In making the switch to CPM rates, the first concern is that the advertiser will have difficulty understanding the concept and the sales staff will not have the command of the terminology to make the sale.
 
The first problem can be resolved by making small incremental changes semester to semester in the rate card.  The second problem is much larger and begins with education (which can be found in this site).

The Conversion
A fact that helps frame the conversion process is that online traffic for CMN newspapers has typically been very consistent over the last 3-4 years.  Each year there has been roughly an 8% increase in organic growth of traffic, but the trends in seasonality stay the same.

Therefore, it is a good starting point to look at the traffic from the previous year; specifically, look at old campaigns and back out what the effective CPM (eCPM) was:
Ex. If a Newspaper X sold month-long campaigns for $100 and that typically yielded 10,000 impressions, then the eCPM was $10 CPM (cost per thousand).
 
The next step from a rate card perspective is to list that same placement as $100 for 10,000 impressions versus one month.  Be mindful of seasonality as one month’s traffic can be 10,000 and another’s can be 5,000 (October versus December).  Be conservative at the beginning to encourage advertisers, perhaps a discount or repackaging into smaller buys to encourage sales is could be an effective strategy.
 
For instance, in the case of Newspaper X, a new rate card listing might be $75 for 8,000 impressions (a savings of $5).

The semester after that, the rate card can be transparent about CPM’s saying that it is a $10 CPM and the number of impressions bought is flexible. 

Giving discounts on bulk is not a good path from this point (as in $9 or $8 CPM for larger impression buys) as your site is limited in the page views it can deliver.  Make goods devalue your inventory and will always keep you from an up-sell as you will owe your advertiser.  Rather, present the CPM packages flexible on length of time so that exposure is extended and keep your CPM’s firm.

If there are advertisers that want more impressions than you are comfortable with promising, that is an opportunity for content sponsorship.  Conversely, if you see that you cannot fill inventory, run house ads (message: Your ad here!).

At the end of the day, banner ads are the ‘gateway drug’ to advertising in the online edition.  It should be cheap and limited. 

Successful campaigns should be converted into larger sponsorship deals.  At the end of the day, newspapers are branding opportunities for advertisers.  The newspaper cannot compete on impressions with facebook.com or collegehumor.com so the pitch to advertisers is that they get the brand rub with the thought leaders on campus.  Readers of the online edition are smart and spend time on the site – those are the loyal customers everyone wants to attract.