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Buying Finance Websites (In: I Want to Sell My Website)
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eloes
Joined: Jun 26, 2005
# Posts: 3
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Posted: 2005-Jun-27 04:34
Hi, I am new to this forum but have been reading on it for a few days now. My partner and I will be officialy launching our website in the next few days, but we still need some advice for marketing. Google ad-words do not seem like a good deal, yahoo and overture not much more better. We are looking for low-cost, high results. We do not necessarly need targeted visitors, and so we found those companies that claim to send us xxxxx visitors for a certain amount of money. Are they trust-worthy? Does that actually work? What else could we use other wise to increase traffic?
Thank you,
Shereif
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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2005-Jun-27 21:43
I caution you to determine what method any company you buy traffic from is using. Be aware that many Internet users have serious objections to SPAM.
Much traffic turns out to be worth far less than you paid for it - the cheaper the traffic the less likely it will have much quality to it.
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msuggs3
Joined: Jun 06, 2005
# Posts: 40
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Posted: 2005-Jun-27 21:56
Find companies that provide a multi-pronged approach. Not all online marketing techniques will provide the best results when employed individually. Combined tactics seem to work best. Also, try to get a guarantee written to the contract about how and when the results will become reality and hold them to it. Finally, don't just expect results to happen. Become an integral part in monitoring your marketing campaign to avoid any unforeseen problems.
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greensquare
Joined: Jul 10, 2005
# Posts: 12
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Posted: 2005-Jul-18 07:55
Friends,
This is very much true that you are not going to find any customer just by buying into these so called get it quick traffic. So forget it.
Gone are days of single dimension marketing. In this hyper competive marketing environment only integrated marketing can work. So try to focus your effort of selected few way fo marketing not just one as well as not a big number of Ideas.
Time is Gold
Arvind Kumar
------------
(self-promotion removed))
[ Message was edited by: bhartzer 07/18/2005 08:14 am ]
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SportsGuy
Staff
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3603
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Posted: 2005-Sep-01 13:24
OK, as a media buyer managing over $100,000 in ad buys a month for our websites, I'll share my experiences.
Cheap traffic is crap. In four years, I can count on less than one finger companies who have promised traffic cheaply and delivered.
PPCs are your best bet - and you always want targeted traffic - you might not be selling anything, but if there are advertisers on the site, THEY will need targeted visitors.
With PPC you can monitor the money and adjust as necessary - start small, like $50 or so - use this to get a feel for your market and to gauge the "burn" of your budget - been there done that and lost $10K overnight once with the "Keep me in 1st" option enabled back in the GoTo days...LOL
After PPC type stuff - incidentally, that is PayPerClick - look for CPC campaigns - cost per click. CPC means you only pay for actual traffic, rather than paying to have ads shown a bunch of times, with no clicks on the ads - much safer for your budget. This can take a long time to fulfill, though, if your ads aren't good - test, test, test to see what works.
A new-ish thing on the landscape is CPV - cost per view. It's been around a few years, but recently we're seeing a lot of companies switching over to this concept. ...and it's is CRAP. I am adament about this, as we have the data to show these campaigns are not as effective as CPC campaigns. (Keep in mind, since CPV relys on your site being shown as the "ad", what you're offering folks on your front page has a bunch to do with your success - though it also easily identifies YOUR SITE as the source of the GD pop-up ruining their browsing session at that moment, too.)
I firmly believe they suck - we will not spend money on them any more.
E-mail campaigns...skip these unless you yourself have developed the e-mail list - other than that, if it's cheap, it's garbage - can't stress that enough about e-mails.
Next up would be networks - good ones, like Fastclick, can send very good traffic to you. Bad ones bleed you dry and don't deliver. Shop around, and insist on running "test" campaigns first - this can help reduce the costs to you starting off.
In the end, be realistic about your budget - many places have a minimum buy - like $5,000 USD - to start a campaign. That's why the PPC stuff from Google and Yahoo are so attractive - cheap and simple to start, and capable of delivering great traffic if you can write good text ads.
What else - skip print advertising, radio ads and TV ads - doesn't really drive much traffic and zero way to accurately track it anyway.
Advertising on the Internet is not cheap - if it works, it costs money. There is no Holy Grail. I $hit you not.
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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2005-Sep-02 01:45
I totally agree with the words of wisdom posted above by SportsGuy. He expanded on my brief post with real life experience regarding the quality of cheap traffic.
