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Written on 11/18/2012 at 12:03 am by

10 Ways to Woo Would-be Advertisers on Your Blog

Filed Under: Advertising

This guest post is by Anup Kayastha of MoneyMakingModes.com.

Earning money through blogging is an attractive and viable income source. But it is not possible unless your blog have relevant, current, and useful information for your readers.

That will not only help increase traffic to your blog: it will also attract advertisers to buy ads. but to make that a reality, you need to know how advertisers are evaluating your site.

What makes them think that your blog is worth their investment? What they are looking for in your blog before offering you a deal for ad posts?

Here are ten factors that would help you understand what the advertisers consider before they’ll approach you about buying ad space.

1. Announce that you accept ads

Your blog must explicitly announce to the potential advertisers that it is ready to sell ads. Use an “Advertise with us” banner or message so that the advertisers know that they can buy space with you.

For example, look at the sidebar of this blog. There’s an image link which clearly mentions that ProBlogger accepts sponsor ads.

2. Create a specific page for ad information

Having a separate page that displays the information about ad space on your blog is very important.

Include information such as the blog’s niche, ad space rates, methods of payment, and your contact details. This shows how organized—and serious—you are about helping advertisers reach their audiences.

Take a look at the advertising page of John Chow’s site. When advertises land on that page, they can easily get the required information, like site stats, banner spot and sizes, space availability, and so on.

3. Concentrate on your niche

If your blog targets a particular niche, you must stick to it in all your blogging activities. The advertisers interested in your particular niche will critically monitor this aspect of your work.

Don’t go off topic. Your advertisers want to gain targeted visits to their product sales pages. You don’t want to disappoint them with untargeted traffic.

4. Work to increase traffic

Most importantly, the advertiser will want to know about the traffic that flows to your blog. The blog readership, subscribers, and your reputation within your niche are all carefully considered by advertisers.

These factors directly impact the cost expectations of potential advertisers. Most advertisers are more interested in the traffic that a blog attracts than many other factors.

5. Assess the positioning of ads on your blog

Prospective advertisers will analyze the placement of ads on your blog, to see if those spots will suit them.

First, they’ll ask if their ads will be visible without requiring a page scroll. If the space is above the fold, you should be able to charge more for it.

They’ll also want to know if the ad space is horizontal or vertical? Horizontal space is usually more costly because if has better readability. They’ll likely review the spot’s prominence and visibility too.

My blog, Hack Tutors is a good example of this point. You can see a horizontal (468x60px) banner at the top-right header. Typically, it gets sold as soon as the previously running ad has expired.

It’s the most popular ad spot on my blog, simply because it’s above the fold, eye-catching, and easily viewable without scrolling down the page.

6. Consider costing methods

Advertisers are very careful to review the terms on which ads are sold to the advertiser.

You may offer CPC (Cost Per Click), CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions), CPA (Cost Per Action), or some other method of selling space. The advertiser may be interested in a specific costing method, so be prepared to negotiate.

If you’ve no idea how to arrive at pricing for your ad space, you can get some ideas in this post by Hesham of FamousBloggers.

7. Establish your ad posting conditions

The ad posting conditions you impose will be taken very seriously by advertisers. Ad specifications—such as formats, maximum allowable file sizes, restrictions of animations, niche appropriateness, Flash requirements, and so on—are all considered by advertisers before they’ll buy.

You may not want to display colorful, blinking ads in your blog—but maybe your advertisers want to. It’s very important to clearly communicate your ad posting conditions so that your advertisers won’t be confused. Mention these conditions in your Advertising page, like iTrailMap have.

8. Provide special offers and promotions

Some advertisers also get attracted by special ad offers made by bloggers. Introductory or special offers can give an added incentive to the advertisers to give your blog a try. You can offer to give a free week or month for an advertisement, or provide some other kind of special promotion.

For example, you can offer to promote their product by writing a free review or sending their product newsletter to your subscribers. Such offers can come in very handy when advertisers are considering on buying ads in your blog.

9. Present your blog statistics

Blog statistics (other than traffic stats) are closely considered by potential advertisers.

If you’re proud of them, include your Google Page Rank, Technorati Authority, Alexa Traffic Rank, and others on your Advertising page. These ranks cement the perceived worth of a blog, and advertisers appreciate seeing blog statistics from established third-party sources.

If you take a quick look at the Advertising page on this blog, you’ll see that these statistics are clearly mentioned.

10. Provide discount offers to guarantee long-term business

Advertisers also consider the long-term advertising opportunities provided by a blog. Their fear may be that the blog may not allow more advertisement time after ending of first contract period. For that reason, they may want to book ad space for the longer term.

Discount considerations will also become a factor in these deals. If you’re securing ad revenue for couple of years instead of months, the advertiser will naturally ask for a discount. The terms should be flexible—again, prepare to negotiate!

Final words

There are many factors about your blog that potential advertisers will consider. You can start experimenting and getting to know your advertisers’ needs. If they get some good results, they’re more likely to become long-term advertisers with your blog.

Don’t forget to ask previous advertisers to write testimonials, since most prospective advertisers will want to know if others have benefitted from advertising on your site.

Do you offer ad space on your site? What kinds of things do your advertisers want to know before they’ll buy? Tell us in the comments.

17 year old, Anup Kayastha, has 3 years of internet marketing experience and shares his tips for internet marketing, making money online and blogging in his blog MoneyMakingModes.com.

Written on 11/9/2012 at 6:01 am by

Work With Private Advertisers to Keep them Coming Back

Filed Under: Advertising

This guest post is by John Burnside of moneyin15minutes.co.uk.

If you have a blog or website then I’m sure that you will have looked at various ways to earn a bit of money for all your blood, sweat and tears. There are so many ways to do it.

