When should I be selling ads on a CPD basis?
The simple answer is: when the advertiser is right and your site is very small or very large.
CPD deals are great for branding – for you when your site is small, for advertisers when your site is large.
When your site is small it makes sense to relate your site to an advertiser who makes your site seem more important.
So if a reasonable advertiser offers to buy all the ads on a page/across your whole site for a period then it’s probably a good idea.
Just work out how much you would have made in advertising for that period and set the price slightly higher (to get the CPD, divide it by the number of days you are selling).
It’s likely that you aren’t making much from your advertising anyway, so it’s a convenient way to give this a boost.
When your site is large, a CPD deal can be a great idea as you can sell off one prominent page (such as the homepage or the front page of a section of your site) and earn more money than you would otherwise.
By selling like this you are adding value to the deal with your brand, as well as giving the impression to other advertisers that your site is valuable real estate.
How do I run a CPD campaign?
The one key thing you need to make sure of with CPD deals is that you are prepared. You are selling off a certain number of days on your site, so make sure you have the ads in advance and you test to make sure they work.
Be sure to make clear to the advertiser that you need the ads at least a couple of days in advance to get this done, and to have a plan in place if they are unable to do this.
For example, if they provide the ads late, do they get more time added on?
It’s up to you how flexible you are – if you are a small site you should probably be very flexible, but larger sites need to set limits or things can get out of hand.
For larger sites, it’s quite likely that these types of deals will get more complicated too as they will cost more money, so just be sure to have that testing time. The smoother it runs, the more likely they will be to book again!
Note: If you are selling off a page or set of pages for a period, you will need to factor this into your impression predictions for your other types of campaigns. This goes double for HPTOs as they can seriously affect everything.
CPD Formula
The CPD equation is:
Click to enlargeCPD = Ad Spend ÷ Days
Optimising CPD campaigns
You cannot optimise CPD campaigns, and that is kind of the beauty of them. They just run for a period and then stop, making them high-value, low effort!
The one thing to optimise is that the ads don’t slow your site down too much, and reduce your traffic by annoying users. Keep an eye on your user count over the period of the campaign and check it doesn’t reduce too much (if at all).
What CPD price should I accept?
How ever much you would normally make from that page/section with your advertising, charge more. If you are a small site, charge slightly more (maybe 10%), if you are a large site, the sky is the limit! If your site is popular and a good brand, a CPD deal can earn 10x more than your regular advertising for that period.
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