Spending money advertising via a completely free site.

[format1998]

Hello all,

I am currently building a dating/social site that has actually been around for a few years now. Needless to say it fell apart and alot of crappy decisions that were made at first from being an amateur were made. However I learned alot from my experience and how to improve and yadda yadda.

Anyways my deal is my site will be completely free. However im looking for the most bang for my buck as im sure anyone looking for users is. I know my target audience it would more social/dating sites. My question is does google adwords really work that good? what are your guys average ppc rate via adwords experience is it 10 cents a click or more. Im putting tons of time in coding this new site to have features that are similar to myspace etc but with a twist obviously. I have a old userbase of 10,000 confirmed users. However I would love to double that amount of users via the launch so I can have a good rotation/flow of users.

Any suggestions, recommendations I should try? Whats the best results you have seen when you paid for advertisement and where was it?

[idolw]

I'd think of a nice viral for that.
Make some nice video or a stupid picture and send via email and messenger to yuor friends and network.
If it is good enough, you will get many hits.

Now the only thing you need is a good landing page to convert hits into users ;)

[format1998]

There will be viral advertising within the site. However id like again to get a good flow rate coming in and is the reason why I wanted to know if anyone had better results with another service besides adwords. Yes I did create a great landing page however I will not really know until my new design/site goes public near summer time frame. So does anyone have any better results than via advertising?

[brunixwe]

I would make it so when the users signs up they need to tell their friends about the website. It's how the big social networks grow so fast.

[edited by: caveman at 4:58 pm (utc) on Mar. 17, 2008]
[edit reason] Edited per TOS #14 [/edit]

[format1998]

I agree with you brunix thats how I think bebo got so big is because their site forces viral marketing it is however very hard to browse. I will allow them to do it at signup. However forcing people to do it I dont believe is the best method. However still need to know if anyone has had good results with low cost per click. Considering my site isnt all technically a social site its more then not a dating site however I will be tossing in the social site engine and once thats done modifying things that I think would provide more entertainment.

[format1998]

Anyone run any free sites with a opinion of their best results via a advertising site and just how much did you pay for each one of your clicks. I heard rumor you can setup adwords put that you want to pay 10 cents per click and it may go up. I tend not to like variations in prices with clicks unless I authorized the price, if you catch my drift.