You’ve got pay per click, affiliate programs, or advertising to emailing lists, plus dozens of other methods. But if you take a look at some developed blogs within your niche, you are likely to see an Advertise With Us page in their top menus.

This is where private advertisers will come to find out prices—and where you can start earning a more stable living online.

Let’s look at a few key things you can do to target these advertisers, and start building relationships with them.

Set up your Advertise With Us page

If you don’t have one of these on your blog, you need to build one. If no one knows you’re selling advertising space, you’re not going to get any customers.

This page should include pictures of where the adverts will be placed, explain what type of ads you’re selling (e.g. text links, banner ads etc.), and provide a contact box so that would-be advertisers can contact you straight away.

I believe that you should also include the pricing for each advert slot on this page because this can smooth the communication that follows. But if you have confidence in your blog, you could simply say, “Please contact me for details on pricing.”

If you’re happy with your site’s traffic, include those details on the page too. If an advertiser knows how many views they are going to get for the price, that will give them more confidence in purchasing.

Another tip: label the ad spaces that have already been taken up by other businesses. This will show potential advertisers that your site is in demand.

Excellent Advertise With Us pages

What does a great Advertise With Us page look like? Here are a few choice examples: clear and concise pages that will attract a lot of business.

  • Mashable: If you take a look at this page you can see where your advert is going to be placed, what sizes of banner ads are on offer, and how many visitors the site attracts. The only thing not listed is the price of the adverts. For such a large site, that information is unnecessary at this point, since all advertisers know they’d reach a massive audience by advertising with this site.
  • John Chow: The first thing that’s mentioned on this advertising page is the amount of visitors the site gets. Straight away, this gives a potential customer an idea of how much value they can expect to get for their ad placement. Then, the page clearly explains how your advert will be shown—on which articles, and so on. This is a great idea to increase revenue when you are getting a lot of business on your site. It adds advertising spots when your site has physically run out of space.
  • Shoemoney: This is much the same as the other pages, including nice guides on traffic and where your ad will be placed. But this page has a nice twist: it lists all of the popular publications that the author and the blog have been mentioned on. This shows a lot of credibility and proves that the blog is popular.

Price your ad space competitively

It can seem like the biggest decision you are going to make, to decide on your pricing. But don’t spend to long wondering where the threshold is between what advertisers will pay and what is too much.

The best way to decide is to see what other people in your niche are charging and then judge your offering against theirs.

I would recommend going to at least five blogs within your niche, and checking out their ad pricing. Then use tools like Alexa.com and the social proof (amount of comments, Facebook likes, retweets, etc.) those sites are getting to judge how much traffic they are receiving.

Then you can compare those results against yours and make a decision about how much you should be charging for your ad space.

Be prepared to negotiate on price

When advertisers contact you, they usually are happy to pay the price that you have stated on your advertising page. If you haven’t stated a price, or the customer is after a bargain, then they might try and negotiate with you.

Keep in mind from the start the price that you would like to get, and your minimum price.

If you have these figures in mind, you won’t fall into the trap of going lower than you should, and devaluing your advertising space. If this happens, the next time you deal with this person they are going to expect to get the space for the discounted price again.

As you’re negotiating, keep in mind how much work this person is either likely to send you, or has sent you in the past. This is particularly important for deals where the advertiser have already tested out your website, and want to come back to you with a longer term deal.

For example, if they have tested you previously with one or two tweets and paid the full price, and now they want a series of 15-20 tweets, you may decide this is a legitimate reason for them to expect a discount.

Attracting advertisers yourself

Sometimes you think you’ve done everything right. You’ve got plenty of traffic, set up an advertising page … and yet you’re just not getting contacted by anyone.

Well, there are things you can do to attract those elusive advertisers to your blog.

The first one is a passive way to get more advertising customers, but it can be very effective in the long term: do a bit of search engine optimization on your advertising page. If you target the proper keywords, you could get organic traffic from Google specifically comprising advertisers. Perhaps go for the keyword “advertising on a (your niche) blog.” It’s a long-tail keyword, so there probably won’t be too much competition for it, but any traffic you get from it should be advertising gold.

A more immediate approach is to directly email the types of people that you feel would be interested in buying advertising on your blog. First of all, you want to contact any advertisers that have used your blog before. They represent your best chance of immediate business: you know they’re interested in your service, and hopefully they were satisfied with it. You never know—they may be looking for a site to advertise on, but have simply forgotten about you.

If you are just getting to the stage where you think your site is ready for private advertisers, you could consider doing a bit of cold emailing to people who might be interested. Not sure who’d be interested in your ad space? Let me use my blog as an example to explain.

I am in the make money online niche, and to attract new advertisers, I would contact people who have sales pages offering make money systems for sale. Look for pages that are selling products, but products that you think your readers would be interested in.

Once you have found a few sites, and the email addresses of their webmasters, it’s time to send them some tempting emails. Remember while you’re writing the email that you are selling yourself and your site. Sometimes it’s hard to do this—it seems like you’re boasting—but keep in mind that you have a really good blog that can offer quality, targeted traffic for their product. Once you get going talking about how great your blog could be for them, you won’t be able to stop!

The final way of attracting advertisers if you don’t have the time to search out products and send out emails, is to go to a site specifically designed to sell private advertising space, like Buysellads. This website advertises to a wide audience. All you have to do is place your traffic, your advertising options, your site, and your prices into your listing.

They will take a commission on your advertising space, however, so be aware of that. Once you have attracted an advertiser from this site I would heavily recommend contacting them personally so that you can cut out the middleman, and make sure you get all of the money for your advertising space.

Offer a good service

Always keep in mind throughout the whole correspondence what it is you are doing: offering a service. So, to keep your customer satisfied, you must be quick to respond and polite at all times.

