a highly targeted audience can beat a year of network revenue. The economics of direct sales improve as your audience gets narrower, not wider.
Common questions
Will selling ads myself get me in trouble with AdSense?
Google allows non-Google ads on the same page, as long as there are not more ads than content. Keep your direct ads clearly marked as ads and away from AdSense units and anything readers are meant to click.
What should I charge?
Start from what the slot earns now, then sell above it. The rate planner works out a starting price from your own numbers.
Related reading
Turn Advertise Here into a checkout
Your own branded portal where readers' businesses book your slots, with AdSense still running underneath.
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