5 Steps to Determine Digital Advertising Pricing

By Kenny Katzgrau
January 23, 2025

For publishers of all sizes—but especially small publishers—it can be challenging to figure out the right pricing for digital advertising. Broadstreet Ads specializes in working with publishers looking to have a strong digital presence, ranging from start-ups to those who have been focused on print for years.

One of the biggest questions we always get is, “How do I price my digital advertising?” From building packages to maximising an advertiser’s investment, here are five steps we recommend taking to identify the right pricing model for your publication, plus how Broadstreet can help.

1. Establish your revenue goal

Often, publishers will look to their competitors or look online for pricing recommendations. Instead, they should be looking to one number to guide their pricing—how much revenue is needed to make the venture profitable.

Before setting any pricing, publishers should figure out their end-of-year revenue goal. Then, work backwards to establish packages and pricing that get you to where you need to be at the end of that year.

2. Break your goal into packages

To meet advertisers where they are and reach your revenue goal, create different packages at different price points. For example, if a publisher needs to reach $10,000 in revenue per month to hit their end-of-year goal, we recommend creating three tiers of packages—Gold, Silver and Bronze.

In this tiered packaging, publishers could charge $1,000/month for the Gold package, $500/month for Silver and $250/month for Bronze. Then, the publisher would know how many of each package they need to sell to hit the $10,000/month revenue goal.

This also helps break down the revenue goal into smaller, bite-sized goals that feel more attainable. In this packaging system, for example, a publisher would only need to focus on selling 5 Gold packages, 5 Silver packages and 10 Bronze packages to meet the goal.

The tiered system also opens up doors to many different kinds of advertisers, ranging from corporations with plenty to spend to small businesses trying to make the most out of a smaller investment.

3. Fill your packages with value

Once you’ve set your tiered packages, it’s time to figure out what those packages will entail. That can be challenging for small publishers with little traffic to leverage, so in that instance it’s important to pack in the value.

If you’re charging $1,000 for a Gold package, for example, that could entail a prominent position on your website, a position in the newsletter and a number of posts per month—all of which should add up to $1,000 in value, and so on down the tiers.

As an ad manager built to cater to publishers, Broadstreet can help get impressions through proven creative templates, newsletter and ad delivery, as well as up-to-date analytics and reporting. This guidance helps publishers earn a significant share of the marketing budgets that would otherwise go to Google and Facebook.

4. Ensure your website can accommodate

Too often, once publishers get on a roll selling digital ads, they then realize their website may not be able to accommodate everything they’re selling. With the packages above, for example, you’ll want to be sure your site is equipped with the ability to do banner ads or hold 10 ads in a sidebar.

Publishers should figure out their website inventory ahead of time and make any adjustments as necessary that will help you reach your revenue goals.

5. Maximize the advertiser’s ROI

True to the golden rule of digital advertising, you want to help advertisers achieve a good return on their investment, and this can look different for different advertisers. For example, if a car dealership spends $1,000/month, one car sold could be a return. For smaller advertisers, like a local coffee shop, it may be difficult for them to get a good return on the $500 package selling individual coffees, but it’s much more feasible at the $250 package.

Regardless of the size of investment, make sure your packages will help the advertiser earn back the money they’ve spent. In doing so, you’ll also be one step closer to reaching your own revenue goals.

With Broadstreet Ads, long gone are the days of hearing “Nobody saw my ad.” Learn more about how our services can help you reach your revenue goals on our website.