I usually start off my first response to a potential advertiser with a sentence like, “Thank you for your interest in my blog.” This shows that you are humble about your accomplishments, and appreciate the advertiser. Someone who feels appreciated will feel much more comfortable contacting you again.

If they ask a question, answer it as clearly and fully as you can, and avoid being sarcastic or patronizing. This is an instant turn-off for anyone, let alone someone who you’re hoping to convince to part with their hard-earned cash.

When they have asked about advertising, send them a list of all of the services you offer on your site, along with the prices so that if they would like to take you up on one of them, they already know what you offer. If you don’t, you’ll create the impression that you aren’t sure what to charge, or that you’re trying to hide something.

Finally, if you do get work from someone, be sure that you can complete it on time and to the standard that they expect. If you under-deliver on any of your projects for them, they will never come back to you.

Make a business partner for the long term

The final goal of any blogger who offers private advertising should be to get advertisers coming back month after month to use your advertising space. The main issue in achieving this will be how much traffic you have sent to their site, but there are some other things you can do to help keep them coming back.

If they have used your site once, email them just before their time is up and ask them if they would like to renew their contract with you. You never know when you might make a recurring customer.

You might also consider offering them a discount if they sign up for a longer term contract. Everyone likes to find a bargain, and if they know you already, and feel confident that you can deliver a good service, they could well be tempted.

The most important thing to remember is that you want to build a relationship with these people. They are the ones who are going to pay for your blogging exploits, and they may well know others who are interested in advertising on your site. If you make a friend in advertising it could open up a world of possibilities for your blog that you don’t want to miss out on.

Do you allow private advertisers on your blog? Share your tips with us in the comments.

This guest post was written by John Burnside a blogger in the make money online niche. If you want to read about earning an income online then please follow his feed.

Written on 10/16/2012 at 6:03 am by

How Small Blogs Became 6-figure Income Generators (and How You Can Do the Same)

Filed Under: Advertising

This guest post is by Patricia Rodriguez of Adsgadget.

From its early beginnings in 1993 to its inevitable rise in the last few years, blogging has become part of our daily lives. Almost everyone has a favorite blog, a blog that they read first thing in the morning while taking the coffee, or a blog they wonder off to after reading the front page of the New York Times.

I’m sure you’re familiar with the names Mashable, The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, LifeHacker, and the like. These are just a few of today’s biggest blogs.

Most people have probably heard, or at least can guess that most of the big names in blogging started in 10×10 dorm rooms, small bedrooms, or a corner in the attic at the family home.

What exactly did these bloggers do to turn a hobby into six-figure income generators and, ultimately, the most visited blogs in the world? Here’s a little insight on some of the biggest blogs on the internet today—and how they got there.

Catching the wave: choosing the right topic at the right time

In 2004, when he was only 19 years old, Pete Cashmore started blogging from his parents’ home in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Pete had an interest in new technologies and how social media was increasingly changing the way people related to one another. he was particularly amazed by how certain government and police websites were combining their in-house data with Google maps to learn information on certain areas and citizens.

Nice little story, right? Pete Cashmore never went to college; instead, he founded Mashable in 2005.

How did he do it? He decided to explore a subject that was changing the world in a time when it was at its peak. Social media exploded in the early 2000s and Pete was there to ride the wave. Not only was he a great writer, he was passionate about what he wrote.

How can you do it? When you start a blog, you do it because you love what you do, because it’s a hobby you like to spend your time on. Don’t lose sight of this just because you’re looking to make a buck. Be passionate through every word you write on your blog. Write about what you like and what you know. And remember that today’s news is what will happen tomorrow.

Pete Cashmore tapped social media networking at a time when it was making its world debut. See what your era has to offer—there are new discoveries and trends springing up every day. It’s all a matter of being here now, being passionate, and writing about it.

The ad factor: Once Pete managed to create a huge community of loyal readers, he went for the big profit makers: advertisements. He subtly included Google AdSense’s banner ads throughout Mashable and reaped his revenues automatically every month.

Now, since creating a site like Mashable is not a simple thing to do, my advice to newbies and beginner bloggers would be to start small. Find self-serve ad platforms that cater to long-tail publishers’ needs. Adsgadget, AOL ads, or Twitter’s new ad platform would be good places to start.

Be cool: the blogger’s guide to creativity

Interactive designer Josh Rubin was always looking for creative inspiration and a better understanding of how people functioned. Ever heard of CoolHunting? It’s one of the biggest blogs on new designer trends, technology, art and culture. It was founded by Rubin.

Originally launched in 2003 as a designer’s reference site, CoolHunting has become an award-winning blog with a huge international audience that’s growing every day.

How did he do it?  He combined creativity, beauty, and a great idea.

For those bloggers who think content is everything, think again. Yes, interesting and fresh content is super-important, but knowing how to present it is just as important.

When visiting CoolHunting, users are greeted by a colorful, visually attractive and engaging home page, full of great photography and designer breakthroughs.

How can you do it? Be visual. No matter what the topic, don’t neglect your blog’s design and aesthetic factor. Yes, write about what you know. Yes, write about a subject that fascinates you. But present it in a way that can’t be ignored, a way that won’t make visitors move their mouse to the upper right corner of their browsers and press on that “x” to close your page.

Let’s say you decide to open a blog on recipes that you have picked up on your worldly travels. Take professional photos and post them on your homepage. Make people go “Wait… What is that? Is that food?!” Include pictures, and step by step instructions with interactive ingredients lists.

Think of new blog visitors as being like yourself the first time you went to your favorite restaurant. Regardless of how you got there, I’m sure the first thing you noticed wasn’t the ingredients written on the menu, but the way the plate looked when they put it on your table.

The ad factor: Josh Rubin got to the point where his site was bursting with organic traffic, so he decided to implement advertising and make the most of his success. When you scroll down Josh’s page you can see fashionable ads from AdRoll or AdMedia servers. These ads are targeted to his specific audience, so you can just imagine how many clicks each one gets.

