Sponsor spots per post: earn more as you grow

The data

What sites ask, by traffic

The published native-pageview sample is too small for a traffic comparison.

Why one site-wide spot stops working

• It is priced once. A $500 banner on a 500,000-view site is $1 per 1,000 views, below the $2.66 AdSense estimate used here. Actual ad income varies.
• It is one sponsor. A large site has readers in many topics; one brand only fits some of them.
• It ignores your best pages. A post that brings 20,000 visitors a month on its own is a site your size in miniature.

Sell spots where the traffic is

1. 1
   List your top pagesTake your 10 to 20 most-read posts from your analytics, with their monthly pageviews.
2. 2
   Price each like a small siteA post with 15,000 views a month can be priced like a 15,000-view site.
3. 3
   Group the rest by sectionReviews, tutorials, a category: one spot per section, one sponsor that fits its readers.
4. 4
   Keep one site-wide spotFor a brand that wants everyone, at a price that reflects total traffic.
5. 5
   Keep the ads where permittedUse ads on unsponsored pages; check network restrictions before keeping them beside a sponsor.

A worked example

A site with 500,000 monthly pageviews in a typical topic:

Hypothetical example: a $150 monthly spot at 30,000 pageviews asks $5 per 1,000 pageviews. Ten booked months bring $1,500 before fees. These inputs illustrate the arithmetic; they are not a market recommendation.

That total assumes every spot finds a sponsor. Sixteen spots means sixteen sponsors, which is the real work.

The limit is selling, not space

Ads fill themselves; sponsors have to be found. Spots per post multiply what you can sell, and also how much selling there is to do:

• Start with the 3 to 5 pages a brand would obviously want, not all twenty.
• Publish the price on the page so sponsors can book without an email thread.
• Sell by the month and let sponsors renew; keeping a sponsor is cheaper than finding one.
• Use ads on unsponsored pages where your network permits it. Ad income still depends on traffic and demand.

Common mistakes

• One price for the whole site. It caps sponsor income however much traffic grows.
• Pricing a post spot like a site-wide spot. A post with 15,000 views is a smaller audience; price it like one.
• Opening twenty spots at once. Unsold spots look like nobody wants them.
• Dropping ads before spots sell. Run both until the sponsor income is steady.

To estimate both sides for your traffic, try the ad revenue calculator. For pricing a single spot, see banner ad pricing. A booking tool such as Sponsor.st can place a spot on one page or on every page.