How to sell ad space on your website, directly
A site with 5,000 visitors a month earns a few euros from programmatic ads. The same site, selling one slot directly to advertisers who want exactly its readers, can earn a hundred. Here is how — without an ad network, and without spending your evenings on it.
When selling direct beats AdSense
Programmatic advertising pays per impression, at auction, and a small site’s value gets dragged down: few impressions, few bidders, and an audience the algorithm cannot qualify. A small site’s RPM rarely goes past a few euros per thousand pageviews.
Direct sales flip the logic: you are not selling impressions, you are selling your readers to someone looking for them. A company selling software to restaurants cannot find 3,000 restaurant managers a month anywhere else. That is where you earn.
It makes sense if your audience can be described in one sentence (“restaurant owners preparing a hygiene inspection”), if some product or service targets exactly them, and if your site does not sell something of its own that an ad could pull readers away from.
Setting the price
The buyer will do the sum: price ÷ views × 1,000. Do it before they do. Count the views each advertiser will actually get — human pageviews, times the share where the slot is on screen, divided by the number of advertisers sharing it — then apply a CPM that fits your readers.
| Audience | Typical direct CPM |
|---|---|
| B2B with buying intent (software, equipment, compliance) | €15 – €40 |
| Professionals, not buying today | €6 – €15 |
| Enthusiasts, hobbies | €4 – €10 |
| General consumer | €1.50 – €5 |
The ad price calculator does this for you, assumptions on screen.
Where to put the slot
Under the header or right after the introduction: seen before anyone scrolls, without pushing ahead of the title. In the footer, half your readers will never see it. On mobile, check it does not push the content past the first screen.
Share the slot
One advertiser at €150 a month is a slot that sits empty eleven months a year. Five advertisers at €30, one drawn on each pageview, is a slot that fills up and earns as much — and each advertiser pays a sum they can commit to without a meeting.
Finding the first advertiser
- Your own readers. Until the slot sells, show “Your ad here, from €X”: your readers know the companies that want to reach them, and some of them run one.
- The brands you already mention. The tools, suppliers and services in your articles share your audience.
- A direct link. Send your slot’s page, with its measured views and a preview of their ad on your site: people do not buy a media kit PDF, they buy what they can see.
Disclosure rules
An ad must be recognisable as an ad: a visible “Ad” label and an identifiable advertiser (in France, article 20 of the LCEN; in the US, the FTC’s guidance on native advertising). Links carry rel="sponsored" for search engines. Avoid ad trackers that would require a consent banner: a text ad served without cookies needs none.
Doing it in one minute
AboveFold automates all of the above: one line of code, your price, up to five advertisers per slot, card payments collected on your behalf, instant go-live, an “Ad” label, sponsored links, no cookies, and a view counter the advertiser can see. Create my slot.