Have a voice, be aggressive and be ready for criticism

Once upon a time there was a woman called Arianna Huffington. She decided to start a small website called Resignation.com. The website was a call for President Bill Clinton’s resignation and a place for conservatives to mesh together.

Needless to say, you need to be a very opinionated person and have quite a strong voice in order to even think of starting such a website. I’m sure she received her fair share of criticism but carried on nonetheless.

Ever heard of The Huffington Post? It was founded in 2005 by the same person.

How did she do it? By having a voice and not being afraid to shout it.

This is a blog with a very particular tone and a voice of its own. Though sometimes seen as being a bit too aggressive, The Huffington Post presents news in a different light. And people love it.

How can you do it? People like to hear opinionated minds, and they like well-written news with a handful of criticism on the side. They like sassy writing and bold ideas.

Find your blogger voice and shout it out. Don’t be afraid to get criticized. Learn to take in the bad, and spin it your way.

The ad factor: You guessed it—Arianna also opted for ad platforms when she started getting big on the internet. Nowadays she works with Google’s AdSense and DoubleClick platforms.

Advertising: a fast way to turn your hobby blog into a profession

Without a doubt, what pointed these internet enthusiasts in the right direction was their passion for what they were writing. Once they found their voice and attracted a good amount of loyal readers and steady site traffic, they turned to advertising.

Blogging isn’t easy, even when it’s done as a hobby. Turning that hobby into a full-time profession is even harder. It takes time, effort, patience, and most importantly, it takes passion. None of these bloggers started earning overnight. It took them a while before they found their voice and decided to go big and take risks.

All you need is to remember who you are, what you love, and go public with it. You’ll figure out the rest along the way.

Patricia is the PR manager at Adsgadget, a new self-serve ad platform for publishers worldwide. She has years of experience in the online marketing industry and has worked as a content writer for several media outlets.

Written on 9/23/2012 at 6:00 am by

My First AdWords: How to Trial AdWords Promotion for Your Blog

Filed Under: Advertising

This guest post is by Kole McRae of Chilled Soda.

Many of you probably have AdSense on your blog. It’s a great system for monetization, especially for those with smaller blogs but how many of you have been on the other side?

AdWords is the system Google uses for advertising. It’s how you place ads on it’s search engine and on the huge network of sites that use AdSense.

Right now Google is offering $75 free to anyone that wants to try out AdWords. That’s a good chunk of change but it can easily disappear in a day on AdWords and give you nothing to show for it.

So I’ve written this little guide to help you out a bit. I wrote this with a few assumptions in mind: that you know how AdWords works in terms of buying clicks and that you have full control over your site. If you have never heard of AdWords you should probably start here.

I have also assumed you have made an AdWords account. If not, use the link above and make one.

Step 1: Keyword research

The first step to a successful AdWords campaign is research. I know what I’m about to recommend sounds really boring, but not only will it help your AdWords campaign but will also help you understand your niche better.

I want you to take ten minutes and write down every combination of keywords you can think of for your blog. What words do you want people to type in to find your blog. For example:

  • cool tech blog
  • tech news
  • technology news
  • Canadian technology news.

Write them all down and keep going until you just can’t go anymore. You should be able to put together a pretty sizeable list. Next sign into your AdWords account and click on Keyword tool, which is under the Tools and analysis tab. Paste your list into that tool and hit Search. Next, click the Keyword ideas tab.

This will give you a much larger list of keywords (usually in the hundreds or thousands). It also tells you about how many people a month search for those terms and how much competition there is. This can be invaluable data.

Take this new list and download an Excel copy of it. Then take the time to divide the keywords into different groups, or “themes,” and choose which ones to focus on. I’d go over just how to do that but it would take far too long. So I’ll simply suggest using common sense and your own judgement.

Try to find keywords that have low competition, low CPC cost, but high monthly searches. These are called low-hanging fruit. They tend to be the juiciest! Remove any words that are too generic. Single-word keywords that have millions of searches will not be helpful to you.

Another quick tip is to look up your competitors and go to their pages. Then right-click and select View source. Though Google has said they no longer use the Keywords meta tag, some people still fill it up, which might give you even more keyword ideas.

There are many other ways to get even more keyword ideas, so get creative and see what you can find.

You should also look for keywords in your lists that are not relevant at all. These you will want to add to your negative terms list so that people who search those terms don’t see your ad or cost you any money.

The most important thing I can teach you about AdWords is that it is not about getting as many people as possible to your site. It is about getting the right kind of people to your site. So make sure you remove any and all keywords that are not relevant. People searching for Python programming tutorials do not want to learn more about snakes and will only cost you money with no added benefit.

Step 2: Ad copy

Once you have put together your keyword lists and organized them into categories (or “adgroups,” as Google calls them) you need to write ads for each one. I say ads, not ad, because the most important thing you can do with AdWords is rotate and test ads.

I suggest writing two ads for each category or adgroup. Google will automatically rotate these ads and give you stats for both so that you can choose the one that works best for you and test it against an even better one. This means your ads will get steadily better as you test them against each other.

Your ad copy needs to be simple and to the point. Tell people exactly what to expect when they land on your site. Some best practices: Start Each Word With a Capital Letter. It looks weird in an article but in an AdWords ad, it stands out and looks professional. End each line with a period. Don’t cut sentences off halfway through because of character limits.

I’m going to reiterate a point from above. AdWords is about getting quality traffic to your blog, not just getting as many people there as possible. You want people that will become part of your community. This means your ad should be written in a way that will build a community and invite people to join it.

Step 3: Landing page

The final thing I want to talk about is your landing page—the page people land on after they click your ad. The first instinct for a lot of people is to land folks on your home page. This can be a bad idea for two main reasons.

