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Buying Discounted Advertising Space In Print

Many branches of the media offer opportunities for buying discounted advertising space for the buyer who knows what to ask for, and how to broach the subject. Traditionally, newspapers and magazines sell advertising space using a rate card, which outlines pricing for all of their publications. These include rates for single insertions, multiple insertions, and special rates for advertising agencies.

Open rates are often applied to non-contractual agreements, and offer the buyer the opportunity to purchase space at the minimum requirement levels (usually referring to the minimum ad size and commitment term the buyer agrees to purchase). Single insertions (ads that appear once only) are generally sold at some form of open rate, which is usually the highest rate available on the rate card.

Advertisers who agree to purchase more than one ad over a specific time period are offered contracts for space commitments. These contracts state that the advertiser will receive a discounted rate for every ad purchased during the contract duration. In print advertising, the more ads a buyer commits to purchase, the better the rate. By purchasing large ad space and committing to purchase more space, the lower the rate becomes per insertion. The best ad rates are offered to buyers who commit to the largest ads published the most frequently.

Discounts are offered to advertising agencies in order to entice them to bring their clients to the medium. Advertising agencies often receive a net rate (as opposed to a gross rate) of 15% less than the general public pays. The advertiser doesn’t necessarily pay more for the advertising than they would by placing the ads themselves but the advertising agent earns the 15% commission for placing the ads on behalf of the buyer.

Merchants’ associations (groups of merchants who agree to pool their funds and buy space to advertise as a single entity) may also receive special rates. These may or may not require a contract in order to qualify for the rates, or they may offer lower rates with a time and ad size commitment.

Although every print medium has sales representatives seeing clients daily to sell advertising, with some very talented staff, all space available is not always sold, or sold at full rates. If the buyer knows what to ask for, discounted ad space can be purchased at a lower rate than will ever appear on a rate card.

Many newspapers and magazines have special programs for selling last-minute ad space their sales staff has not been able to fill. This is referred to as “remnant space” and can sometimes be purchased at half of the open rate, or lower, depending on how desperate the publication is to fill the space. Remember this – no one opens a publication and finds some pages full, and some blank, so the publication has a vested interest in filling every possible space.

Some space can be purchased for a single insertion, and some advertisers may be offered a special deal if they’re willing to take any available space that becomes available. Print publications also offer discounts when the same ad can be published, without any changes, over and over, to fill these vacant spaces with each publication. These are generally small space ads, used as “fillers”, to complete a page.

Discounts are available, but it takes some knowledge of the print media to understand what might be discounted, and when.