Ads work for impulse buys

Good info. Any idea if the ads lead to any conversions (i.e people paying you money)? I have been thinking about doing traditional web ads myself for a service I run but the price on ad networks like those always seems to never justify the return.

I have had luck with advertising on search engines. The big advantage is that people are looking for your product when you ad comes up. That leads to a very high conversion rate. The downside is that since it is a good opportunity there is a lot of competition which makes the bidding often get too steep. I have found a few secrets for search advertising:

• Stay off of content networks. They are more like traditional ad networks (i.e. not as targeted) so the conversion rate is much lower but since content networks are on by default it still drives up the price. I have never found the content networks worth the cost. Plus there is rampant click fraud on the content networks and it is just about impossible to get your money back from Google after even obvious fraud. Believe me I have tried.

• Don’t try to be #1 – Being number one is a high cost. Your competitor has difference finances than you and may be able to pay much more for a click than you. Bid at whatever level is profitable for you. You will still get clicks even if not as many but at least they are profitable clicks.

• Most search engines offer some sort of free money to start (I think Google gave me $150 worth of free ads). Use this to get started. Bid a bit higher when using the “play” money to get your click-through rate up. That way later when you have to drop your bid down you will have the high click through rate helping you not go too far down. As you start running out of “play” money work it down slowly until you find that sweet spot where you are making money and still getting the highest position you can.

• Don’t just advertise on Google. Google certainly has the most traffic (by far) but it also has the most competition making the bid go higher. I pay roughly the same amount per click on Bing. Even though it has much less impressions my CTR is much higher because I have a much better position since there is less competition. In the final result I get about the same number of conversions from Bing as I do Google.

Just a few things I have learned.

Thanks for sharing your experience here. You’re right about conversions for impulse buys, but given the inertia factor with your product, even a recommendation from a trusted friend would result in a delayed conversion. I imagine tracking any marketing effort would be difficult. Have you seen measurable success from other efforts?

I did the same thing a few months back, except I ran mine for 30 days. Clickthrough rate was low but I was told that it was pretty good for a banner ad. I think I was paying just over a buck per click as well. I only spent $250 for the month, so I didn’t have very many clicks and converted only one person.

Of course, I didn’t have a landing page but I think the point you make is valid. I’m asking someone to sign up for an ongoing subscription to use my web app, it’s a tougher sell.

And how well do landing pages work for converting users in that situation? I would guess I’d be better off with a landing page that lets them sign up to a super limited free plan or 30 day trial (which I don’t have) to increase my chances of converting them to paid later.

Like Eric, I had decent success using AdWords. I was paying 15 cents a click and “converting” 20% of visitors (I was only collecting emails at that point).

I don’t do any advertising at this point, but it’s something I may start to think about again in a couple of months so it’s good to read about the outcome of your experiment.

I got rolled on The Deck the same way. The truth is that ads really don’t work all that well when compared to positive word of mouth. Just make something worth sharing and enable your customers to recommend it to friends. The rest will take care of itself.

Allow your customers to invite a friend to your biggest plan for 3 months free but they have to provide you a credit card to sign-up. Make it easy by incorporating Linkedin, Twitter or Facebook in the process of giving away and accepting the invites When others can it see they will want to take part in the deal. After all, no one wants to be left out.

It is 100 times easier to upgrade and existing customer than trying to land and new one. Have you really tried to get existing customers to upgrade or sign-up for your other products and services?

A better marketing site wouldn’t hurt either. Try landing pages just for these efforts. Get unconventional and make it both fun and time sensitive.

That will provide more results than any ad campaign ever would.

it’s the first time to be here.Very happy to come here.

I’ve done some similar experimentation, but I always figured if I had just spent more time on ad alternatives, or better landing pages, or … then it would have worked out better. Useful to hear others have hit the same wall :)

Great suggestions in the responses!

it was very interesting to read.
I want to quote your post in my blog. It can?
And you et an account on Twitter?

Hi! Very well written article. Very interesting and informative!

I preferred traditional web ads myself for a service, but it surely cost a lot.