The first is that it can be confusing, especially if your home page is just a bunch of blog posts. People may not know where to begin or what to do.

Secondly, it’s very possible that Google’s AdWords quality algorithm may not understand that your site is relevant based on the page it lands on. It may be searching for instances of “Canadian Tech News” but only find it once on the main blog page, so it will lower your quality score and may not show your ad as many times.

The best practice is to send people to relevant posts and guiding pages for each adgroup. If you have an adgroup for Microsoft technology news, send people to a page specifically about Microsoft that has a bunch of news for it. Or maybe to an About page or a category page. The more specific, the better.

This is only the beginning

I’ve written over 1000 words here and it hardly scratches the surface of AdWords advertising. It fails to mention local searches, conversion tracking, match types and a million other things that go into a proper campaign. The best part? This is all for Google search, I didn’t even bring up the content network.

Which reminds me: I suggest going to your Campaign settings and setting it to Google search only, as this will give you a bit more control over where your site shows up. The content network requires an article all on its own and has a habit of eating up all your advertising money without giving you nearly the quality of traffic the search network gives you. That is, of course, unless you do a lot of research and use it correctly.

Hopefully, I’ve helped you get more out of that $75—and maybe even inspired you to start learning more about advertising on Google in general so you can fully leverage any money you spend on it.

Kole McRae is an Internet Marketer for web design Toronto. He also runs a blog called Chilled Soda, which is about tea, music and all the chill things in life.

Written on 7/26/2012 at 6:09 am by

Facebook Ads or Google AdWords: Which One’s for You?

Filed Under: Advertising

This guest post is by Alexis Thompson.

“The real fact of the matter is that nobody reads ads. People read what interests them, and sometimes it’s an ad.”—Howard Luck Gossage

The goal of advertising is not to gain the most visibility; it is to attract the most attention. The quote above says it all. How many people do you think really read the ads in their entirety? Not many I would say.

However, people do take their time to look further into whatever interests them the most—be it an article, a video, or even an ad. That’s why ads can mean more traffic for your blog.

The question of ad space

Advertising in the search network is totally different from advertising on display networks (that is, on ordinary websites). The former relies on the ads standing out among those of competitors who are also targeting the same keywords. The latter relies on attracting the interest of the websites’ visitors.

Chief among the search advertising platforms is Google AdWords (Note that Google still dominates the search game with nearly two-thirds market share).

Google ads for business courses

Google search advertising

On the other hand, social networks, such as Facebook, have added another dimension to display network advertising. Facebook is considered to be the social network, with nearly a billion accounts worldwide.

Facebook display advertising

There are other platforms but for now, let’s see just how Facebook ads fare against the ads from Google AdWords.

The advertising environment

Assessing the environment in which the ads run in is essential in determining which platform is best for you. Let’s say you’re an ordinary web user who wants to find cool Angry Birds games and information. You search for it in Google using the keyword “angry birds attraction.” Then you see this PPC ad below:

Sample search ad
(Note that this image is not a real advertisement and is intended for illustration purposes only.)

The ad above could be one of many similar ads that would show on Google’s search engine results pages (SERPs). Other companies promoting Angry Birds attractions are likely to bid for the same keyword as well. Google AdWords simply allows businesses to advertise to people who are already looking for a product or service. The ads are shown in response to a certain demand.

Facebook ads, on the other hand, are shown in a different environment from Google ads. They’re shown to people who aren’t exactly looking for a product or service but could be interested in it anyway. In other words, the demand is created by the ad. ON Facebook, ads are shown based on users’ attributes (determined from their profiles and network usage) and the language that’s used in the ad. The image below is an actual Facebook ad about the Angry Birds Cable Car.

Facebook ad

It’s important to note that the differences between these environments reflects the nature of AdWords’ search network ads and Facebook ads. AdWords also offers display network ads. The display network ads show on several partner websites based on the advertiser’s selected preferences.

Ad targeting on each network

Knowing how to target the right group of people using each network is essential if you’re going to spend only what is necessary to reach the right—and the right amount—of users.

Obviously, Google search ads are targeted on the basis of the keywords the user is searching upon, but you can also target users on the basis of other factors I’ll mention in a moment.

Google AdWords’ display network ads can be designed to target users based on their interests—data that’s collected from their user browsing history. So if the users have visited your website before, you can create ads to target those people as they browse through other similar websites. This is called “retargeting” or, on Google, it’s called Google AdWords Remarketing. Here you can set up a list of visitors to target and display your ads for those visitors on various sites on the web.

Facebook, on the other hand, relies on the data provided in their members’ profiles to target the ads you provide.

Both networks let you target ads based on the user’s geographic location, and using other demographic data (such as age and gender) that the networks have collected about users.

Know your goals

Before you can choose an option, you’ll want to list your goals for your advertising campaigns. Is it a short-term goal or a long-term goal? Are you selling a specific product or service, or are you trying to increase your brand awareness?

If your campaign aims to sell something specific, then Google AdWords is your best bet. People use the search engines because they are looking for specific solutions. All you have to do is meet that demand by bidding on the right keywords. Obviously, if you want a quick, short-term solution to your advertising needs, and you’re looking for specific conversion rates, then there’s no doubt AdWords is right where you should be.

If you want to increase your brand awareness and visibility, Facebook may be the way to go. Brand awareness is built by establishing lasting relationships. There’s no better place to do this than in social networks like Facebook, with its multitude of community members. It’s going to take some time, but once those relationships have been established, they’re bound to last longer than the impact you get from tactical, sales-focused ads.

