Forum Moderators: buckworks
I always read on Webmasterworld to not rely on natural SEPRS, and to diverisfy so you don't get crushed with one blow (the SERPS not treating you well).
So how do you do it? Where do you go? Email marketing? Banner ads? What? And how do you know where to PUT banner ads to be the most successful? Trial and error? I'm lost when it comes to alternative advertising, and I'd love any help anyone can offer.
Moving on, the next thing has got to be to learn the art of turning visitors from visitors to advocates - making them come back again and again. Traditionally this is done by improving your opt-in email lists and actually doing that monthly mailshot and giving people something good to come back for.
After that, I think sponsoring someone Else's respected mailing list is good. If they are respected, then you can put compelling text links into theor list, with their "editorial" backing. Trackable, targetted and accountable, so a good idea I would say.
And if your site suits, setting up an affiliate program has to be a good idea.
Tell-A-Friend - let your visitors refer the site directly
Link to Us Page - put your banners up for people to grab that like your site
If you set up an affiliate program, SELF HOSTED is best. Yes, you have to write the checks yourself but YOU get all the back links to your website, not commission junction or whoever, which could also boost the SERPs.
CPM - Cost Per Thousand.
That's what you would pay per thousand impressions of a text or banner ad. Whether these ads perform or not (convert to sales) isn't the concern of the person running the ads. They just collect your cash for every thousand impressions of your ad to visitors.
CPC - Cost Per Click.
This is where you would pay per actual CLICK THRU to your web site. The banner or text ad impressions don't cost anything unless a visitor clicks on the link. Google AdWords is a good example of this type of advertising. Again, whether these clicks on your ads convert to sales isn't the concern of the person running the ads, just collecting your cash for every click on your ad.
CPA - Cost Per Acquisition/
You only pay if someone completes a purchase. That means the web visitor sees your banner or text ad running somewhere (impressions are free, no CPM) and the visitor clicks on the link (clicks are free, no CPC) and then they actually PURCHASE something and you pay a comission to the web site that referred the visitor. In this case, the referring web site is a salesman for you and has a vested interest in making your traffic as good as possible, so the visitors convert to customers and buy stuff.
Affiliate programs are basically CPA, you only pay for the ads that convert into actual sales. Affiliate programs may look more expensive but in the long run they really aren't as you get all the free impressions, clicks and branding with the only out of pocket costs happening when you actually have income from the sales activity. Then every 30 days or so you, or the company you outsource your affiliate program to, send checks to all of your affiliates for their referral sales.
Hope that helps.
I have been able to run a very successful campaign using overture, adwords, froogle, bizrate, shopping.com, pricegrabber, wholesaleramp, findwhat, and kanoodle. I spend about 3% of gross on marketing and get average about 2% conversion on clicks.
I recently had to drop shopping.com because of a price hike on their CPC costs as of Feb 1st, and am on the lookout for other advertising media. I am considering Adsense, but have not used it yet.
If you are looking for places to spend marketing dollars CPS has worked well for me.
