Things A Publisher Needs To Know In Order To Sell Their Ad Space

Publishing companies are always on the lookout for originating good quality content that kicks off alluring high traffic to their websites. If the publishing company is set to mint money, it can sell its ad spaces to advertising companies. If all the right elements are in place, publishers who wish to monetize their websites through advertising can do so successfully and profitably.

The essential criteria to sell ad spaces for web publishers

Advertisers strive to communicate their message and ensure that the right audience receives it. For marketers to accomplish this, they need a robust and highly engaging website that can reach the appropriate audience leading to further reductions in advertising expenses.

As a result, we can now begin identifying the requirements for selling advertising spaces

• High Traffic– It is easy for publishers with a large reputation to attract advertisers to their sites because of the massive traffic they receive. Advertisers often flock to websites with good traffic figures. While it is a general sentiment shared among all advertisers, it isn’t a mandatory factor that determines a campaign’s success. Certain ad networks have their own criteria which the advertisers need to fulfill. Maintaining brand safety is crucial for publishers to avoid inappropriate ad placements that may adversely affect their revenue streams. For publishers, the quality and quantity of people visiting their webpage are crucial. Therefore, they have to focus more on increasing page views, which is the primary metric for measuring the number of visitors.
• Quality of the Content- A publisher must come up with original, relevant, and engaging content that hooks their readers and encourages them to return to their sites. It is imperative that publishers avoid containing illicit content on their sites, such as pornography, hate speech, weapons and ammunition, illegal drugs, alcohol, tobacco, gambling, and malware.
• Competent design– Publishers must ensure that their websites are aesthetically designed, and provide a great user experience. They should create their website with elegant designs that appeal to the eyes and should be made so the users can easily navigate between the pages. Websites should be designed to provide a holistic user experience while reducing latency and loading time to maintain user experience. Publishers must ensure that their website supports mobile platforms.
• The value of loyal audience – The most important thing for publishers is generating website traffic and building a loyal following. A website’s utmost paradigm is its engaging and loyal audience. Companies are willing to pay high prices for exposure to an active, engaged, and loyal audience that will visit their websites repeatedly.
• Transparency – Publishers need to provide credentials and contact information on the website’s home page to meet the standards of transparency. Digital advertising nowadays is bugged with problems encountered by both publishers and advertisers in dealing with unauthorized resellers, domain spoofing frauds (mimicking a reputed business with fake websites), and security breaches. In such a situation, publishers should highlight their transparency standards by displaying their metrics, content guidelines, and authors, so advertising companies clearly understand who they are dealing with.
• The use of Ad servers– Every publisher needs a robust ad server to collect data, impressions, and clicks, which will generate valuable insights about advertisements on their websites. With this information, the publisher can make wise and informed decisions about the kind of advertisements most relevant to the visitors. This can help improve advertisers’ advertising techniques by delivering quality ads to their custom audiences.

The methods to sell advertising space

Those publishers who attract a lot of traffic, have large audiences, and produce original, engaging content should monetize their ad spaces using well-crafted strategies. The most prominent strategies followed by publishers are as follows:

• Utilization of Programmatic advertising – Ad spaces are traded on real-time auctions through automated platforms in programmatic advertising, automating the buying and selling process between publishers and advertisers. Advertisers compete for ad spaces enabling publishers to maximize their revenue. Through effective programmatic advertising, publishers can know the intrinsic value of their ad inventory through dynamic real-time insights. This helps them to craft customizable ad inventory for highly competitive bidding environments. A Real-Time Bidding process uses an auction process to buy and sell ad impressions for a targeted audience. Publishers and advertisers are connected via ad exchanges via Demand Side Platforms (DSPs) and Supply Side Platforms (SSPs). Through a robust Supply-Side Platform, website owners can manage and sell ad inventories through Real-Time Bidding. Through SSP, publishers can monetize their ad spaces and receive bids from various advertisers through DMP.
• The importance of Ad Networks–Ad networks link advertisers and publishers, and more importantly, this platform facilitates more efficient data and creative management.  Ad networks are a good choice for publishers who want more control over the whole process and are interested in selling custom cohorts to brand-safe advertisers.
• Sell Ad Spaces Directly – Publishers can directly sell their ads to brands and advertisers. In this scenario, there is no need for an ad network or SSP. To effectively accomplish this feat, publishers should build a solid and everlasting relationship with advertisers by manually sourcing them and negotiating the terms and cost parameters. Once publishers have established a long-term and durable relationship with specific advertisers, they can reserve ad space on their websites specifically for them. While this is time-consuming, publishers can set pricing terms once a relationship has been established.
• The Affiliate Advertising Method – The best method for selling ads is through Affiliate Advertising, where publishers put their affiliate links on their websites, blogs, and social networks. Affiliate advertising offered by publishers allows influencers, big companies, small and medium websites to earn commissions based on sales. In 2022, it is estimated that the total business spending in the US will exceed USD 8.2 billion through affiliate marketing.

As we briefly discussed how publishers could monetize their ad spaces to maximize their returns, they must consider the kind of ads that work best for their website’s specialty. In deciding whether to use direct, programmatic, affiliate marketing, or ad networks, publishers should weigh the pros and cons of each strategy.