Looking at ROI

How do the networks compare? According to this infographic:

This data reflects the average clickthrough rates for each network over the past couple of years. It would seem that results are stronger for Google ads. I mentioned earlier that brand advertising may better done in Facebook, but that doesn’t mean that it has no benefits when it’s implemented through AdWords. In fact, the total traffic for brand advertising through AdWords can reach up to 89%. Try it for yourself and see what brand advertising does for you—compare the results with your organic SEO.

On the other hand, since Facebook ads have a relatively low CTR, it’s recommended that advertisers aim for increases in comments, Likes, impressions, and active users through this advertising. In the long run, you will be able to build a solid fan base, thereby increasing your brand awareness and, consequently, sales.

Taking these differences into account, let’s try computing for an estimated ROI for both platforms.

For Google ads, let’s assume that there are 150 clicks over a given period, $2.00 is the cost-per-click (CPC), a conversion is worth $50.00, and conversion rate is 10%.

Google Ads ROI = (((Conversion Value x Conversion Rate x Number of Clicks) -
 (Ave. Cost per Click x Number of Clicks)) / Total Cost ) x 100
 = (((45 x 0.10 x 150) - (2 x 150)) / (2 x 150)) x 100
 = $187.50 (125%)

For Facebook ads, let’s assume that we get only a conversion rate of 2% and the CPC is $0.50, but all other factors remain the same.

Facebook Ads ROI    = (((45 x 0.02 x 150) - (0.50 x 150)) / (0.50 x 150)) x 100
 = $120.00 (80.00%)

In this example, we can see that Google ads provide a higher potential ROI than the Facebook ads. Take note that this is only an example and there are other factors that were not included, such as design labor costs for the ads, which you’d want to factor into your own calculations.

What’s the verdict?

At the end of the day, choosing the “best” network really depends on the advertiser’s goals.

By running ads on Facebook, you can cover the social media advertising aspect and effectively increase your brand awareness there. The goal is to generate interest in your business by targeting people that may have a need or want for your products and services in the future.

In addition, if you run ads on Google AdWords, you can target the people who are looking for your products and services at present.

If an integration of both internet marketing platforms can be done, all the better (as is recommended for SEO and PPC integration).

You might think that advertising’s too expensive—but that’s just how advertising is. It’s not bad to be aggressive and to take risks. In fact, taking calculated risks is highly recommended. So start crunching those numbers now and start building your traffic—and your business.

Alexis Thompson is a former Mountain Backpacker, Real Estate Sales Personnel and a 26 year old mother of 2 daughters, Sophie and Rhian. She is into almost all types of Music especially The Fray and Hillsong. She also has a passion in Singing and Scrap Booking. Follow her escapades on her Twitter.

Written on 7/26/2012 at 12:02 am by

Traffic Technique 3: Online Advertising

Filed Under: Advertising

When bloggers think of online advertising, they usually think first of selling it, rather than buying it.

But buying ad space can be a great traffic-generation technique if you’re careful in terms of how you go about it.

There are really two types of advertising—brand advertising, and tactical or action-oriented advertising—and for traffic generation purposes, you’ll probably want to focus on the second type.

Making a traffic-focused ad campaign work depends on a few elements:

  • the audience
  • the ad space
  • the ad
  • what you do with the traffic the ad generates.

Your target audience

Last time, when we looked at content marketing, we saw how important it is to work out who you’re targeting with any traffic-generation strategy since, of course, not all traffic is the right kind of traffic.

So your first step is really to think about who you want to target with your advertising. If your answer is, “well, more of the same people who are visiting my site now,” that’s fine. If you want to target a specific sub-segment of that audience, that’s great too.

The important thing once you’ve identified those people is to work out a key need related to your topic that all of them share—and that your blog solves.

Buying ad space

Now you know who you’re targeting, you need to work out where they gather online. Broadly speaking, we can break down the options into three categories:

  • search engines
  • social media
  • informational websites.

Buying advertising space on search engines can be a great way to ensure that the people seeing your ads have expressed a need in your offer. Your ads will appear alongside search results for the keywords you target (there’s a range of other filters you can select too, like geographic targeting), so the users have already expressed an interest in the need your blog meets.

Buying ad space on social media also targets your ad to the right users—but depending on how closely you select your ad filters, this targeting can be less stringent, which means you could wind up paying for more “wastage” (the amount of ad impressions that are seen by people who aren’t in your target audience).

Also, social media advertising can automatically restrict your ad’s reach, since it only gets seen by users who are subscribed to a particular social media network. Pretty much everyone online uses search engines, but does your target audience use Facebook, LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter … or not?

By buying ad space on an information or entertainment website, you’ll be actively targeting the users of that site specifically. Whereas social media advertising can inadvertently restrict the reach of your message, on-site advertising lets you proactively target your ad’s reach—which is something that you can use to your advantage.

Of course, different sites sell ad space differently. On some, you can buy ad space privately, though the site owner; on others, you’ll go through a network like AdBrite, Kontera, or DoubleClick.

An example of an on-site ad is the in-page Genesis ad we run on ProBlogger. This ad targets ProBlogger users specifically in its headline.

Genesis ad on ProBlogger

So before you buy ad space, it’s important do your research: compare services and costs, and make sure your ads will be seen by as many of the right people as possible.

If you’re looking at buying ad space on an informational or entertainment site, check the rates and if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to speak to the site’s owner (or ad sales rep)—they should be happy to talk with you.

Your ad

You’re in a good place now: you had a target audience and you’ve bought ad space. You’ll have chosen ad ad format, too: when you buy ad space, you’ll need to choose a format, and the format you choose will likely be driven by your budget. If you can’t afford to have a designer create a banner for you, for example, you might opt for text ads until you can afford design expertise.

That’s all good, but before you race off to work up a catchy copy line or cool visual effect for your ad, backtrack to the first thing we discussed in this post:

Work out a key need related to your topic that your target audience shares—and that your blog solves.

