2026-11-01 · MKDB Research

Your media kit, checked like an advertiser: the four things that decide if you make the shortlist

Advertisers judge a media kit in about a minute, against three simple questions. We counted 187 kits in the MKDB database — only 60 answer all of them. Here is the checklist, with real kits that get it right.

An advertiser opening your media kit is not reading it like a fan. They are triaging it, usually in under a minute, against a shortlist of other media — and they are looking for three answers: who do you reach, what exactly can I buy, and how do I start? If one of those answers is missing, the tab closes. Not because the audience was wrong, but because the next kit on the list answered all three.

We counted this in our own database today. Of the 187 independent media profiles on MKDB, 162 publish an audience figure, 115 publish a price, and 103 publish a public contact — but only 60 publish all three together. That gap is the cheapest lost revenue in independent media: the audience exists, the inventory exists, the kit just stops one step short of a sale.

1. Put the audience number where it cannot be missed — with its date

Your strongest number belongs on the first screen, not buried after three pages about your mission. And it needs two companions: what it counts and when it was measured. JavaScript Weekly's kit does this cleanly: 179,802 subscribers and a 38% open rate, labelled as coming from its Q2 2024 media kit. An advertiser may wish the figure were fresher — but they can work with it, because they know exactly what it is. A bare "200K reach!" with no unit and no date asks the buyer to trust you and do your homework at the same time.

2. Name your formats like products, not possibilities

"Sponsorship opportunities available" is not inventory. Advertisers budget against named slots: a primary newsletter sponsorship, a host-read mid-roll, a sponsored post, a dedicated send. Look at how TechCabal lists its menu — specific banner sizes, newsletter placements in named publications, a sponsored post, a sponsored article — each one a line an agency can drop into a plan. If a buyer has to e-mail you just to learn what exists, you have added a week to a decision that a competitor settled in an afternoon.

3. Publish at least one real price — an entry point counts

You do not have to publish your whole rate card. You do have to break the silence with one honest anchor. Dense Discovery publishes a main sponsorship from $649 an issue and a classified from $89: the small number matters as much as the large one, because it gives a small advertiser a way in and gives everyone a sense of scale. "Rates on request" protects a negotiation you may never get to have — most buyers do not request; they move on to a kit that told them.

4. End with a contact that reaches a person

The last page should make the next step embarrassingly easy: a working advertising contact, what to send (dates, format, budget range), and how fast you reply. A generic contact form with no name behind it reads as a queue, not a sales channel. Remember that 84 of the 187 profiles in our database publish no public contact at all — for those media, the kit itself has to carry the whole conversation.

Then claim the profile someone else built from your kit

If your media is in the MKDB database, your profile was built from the kit you already publish — which means any gap above is probably live there too. Claiming your profile is free: you correct every figure, and when your platform stats are connected, your audience carries the Verified Audience badge — a number pulled from the platform, not typed by you. Advertisers can tell the difference, and they shortlist accordingly.

The checklist, in one line: audience with a date, formats with names, one real price, a contact that answers — on the first pass, not after an e-mail exchange. Most kits fail on exactly one of the four. Fix yours this week and you are ahead of two-thirds of the database.