Blog
Selling your own ad space
Practical guides for independent publishers who sell sponsorships directly — what to charge, how to find sponsors, and how to prove the ad worked. No programmatic, no jargon.
How ad serving works
What an ad server actually does
The difference between pasting a banner into your theme and running an ad server, explained without jargon.
Self-hosted vs hosted ad server — the real trade
Self-hosting is free until you count your time. A straight comparison of what each actually costs.
Migrating off Revive Adserver
What transfers, what doesn't, and how to move without a day of dark ad slots.
First-party ad serving, and why it matters more than you think
Serving ads from your own subdomain does more than dodge ad blockers — it stops security filters judging your site by the company it keeps.
Why ad blockers eat your sponsor's impressions
How blocking actually works, how much of your audience it affects, and what you can legitimately do about it.
Why isn't my ad showing?
The eight reasons an ad slot stays empty, in the order worth checking.
Frequency capping without cookies
How to stop showing the same ad forty times to a regular reader, now that the old method is gone.
Setting up your first ad slot
From nothing to a live, measured ad placement in about ten minutes — and the order that avoids the usual dead ends.
Legal and compliance
Labelling sponsored placements properly
What the FTC actually expects, what "clear and conspicuous" means in practice, and where to put the label.
Can you run ads without a consent banner?
Cookie banners exist because of tracking, not advertising. What you can serve without one, and where the line sits.
What to put in a sponsorship agreement
You don't need a contract lawyer for a $300 monthly banner. You do need seven things in writing.
Measurement
Why fill rate matters more than traffic
An ad slot that is empty half the time is worth half what you think. How to measure fill rate and what to do about it.
How to prove a sponsorship worked
The one sentence that renews a sponsor, and the tracking you need to be able to write it.
Attribution after third-party cookies
What actually broke, what replaced it, and why small publishers are better off than large ones.
Viewability, and why "impressions" overstates what a sponsor got
An impression means the ad loaded. Viewability means someone could actually see it. The gap is usually 30–50%.
Bot traffic and invalid impressions
A meaningful share of your "traffic" is not human. What to filter, what to disclose, and why over-reporting is the expensive mistake.
How to read a sponsor report
What each number means, which ones matter, and the three combinations that tell you what to change.
Placement and performance
Where ads actually get seen
Which positions earn their space, which are dead, and how to decide without guessing.
Ads and Core Web Vitals — keeping both
How ad slots damage LCP, CLS and INP, and the four changes that fix most of it.
Ad sizes that actually sell
The four sizes worth offering, the ones to skip, and why your mobile size matters most.
Should you lazy load your ads?
It improves viewability and page speed while reducing your impression count. When that trade is worth it.
House ads — making unsold inventory work
The empty slot is the most wasted space on your site. Four things to put in it that earn more than nothing.
Should your ad slots refresh?
Reloading a slot multiplies impressions without adding readers. When it is legitimate, when it is fraud, and where the line sits.
Selling ads on a forum or community site
Communities have the best ad inventory on the internet and the most fragile audience relationship. How to sell without breaking it.
Your ad slot is getting no clicks. Here is the order to check things.
Six causes, ordered by how often they turn out to be the real one, and how to rule each in or out.
Platforms
Selling ad space on a Shopify store
An underused revenue line for stores with traffic — who to sell to, where to put it, and how not to hurt conversion.
Running ads on WordPress without a plugin graveyard
The four ways to place ads on a WordPress site, and which survives a theme update.
Google Ad Manager for small publishers
GAM is free, powerful, and built for a problem most small sites do not have. When the complexity is worth it and when it is not.
Running ads on a static or Jamstack site
Astro, Hugo, Eleventy, Next.js static export. Why client-side serving is the right answer, and the four things that go wrong.
Pricing and selling
How much should you charge for ad space on a small site?
A method for pricing a sponsorship when you have 12,000 monthly visitors and no idea what the number should be.
Direct ad sales vs AdSense — the honest maths for a small site
What each actually pays at 50,000 monthly pageviews, how much work each takes, and when switching is worth it.
What a media kit actually needs (and what to leave out)
The six things a sponsor looks for, the four things that waste a page, and why a web page beats a PDF.
How to find your first sponsor
Where the first advertiser for a small site actually comes from, and the email that gets a reply.
CPM, CPC or flat rate — which should you quote?
Why small publishers should almost always quote a flat monthly fee, and the two cases where they shouldn't.
Pricing a newsletter sponsorship
Why newsletters command far higher rates than banners, and how to price one when you have 2,000 subscribers.
Sponsored content vs display ads
Which to sell, what each is worth, and the line you should not cross with either.
Keeping sponsors — the renewal is won in month one
Why sponsors leave, and the four habits that make renewal the default rather than a negotiation.
Building a rate card that closes
Three tiers, published prices, and the packaging decisions that make a sponsor pick the middle one.
When a sponsor asks for a discount
What the request usually means, four answers that hold your price, and the one time you should just say yes.
The advertise page that actually converts
Where to link it, what to put above the fold, and why the booking step should not be an email.
Ad network or sell direct?
Networks pay less and cost nothing. Direct pays more and costs hours. The threshold where switching makes sense.
Seasonal advertising, and what to do about Q4
Ad budgets are not spread evenly across the year. How to price for the peak and survive the trough.
Turning your best affiliate partner into a sponsor
You already know which brand converts for your audience. That is the strongest sales pitch a publisher ever gets to make.
Your first ninety days selling ads
A week-by-week plan from no ad slots to a renewing sponsor, with the numbers you need at each step.
Start selling your own ad space
Free for 5,000 ad requests a month. No card, no expiry.
Create your account