For the Genesis ad, we can define the audience as ProBlogger readers who already use WordPress, or don’t mind the idea of using WordPress.

And we can define their need as being something like this:

I need (or want) to do more with my blog.

We could say this about every person who reads this blog. It seems like a pretty general need—what does “do more” mean, exactly?—but the thing is that when you hit on a need like this, in natural language that the readers probably use themselves, you can create an ad that cuts through and really speaks to them.

You can write copy that uses words that respond to that need, like:

  • empowers
  • build incredible websites
  • takes [you] places you never thought [you] could go.

Even the headline no the ad—Problogger.net runs on the Genesis Framework—implies something to our loyal readers: you’re reading ProBlogger because you want to do more with your blog … like Problogger has … and here’s the secret.

To write good ad copy, you need to think about who your target audience is and what they want, understand what your blog could mean to that need, and then tell them.

This will probably be easier for you to do if you have a specific offer to give the people your ad is targeting—like a free report or ebook. You could even make an ad for an especially great blog post on your site that specifically meets a felt need of your target audience.

Also remember that ads tend to be small (much smaller than that Genesis ad, usually!), so short copy is essential. If you’re not great at writing headlines or elevator pitches yet, practice getting better at those as a starting point for creating really engaging copy lines. It’s a good way to learn to hone a message with a small number of powerful words before you start spending money on advertising.

Responding to ad traffic

Even if you’re just starting out with advertising, it’s a good idea to track the return you make on your investment in ad space—whether you’re making money off that traffic or not.

If nothing else, track the return you get on your investment not just in terms of clickthroughs to your site, but in terms of responses to the offer you’ve included in your ad (e.g. downloads, signups, etc.). This will let you improve your ad content—headline, copy, images—over time to get better and better response rates.

Even if you’re not getting a direct return on the investment (for example, selling a product) it’s still worth tracking the return you make for your effort.

If you’re using an ad network of any sort, it will provide you with reports on how your ads are performing—impressions, clicks, and so on. Depending on how you’ve set things up, you may need to combine this data with tracking information from the landing page on your own site to get the full picture of the return you’re making on your investment, and find points upon which you can improve.

The bottom line

The best way to get a feel for online advertising, and what it can do for your traffic levels, is to give it a try. If you can, try a mix of at least search an on-site advertising through an ad network; if you want to go further, give private (or negotiated, non-network) advertising and social advertising a shot. In all cases, test and track your results so that you can improve your ad’s impact over time.

Later today, that’s exactly what we’ll be looking at, in a post that compares search and social advertising, and breaks down the numbers to help you choose which one’s right for you. But for now, let’s here about your adventures in advertising for traffic generation. Share your tips and advice with us in the comments.

Written on 7/4/2012 at 6:02 am by

Social Media Advertising: Should Bloggers Bother?

Filed Under: Advertising

This guest post is written by Lior Levin.

Social media has proven its worth as a networking tool and a means of raising brand awareness, but the future of sites like Facebook and Twitter depend on convincing brands that that it’s worthwhile to invest in advertising on their sites in addition to interacting with customers.

Ads on Facebook usually appear in the right column, though Facebook has been experimenting with more socially-based ads that show up in the streams of users. With its simpler interface, Twitter relies on promoting tweets that show up in the tops of users’ update streams.

No one has any doubts about the value of social media marketing through engaging customers, running promotions, and creating company pages. The majority of doubts surround the ROI and overall value of paying to advertise on social networks.

Many brands are still engaged in social media advertising, and the data available changes from year to year. However, for bloggers, it can be difficult to decide whether social media advertising is worth it.

Here are a few of the current advantages and disadvantages of using social media sites for your advertising campaigns.

Advantages of social media advertising

Social helps campaigns go viral

According to Kelsey Jones of the Social Robot, “Companies and organizations can experience a large swell of website visitors, new customers, or Facebook fans all within a single day, depending on the effectiveness of their ads. This type of viral activity can be great for events and product launches.”

Brands are satisfied with the level of engagement

There’s no doubt that the right campaign can make a huge difference in driving visitors to a website. This spike in traffic for some major brands makes social media advertising worth considering.

The Wall Street Journal reports that “Companies that have bought Twitter ads generally say they are happy with the percentage of people who click on their ads or circulate them to other Twitter users. But marketers also say these ads haven’t proven they can convert people into paying customers.”

Disadvantages of social media advertising

The cost for national advertising campaigns is prohibitive

Kelsey Jones writes at Performancing, “For some targeted campaigns, competition can be very high, leading to high rates for clicks on social media ads or sponsored tweet impressions (views). For certain industries, the cost to run a viral campaign of this magnitude can be significant, up to thousands of dollars per day.”

While the cost of social media advertising can be quite steep for national campaigns, running an effective social media campaign through a free account on social media can produce similar results if managed properly. The opportunity to engage users through a free account may make it hard to justify the cost of Facebook or Twitter ads.

Social advertising can be perceived negatively

Unlike ads in magazines or on television, ads on social networks may prove to be ineffective or even a liability for brands, as customers may view them as an unwelcome intrusion.

One Forrester analyst mentioned to Bloomberg that injecting ads into a social platform is like interrupting a conversation among friends in order to attempt a sales pitch.

In fact, ads on a social network may be perceived as completely counter to what users are trying to accomplish. Some suggest that the success of social advertising hinges on whether brands can identify the purchasing intent of users and find the perfect point to introduce an ad into their social experience.

The ROI is difficult to measure on social media

Sean Jackson, the CFO of CopyBlogger, suggests that for all of the talk about being unable to measure the ROI of social media marketing in general, businesses should not be dismayed. Jackson says, “An investment is an asset that you purchase and place on your Balance Sheet. Like an office building or a computer system. It’s something you could sell later if you didn’t need it any more. Marketing is an expense, and goes on the Profit and Loss statement.”

