So you’ve already read our piece on when to start advertising on your startup and now are trying to figure out how to actually sell ads. Well, I feel for you. We’re going through a similar struggle at our startup and I wanted to share the steps we’ve taken in beginning to sell ads on our site.

Publishing Networks

The easiest way to get ads on your site is to opt for publishing networks. They take all of the hard work out of cold calls, pitches, and pretty much any work on your part. You simply apply to be a member (some let you join immediately), specify the ad types you have available, and the ads show up within the first 24 hours. Here are the top publishing networks:

Google Adsense
Everyone is probably well aware of Google, but they probably aren’t familiar with Adsense and Adwords. Adwords is the platform that allows advertisers to buy keywords that appear on Google’s search results and Adsense is the publishing network where webmasters can put ads on their sites.

The reason I like Adsense is simply because it’s so simple to use. You can choose your ad size, specify whether you want to receive text/graphic ads, and then setup advertising channels. In an earlier post I covered how to setup Adsense channels, and it’s one of the great tools for watching the performance on your different ad types. Adsense channels, combined with Google Analytics makes a powerful combination and a 1-stop-shop for managing your website. To me, having to be logged in consecutively to Adbrite and Adsense can be a pain sometimes and having all your accounts tied into Google has been a big convenience for me.

Another great thing about Adsense is the network is pay per click (PPC), in that you’ll get paid everytime a user clicks on one of your ads, and if you’ve ever used a cost per action (CPA) publishing network before, you feel my frustrations in giving away a ton of clicks with no money coming in. The only issues I have with Adsense is it’s difficult for advertisers to buy ads in bulk with Adwords, which makes it harder to get quality publishers advertising on your site, and also when using Adsense you’re pretty much at the mercy of whatever contextual advertiser is advertising to what shows up on your site and at times the ads can be 1) embarrassing or 2) not relevant at all.

Tribal Fusion
Tribal Fusion, unlike Adsense, is a CPM network that pays you based on the number of impressions the ads receive. For startups, that means you don’t have to rely on your users clicking on the ads to make any money. Networks like Tribal Fusion are intended for filling inventory and typically are served on a low-CPM basis. So essentially, your goal is to sell your highest-valued inventory (homepage locations, customized pages, etc.) and any other random banners you may have on your page, that currently, have no advertising on them, you can use Tribal Fusion to fill those ads. Getting Tribal Fusion setup is also very easy, although not as intuitive as Adsense. Select the sizes of ads available on your site, select the code, and Tribal Fusion will start feeding the ads into your site. What’s great about Tribal Fusion and pretty much every major publisher network is they allow you to run simultaneous ads. So if you’re selling your own ads, you can run those, as well as Tribal Fusion, once your “sold ads,” have been redeemed.

One of the big mistakes startups can make is using Tribal Fusion to fill up their premium advertising spots. For Tribal Fusion, you may earn $1-2 CPM, whereas if you sell the space yourself or use an advertising network, you could get a $5 CPM, at a minimum.

To be a part of Tribal Fusion, you have to apply and pass their minimum requirements for traffic and page views. As a rule, unless you have at least 30,000 visitors per month, you won’t be able to get into Tribal Fusion or any similar networks.

BuySellAds
BuySellAds is a hybrid model of publishing network and ad network, and I really like their approach to online advertising. For those of you looking to sell advertising on your site, but you don’t want to go to the effort to try to sell the ads yourself and you don’t want to hand off exclusive-rights to an advertising network, BuySellAds is a great alternative.

What you do is list the ad space available on your site, and BuySellAds will attempt to sell the space for you. You can set the price of ads yourself and entertain bids from advertisers. The spaces sold are not on a CPM or CPC basis, but rather a bulk-buy, ie for 1 month. For startups with sites that demand high-CPM and don’t have the highest of traffic, selling ads on a bulk-basis is a great way to generate revenue and keep your inventory filled. What you would do is select 4 advertising spots, sell them for $500 per month, and once you’ve sold all 4 you’re done. You don’t have to worry about CPM, CPC, CPA or any of that and you can focus on building your startup.

Personally I like to use a combination of all 3 of these publishing networks, but be sure to try them all out and see how they fit for you. Typically, when you’re first starting out, these publishing networks are a great starting point.

For those of you more experienced with Adsense, but are looking for a higher value CPM, you should look into using Advertising Networks and selling ads yourself, from the lists below.

Advertising Networks
You’ll see different teams for advertising networks, but essentially what I’m discussing are companies that will sell your advertising space for you. They would be pitching your site to advertising firms, and selling big contracts, specifically for your site or their verticals (ie music, travel, fashion, etc.) and you benefit from their direct relationships and get higher CPMs.

Advertising networks, unlike Adsense, have to accept you into their networks. And depending on their size, you may be one of 20 clients or one of 500 clients, it all depends on the company. Lately we’ve seen really big ad vertical networks being setup around fashion, with Glam, and the goal is to go to major brands like Cover Girl, Dove, etc. and sell them multi-million dollar contracts, and with those ad sells, they put them across a number of different startups within their network.

Depending on the structure of the relationship you strike with the network, they can take over all the sales of advertising on your site or they can only sell a limited portion of inventory for your site. Most of the time, they’ll want to be the only network you’re dealing with and ask for an exclusive, so be sure to align yourself with the right network, and do plenty of shopping around before making a decision. One of the main things you should look for is an advertising network that will do customized campaigns for you, that is, they will build the advertising sell around your site and add in additional interactive elements that you can charge more money for.

Check out Adify.com and their network of different publishers for an idea on which network would be a good fit for you, here are a couple of the networks they offer and the particular verticals covered:

Break Media Network
Men
Entertainment
Lifestyle
Sports

20-20 Travel Network
Travel
Flights
Cruises
Hotels
Holidays

Six Apart Media
Entertainment
Food
Technology

Petside Media Network
Pets
Home & Garden
Lifestyle
Parenting

Culture Pundits
Arts
Culture

Into Productions
Leisure Pursuits
Aviation Equestrian
Classical Music

Destination Travel Network
Travel
Destination
Tourism

For the rest of the list, visit Adify…

Selling Your Own Ads
Based on your experience level, selling ads on your own can be one of the hardest options for a young startup to begin. First, you have to hire a sales team, put together a compelling sales presentation, and spend a ton of money on plane tickets, conference tickets, all at the chance opportunity to sell ads.

The break is, if you do sell ads, you don’t have to pay any commission, you get a higher value for the ads, and you have an opportunity to form a relationship with advertisers. Having an internal sales team definitely has its advantages, and if you’re in it for the long-term, it’s a good idea to get started with selling ads on a limited basis with your own sales team. Once you have established yourself with advertising networks and different publishing networks, you’ll have a big opportunity to sell expanded, customized solutions with your in-house sales team.

When putting together your sales team, you should try to sell your ads on a sell-through basis. So, like the BuySellAds platform, you can say you have 10 advertising slots available on your site. For each advertiser you talk to, you tell them it’s $XX for a spot, and you’re selling 10 spots. The first spots are less expensive, and once you begin filling them up, you can charge more, since you have leverage and know the true value of the spots.

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