Sometimes. There are many sites being set up on the web, which simulate department stores or craft fairs. Of course, if you choose to use their services, you will have to pay for the privilege either through a flat fee or perhaps a royalty. You would need to investigate very carefully what the traffic is to the website. Just because it is on the net does not mean that thousands of people will find it. There are many websites with very low traffic. Check out how the website operators are advertising and marketing their site. In addition ask them how many visitors there are (and ask for the number of visitors not just the number of hits, which could be much higher and give a false impression). They should also be able to give you details such as how long each visitor stays, which part of the site attracts the most interest and so on. Choosing the royalty method of payment would allow you to test out how successful this method of marketing will be.

Do you know where we can get a general idea of current trends in online advertising rates?

As far as I can tell there is no ‘industry standard’ – online advertising rates will vary according to the amount of traffic and the content on the site e.g. YouTube where there is a huge audience creating lots of impressions may well charge less for display advertising (banners and skyscraper adverts etc) than a more niche site such as smallbusiness.co.uk or runnersworld.co.uk etc.

As a rule to pricing structures (which I think is what you mean) rich media is more expensive than other formats and you can expect to pay more the larger the advert is. Also standard display advertising is generally sold on a CPM (cost per thousand) basis, whilst directory listings are usually sold at a fixed price for an agreed length of time.

Dont forget that with the sophisticated tracking available on the web, cost per aquisition (CPA) is getting more popular with online companies that are prepared to pay for the aquisition of a hot-lead or a sale

I've found a great free site that offers effective online advertising - Freeindex.co.uk. It seems to offer the same (or more) than other paid advertising options, and doesn't cost a penny!

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