Why advertise in the Lincoln Squirrel?
More people get their local news online than ever before, and the most effective way to reach them is through ads on a website that your readers visit every day. Here’s why:
| Why advertise in the Squirrel? |
| Ad types and prices |
| Discounts |
| Designing and submitting your ad |
| Seeing your results |
| Payment |
| Policies |
- Our ads are much more affordable than newspaper ads.
- Your ad appears in full color on every single page of the Lincoln Squirrel website.
- Readers can click on your ad to go right to your website to learn more about your products and services.
- You’ll get an individualized report about how many people have visited the site and clicked on your ad while it was running (see “Seeing your results” below).
- We have a loyal and growing audience:
- From September 2019 to March 2020, the Squirrel has been averaging about 4,800 page views per week (see chart below).
- Readers are spending a lot of time on the website, exploring other pages after their initial entry. Our bounce rate has been less than 7% since 2018, compared to an industry average of 35–60% for non-e-commerce websites (references here and here).
- Subscribers receive an email each weekday morning with links to new stories from the previous day. Since September 2019, the open rate for those emails is about 77% (far higher than the industry average of 37%) and the click rate is over 50%.
- Desirable reader demographics (2017 data from City-Data.com):
Median household income Median home value Lincoln $128,017 $1.16 million Massachusetts $77,385 $385,400
The Lincoln Squirrel is the best way to reach not only Lincoln residents, but people everywhere who are interested in Lincoln — including area shoppers and property buyers as well as former residents and students who may have moved out of town. And if someone shares a link to a Lincoln Squirrel story, all the recipients (colleagues, friends and family, etc.) will see your ad as well. The price is low, but the potential reach is unlimited!
Lincoln Squirrel weekly page views from September 2019 to March 2020 (click to enlarge).
Advertisement types and prices as of Jan. 1, 2020
1. Sponsored posts
This is a 250-word article labeled “SPONSORED POST” written by the Lincoln Squirrel to the client’s specifications, plus one image (optional) supplied by client. The client may approve the wording before it goes live. Sponsored posts are “sticky” as the top post in the center editorial section for two business days and are then pushed down by new stories, though still visible by scrolling until the week is up. Cost: $100 for one week.
2. Display ads
| Ad shape | Size | Cost |
| Sidebar ad (short) |
300 px wide, 150 px high |
$20 per week, or $75 per month |
| Sidebar ad (square) | 300 px wide, 300 px high | $35 per week, or $130 per month |
| Sidebar ad (tall) | 300 px wide, 450 px high | $50 per week, or $180 per month |
A sample Squirrel post showing the size and locations of ads (click to see larger version in a new window).
Display ad positions rotate at random, so if there’s more than one ad, it may show up at the top of the column sometimes, or lower down at other times. Every time a user accesses the site or hits “refresh,” the ads get reshuffled.
Discounts
If your ad is for a nonprofit organization, we offer a 25% discount.
If you’re already an advertiser with the Swellesley Report, you can run the same ad in the Lincoln Squirrel for 25% off the regular Squirrel price.
Designing and submitting
your ad
If you would like us to design your ad for an additional charge of $25, please include in your email all the text, plus any digital images, color/font preferences, etc.
If you have your own ad, please attach it to an email addressed to lincolnsquirrelnews@gmail.com along with the following information:
- Your name, telephone number and email address.
- How long you would like your ad to run.
- The address of the website you would like your ad to link to.
- Your ad attached as a digital file in PDF, JPG or PNG format.
Seeing your results
As part of your invoice, you’ll get a report on website’s overall traffic and the number of clicks on your ad (click image to enlarge):
Payment
We will send you an invoice via email attachment. If you prefer to pay using a credit card via PayPal, pease let us know and we will generate your invoice through PayPal. Checks should be made payable to “Watusi Words” (not “Lincoln Squirrel” or Alice Waugh)* and sent to:
The Lincoln Squirrel
178 Weston Rd.
Lincoln, MA 01773
* Watusi Words is the freelance writing and editing business owned by Lincoln Squirrel editor Alice Waugh.
Policies
- Ad positions are allocated on a first-come, first-served basis.
- The presence of an ad or its content will have no effect on editorial content (e.g., stories and calendar events) in the Lincoln Squirrel and vice versa. There will be no explicit or implicit connections between an advertiser’s ads and any editorial coverage that mentions that advertiser. The exception is sponsored posts, which are marked as such.
- Invoices must be paid in full within 30 days of receipt.
- Ad fees are not tax-deductible.
