Pros/Cons of different advertising models now available on the internet

What works for UK websites

[christopher]

Can we start a discussion on the many different forms of Media.

Anyone care to start this off?

[steve40]

I will start with the 5 forms of advertising that I can think of on the internet

1 PPC using adwords / overture
Pros
Easy to measure ROI
Can provide for cheap website branding

Cons
Can prove costly if not very intelligently used
Still in infancy in Internet terms with only a few large established players
FRAUDULENT CLICKS from publishers and possibly some smaller players or those in financial trouble charging for non traffic

2 Affiliate Marketing
Pros
Only pay for results
Mature Technology in internet terms
Good Stats
Multiple Companies including regional based players

Cons
Expensive to start Programme
Can be poorly targeted in general
Currently under preasure from PPC Context advertising due to poor returns for webmasters

3 Banner advertising
Pros
Branding
Currently Cheap

Cons
Banner Blindness by searchers
Webmasters are looking for higher returns for their valuable real estate

4 Pay for inclusion in directory
Pros
Can be considered cheap if the traffic to the directory is high enough to return sufficient visitors
Can be usefull if providing some PR benefits and links

Cons
Often it is not possible for the directory to provide expected traffic stats
Many directories do not provide any PR for links due to the way they are implemented

5 Private advertising on Websites
This is the form that currently is not well presented on the internet as the middle men appear to be concentrating on only PR
But if we look at how it could be implemented with a PPC or Monthly fee model together with providing PR if used with sites that have some synergy in their audiance there is an opportunity

I am sure many will have other ideas and pros and cons but put this together to get a feeling of webmasters views

steve

[christopher]

Nice selection.

PPC yuck, eek, yikes, Nodad.

Quite frankly, PPC scares me for 2 reasons.

1. Fraud clicks by competitors and vindictive people in general.

2. Very expensive indeed

I guess if you have loads of cash, it don't really matter, and providing stats are accessible - okayish.

Affiliate schemes. Someone suggested that I start one for me directory, but unless you know the affiliates well, who knows what they could be selling or writing about your company - to make the sale.

Directories -yes I love them, want to kiss them and possibly marry them, well perhaps not marry.....

They can be a nice source of traffic, and bound to be spidered by the SE's.

Banners. hmmmmmmm okayish if done perfectly. I'm not really a banner type of guy, but they could be ignored as people get used to em. Some are good though.

Other websites. My fave. Very cheap and effective if you choose a targeted site for ya traffic.

DIRECT MAIL Low cost. Targeted·High response. But Time consuming to build a list
------------------------------
WEB SITE Low/Medium cost. Huge audience Full colour, images, sound possible· Difficult to stand out in a crowd.
------------------------------
SEARCH ENGINE Medium/High cost. Audience depends on whether General or Niche audience, but usually very high in both cases. May not suit every business
------------------------------
DIRECTORIES Low/Medium cost. May have wide circulation/target audience. Can provide many ways to advertise. Most FREE entries won’t bring results. D
------------------------------
ADVERT IN LOCAL PAPER Medium cost. Local audience·Can repeat often·Large readership
------------------------------
RADIO High·Wide audience· Advert time is very brief – may need repeating often

----------------------------------
(It wouldn't copy n paste properly lol)

[IanTurner]

You can add

Forums - getting your name onto as many related forums as possible, effort intensive but low cost - or build your own forum on the site to attract visitors.

Satellite sites - niche targetted sites can bring traffic.

Viral marketing - this is the 'Flash' boys favourite - very hit and miss.

[christopher]

But would advertising be accepted by forums?

[IanTurner]

A lot of forums will take paid advertising.

But also you can work the forum and drop your links, (except here where we know about such tactics and strictly disallow self promotional posts.) many forums will even allow you to have your link in a signature.

[running scared]

E-mail marketing. I know nothing about it other than that I'm sure it is very easy to make mistakes but done right could be very cost effective.

[fazer600]

I have a link to my site in signature on my hosts forum which gets trawled by google every day. So that's a fairly quick and easy way of starting getting google to visit regularly

Being a smallish forum they can allow that as people generally aren't actually advertising any products or services, just showing off their hard work. The majority of the people in the forum just have a personal or semi-professional site.

[christopher]

It depends on the forum. Obviously some forums won't allow you to post, cos they wish to protect their reputation in some way or cos they would be losing out on ad fees if people don't pay.

Personally, I think to advertise on a forum, would take up too much time and effort to get noticed, therefore bringing minimal results.

But you have the other problem of a popular forum such as Webmasterworld, with a high traffic turnover, yet no chance of advertising.

I would suggest starting your own forum dealing with an original topic. Then once people start posting, the threads will automatically be generated.

You could have a forum as part of a site, or separately as a site itself. If you don't want an additional hosting fee, go for adding a forum to existing site.