Pros and cons of selling advertising directly to advertisers (part 2)
                     Pros and cons of selling advertising directly to 
advertisers (part 2)
John Z
Writes on ad server solutions, involved 
with ad server platform & ad hosting.
In our previous article, we described several advantages of selling ads 
directly to advertisers including more control, more revenue, more 
customized service, and better relationships. However, it is not all rosy all 
the time. There are challenges, especially for a new publisher, to sell ads 
directly:
 
Time and resources
Selling advertising directly to advertisers can be time-consuming and 
resource-intensive because it requires publishers to actively seek out and 
negotiate deals with advertisers directly. Business relationships and trust 
must be built over time so that is a slow process by nature. This can be 
especially challenging for small businesses with limited resources or limited 
networking connections. If you do not want to deal with people or have 
strong sales skills and are willing to accept a reduced earning then you can 
leave the business side to the ad networks and exchanges as they have their 
own ad sales team to go after advertisers and take care of the campaigns. 
However, if you have strong sales and customer service skills, it can be a 
rewarding journey. It can start slow but it will snowball into a steady stream 
of income if it is done right.
 
Low traffic or quality of content
If your site does not have a lot of hits or pageviews, it is not attractive to 
potential advertisers because they are not willing to pay to advertise on 
some unknown sites or blogs. It is not an easy task to get more traffic and 
bring in new advertisers at the same time without investing and spending a 
lot of money. However, it is still possible but it is not a get-rich-quick scheme 
so you need to have a long-term vision based on high-quality content and a 
desirable audience. You need to focus on quality instead of quantity. When 
you have a high quality site and know how to market and promote it, you’ll 
gain more quality traffic and that in turn gains the attention of advertisers.
 
Limited reach
Another potential issue is that selling advertising directly to advertisers may 
limit the reach. This is because you, as the publisher, are only able to sell ad 
space to a small number of advertisers, rather than having the ability to 
make your site available to more advertisers through an ad network or 
exchange. If you have a popular site that appeals to the general public and 
are suitable to many advertisers and not just a few niche ones, you will want 
to sign up as many advertisers as possible.
 
Lack of scale
Finally, selling advertising directly to advertisers will bring challenges for 
businesses that want to quickly grow their advertising revenues. As a 
publisher's traffic and ad inventory increase, it can be difficult to manage 
the increased number of advertisers and campaigns, even with the help of a 
good ad server. You might need to invest in a sales team and hire more 
people to take care of existing advertisers and bring in new ones. It is often 
a good problem to have because it means you have many paying 
advertisers. However, it is better to manage a small number of high-quality 
advertisers than a large number of low-quality advertisers.
 
Overall, selling advertising directly to advertisers is a good way for 
publishers to monetize their traffic and control the types of ads that are 
shown on their website or platform. However, it is important to carefully 
consider the pros and cons and determine whether it is the right fit for your 
business. By weighing the potential benefits and challenges, publishers can 
make informed decisions about their ad serving strategy and optimize their 
approach for maximum effectiveness. More often, the best approach is a 
healthy mix of both directly-sold ads and third-party ads.
 
About Adspeed
AdSpeed ad server is a reliable & powerful ad serving and ad management 
solution that serves your ads, tracks impressions & clicks and reports ad 
statistics in real-time. Driven by the latest ad serving technologies, the goal 
of Adspeed adserver is to provide a reliable platform that can help in 
executing online advertising strategy more efficiently. 
 
 
 
 
Thank you for your time in reading this article.