The one thing with online marketing is that you have enormous tools available to you. There are a countless number of methods you can utilize, all providing you with different results. However, the ONLY free method is obviously organic link building and the rest of the marketing strategies cost a lot of money. For example, you have banner ads, PPC, PPV, email marketing, etc. I know when I started to test different paid marketing methods, I was very nervous because NOT only was I spending hundreds of dollars each week, but also, on some of them, I wasn’t getting any conversions or making a profit in return. I guess the whole thing was a great lesson and I learned some cool things that I’ll like to share with you.
#1 Google Adwords
Everyone knows about Google Adwords and it can definitely be an awesome source of paid traffic. However, you need to really figure out your budget before advertising on Adwords. Depending on the niche, you’ll easily spend an average of $6.00-7.00 per click and there’s no guarantee of conversion. When I used the network, I was working for a company that was selling a very expensive product. Adwords brought in huge amounts of traffic, but I was surprised to see that the conversion rate was very low.
Even though I do recommend Adwords for everyone, I would highly recommend studying your audience and product. The niche and price of your product will determine your ROI. Next, the PPC can become very high and if you don’t have the unlimited, then Adwords might not be the right network for you.
Retargeting
For those of you who are not familiar with this network, I would highly recommend checking out Retargter.com. It’s a cool concept and can be very cost effective, however, you need to have a large audience already. Because you are going to be retargeting to people who have previously visited your blog or website, I would suggest the higher your existing reach, the better. I spent around 2K on retargeting to my audience and paid an average $2.50 CPM. Next,
The ROI wasn’t too bad and I had an average CTR of around 4%. However, you have to keep the following in mind…
- Existing reach of website will help
- Established credibility is a great way to convert through retargeting
- Always optimize your page so you can get highest ROI
- Keep rotating your ads to keep engagement fresh improving CTR
I’ve used several paid marketing networks and LinkedIn had the lowest CTR. The biggest issue with LinkedIn is that it doesn’t provide huge traffic and without traffic, it’s hard to split test your pages. If there was a way to engage more people on LinkedIn, it would be an awesome advertising network because of the quality of leads generated through them. Personally, at this point, I would recommend using many of the other paid traffic networks just because you have a larger audience on them. Here’s something Neil Patel said about using Linkedin as a paid traffic source…
“LinkedIn can drive high quality leads for a B2B company, but it will cost you an arm and a leg. Plus, you shouldn’t expect a ton of volume from it.â€
BuySellAds.com
I’ve used BuySellAds.com several times and you have a variety of websites in different niches to choose from. Another good thing about this paid network is your choices for all types of marketing budgets. When I first started, I was paying roughly around $50.00/mo for a 30 day ad on some real engaging websites. Anyway, you have banner, text, fixed, CPM, etc. However, you have to know how to find the active website so you get a solid ROI.
Here are some things I do before purchasing an ad placement…
BuySellAds.com does its best to provide as much information, but you know your audience better than anyone else.
First, research the audience by visiting websites like Aleca.com and Quantcast.com. Next, see exactly where the audience is coming from and, from my experience, stick to United States, Canada, United Kingdom, etc. These places provide the highest quality of users and can definitely boost your ROI. Next, check to see where the ad will be placed on the website because you can save money by selecting a bottom location, but this will reduce your CTR. I can’t stress how important it is to split test your ads and, generally, websites will allow you to upload several banners. Keep an eye on each CTR and stick with the one that provides the highest CTR.
It’s also a good idea to keep testing different websites within your niche. BuySellAds.com does a great job by organizing all of them so make use of their filter. Always find the winning combination!