PPC is my area of expertise and I have dozens of clients each of whom have generally tried all the cheap traffic methods OR have asked me and I've kept them from throwing money away going that route.
Two suggestions about PPC:
1. Start with Google, expand to Yahoo, and don't consider any second tier PPC engines until you have a way to track the quality of your advertising.
2. Search converts far better than content or image. Most accounts default to have content on. Turn it off. Someone searching for you is far more likely to buy than someone who clicks your ad out of curiosity.
In the same vein, avoid image ads. Stick with text. Images feed the ego of the advertiser more than they ever sell and they're more expensive.
Until you're buying all the available search traffic don't run any content or image/banner type ads.
Read up on developing relationships with your Web site visitors through mailing lists so you're not paying visitors to come back each time.
If you have PPC specific questions visit the four Pay Per Click forums listed under Organic and PPC Search Engines here.
[ Message was edited by: flyingrose 09/01/2005 07:00 pm ]
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SportsGuy
Staff
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3603
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Posted: 2005-Sep-02 11:23
Going to jump back in to add some detail here (flying rose, please bear with me)...
Images based ads can work great - provided you have the resources to develop an endless supply and a plan for testing and tracking results. Think of advertising as a process - image ads have, let's say 12 steps.
PPC stuff has more like 3 steps - no brainer unless you have the resources.
As for second tier programs, well, let's just say this - the bigger the volume at the engine, the better the program. Snag your percentages form there and decide what's best for you.
I've run them everywhere - Overture & Google performed...and one other standout for me was Looksmart.
HTH
Thanks for the props FR. 
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SportsGuy
Staff
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3603
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Posted: 2005-Sep-03 12:09
I'm guessing you're trying to sell your services in here, eh monk2002?
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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2005-Sep-05 05:42
How long ago did Looksmart work well for you SportsGuy? Many have moved away from them as results seemed to decline.
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SportsGuy
Staff
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3603
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Posted: 2005-Sep-05 20:14
We were pretty active prior to 6 months ago (roughly). The key to remember for me/us, though, is our vertical. We are, like it or not, in the "Entertainment/Gambling" category online.
Given the current climate towards where revenues are generated, Google, Overture/Yahoo, Looksmart, etc., chose to "put our account on hold". Sucks to be me, as those accounts averaged roughly 60,000 combined uniques per month for our sites. Our average spend was in the $15K - $25K with them, each.
Looking at the big picture, that's pretty small (from all sides - my spend, their revenues, etc.), so I'm not shocked they went the way they did with "us". Interestingly enough, you cannot gamble on any of our sites...LOL
We do, however, sell ad space to gambling companies, which makes us gambling-related. (We're located in Canada, so this is legal.)
Anyway, back to Looksmart.
I believe their traffic HAS lessened over the last few months, but they were still a solid third source of PPC traffic back in the day. Nice bit was the actual costs were much lower than the other sources, per click, simply because they were third in line.
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flyingrose
Staff
Joined: Oct 30, 2003
# Posts: 3361
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Posted: 2005-Sep-05 21:51
The issue with Looksmart was poor conversion rather than traffic volume. You weren't having any issues with that back when you could still advertise with them?
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SportsGuy
Staff
Joined: Aug 30, 2002
# Posts: 3603
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Posted: 2005-Sep-06 14:08
The issue with Looksmart was poor conversion rather than traffic volume. You weren't having any issues with that back when you could still advertise with them?
Not for my purposes, but I need to define that, as your situation may be 180 degrees from this...
We do not run marketing campaigns to sell products, thus we do not have a traditional 'conversion'.
True, we do have sites which actually sell a service, but 90% of that traffic is derived from a couple main sites we operate, so the marketing budget supports those main sites and developing traffic into them.
So, Main Site A, for example - we sell ad space on it. The end result, then, to judge a marketing campaign a success for Main Site A, is visits. This site does not sell anything. All the content is free for the users to look through, read, etc.
For the most part, our campaigns are geared at driving visits and page views, so Looksmart worked fine for that. At the end of the month, the advertisers were VERY happy with the results they'd achieved, so overall, everything worked.
There are always some dogs, but that's life.
Given our model is advertising driven, Looksmart worked. If they weren't converting for you, then I'll say you made a solid choice passing on them.
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