We are in the process of starting an online advertising agency that will develop/create our own ads. We would also like to hire a sales team to approach the advertisers and publishers for our ads. How do we approach the advertisers, and how much do we charge? We are contemplating on designing the ads for free. Just not sure on how to charge these Fortune 500 + companies. As well how or who pays the publishers for their “cut?”

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Jay’s Answer: You need to prove whatever value you offer, and the best way to do this is find a client (ideally, multiple clients) and create a white paper on the effectiveness of your advertising. With some data, you can start to make a good case to enlist new clients, and figure what it would be worth to them.