Whether or not you agree with Jackson’s statement, the constant challenge of all marketing efforts over the years has been determining their ROI.

Is it worth it?

Social media advertising will undoubtedly produce greater brand awareness and user engagement with your brand, but the real risk is that brands may need to designate significant funds to their marketing efforts without necessarily receiving a guarantee that they’ll work.

That is a significant risk to take, but as brands seek to reach customers, we’ll see ongoing innovation among advertisers on social media platforms.

What do you think of social advertising? Have you tried it—or seen it? Let us know your take on these new ad media in the comments.

This guest post is written by Lior Levin, a marketing consultant for pre shipment inspection companies located in China and Latin America, and who also consults for a psd to html conversion company.

Written on 4/25/2012 at 6:02 am by

Google Publisher Toolbar—a Must-have for AdSense Publishers

Filed Under: Advertising

This guest post is by Kevin Muldoon of WordPress Mods.

Google AdSense has been in the news a lot over the last month, for all the wrong reasons. Many top AdSense publishers such as Zac Johnson and Spencer Haws have had their accounts banned and their last month of earnings withheld. And Google won’t give a specific reason as to why any particular account—including either of these—has been banned.

Despite its critics, Google AdSense remains a reliable source of income for many bloggers and website owners across the world. Earlier this year, the developers released a tool that helps you check your earnings more easily and track the performance of your ad zones. The AdSense Publisher Toolbar is an official Google Chrome extension that adds a publisher toolbar to your Chrome browser. It also adds an overlay to your advertisements so that you can see exactly how they have been performing.

I’m surprised that Google hasn’t been promoting this extension more heavily as, in my opinion, it’s vital for anyone who makes money online using Google AdSense.

The Publisher Toolbar

Google publisher toolbar

Google publisher toolbar

Once you’ve installed the extension in your Chrome browser, you will see an AdSense icon at the top right-hand side of your browser (to the right of your address bar). Once you have authorised the extension to log in to your Google account on your behalf, clicking on the icon will display a menu that shows your AdSense earnings. (Note: I’m not 100% sure of Google’s policy of displaying earnings etc., so I’ve used its screenshot instead of taking one of my account.)

At the top of the box you can see today’s earnings, yesterday’s earnings, earnings this month, and earnings from last month. The bottom half of the box shows your top five performing custom channels and top Five performing URL channels. Your lifetime earnings via Google Adsense are also shown at the bottom of the box.

The Publisher Toolbar was obviously not developed as a replacement for checking your stats through the main Google AdSense website, however it’s perfect for anyone who wants to quickly check how their AdSense websites are performing without logging into the main site.

The in-site ad overlay

The second, and arguably its most useful, feature of the Google Publisher Toolbar is the in-site ad overlay. Once you’ve installed the toolbar and signed into your account, the extension will place an overlay over all Google Adsense and DoubleClick advertisements on your websites.

When you load one of your website pages, your Google Adsense advertisement will be displayed as it normally would.

The ad overlay

The ad overlay

Then, a second or so after the page has loaded, the ad overlay will be displayed. The overlay places a see-through black box over all of your AdSense advertisements. The name of the ad zone is displayed at the top of the overlay, and at the bottom you can see how much that particular zone has made today, yesterday, and over the last seven days.

Comparing performance between days

Comparing performance between days

What does this all mean?

In a nutshell, it means that when you are browsing your websites you can quickly see which ad zones are performing well today, yesterday, and over the last week. I’ve found this to be a really useful tool when optimizing the ad positions of my Google AdSense ads, as it highlights which zones are under-performing and which zones are making the most money.

The great thing about this feature is that you can see the performance of each ad zone while you are browsing your website—you don’t need to log in to some external location to view your performance.

If you make money online using Google Adsense, I encourage you to try Google Publisher Toolbar out as it makes checking stats a breeze. Unfortunately, the extension is currently only available for Google Chrome but hopefully in the future we will see this available for other browsers such as Opera, Fireox, Safari, and Internet Explorer.

Kevin Muldoon is a Scottish webmaster and blogger who currently lives in South America. His labour of love is WordPress Mods; a blog which focuses on WordPress Themes, Plugins, Tutorials, News, Modifications.

Written on 9/9/2011 at 12:06 am by

13 Ways for Bloggers to Make Money with Advertising

Filed Under: Advertising, Featured Posts

Recently, I posted my “How bloggers make money MindMap” on Google+. I’ve had a few people ask for clarification around the Advertising section, and what all the options there mean. Here’s a summary:

1. Ad networks

These are services like AdSense and Chitika but also smaller or more local ones like NuffNang (which operates out of Australia and Asia). They can probably fit in some of the other categories as well, as they use different models to deliver their ads.

2. Cost Per Impression (CMP)

This is where you sell space for an ad and get paid based upon how many times it loads. Usually you get paid per 1000 impressions of the ad. The rate varies a lot, depending upon topic. There are lots of very low, “remnant” ad networks out there that pay you a pittance per impression, but if you have a higher value niche you can get better money. I’ve been paid up to $40 per 1000 impressions.

3. Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)

These ads pay out only when someone takes some kind of action after clicking the ad. The action might be a sale but could also be them signing up for a service, leaving an email address, etc.

4. Cost Per Click (CPC)

This is what AdSense used to be: every time someone clicked your ad, you’d get a certain amount. Now AdSense do a combination of CPC and CPM ads—they mix them in.

5. Sponsorships

This is what I do on ProBlogger. I sell ad spots on a month-by-month basis to sponsors for a fixed amount per month.

6. Text links

When you sell a text link on your site, the person buying the link is usually doing it for search engine ranking purposes. As a result, Google frowns on these and you could be risking your own search rankings by doing it. I don’t do this, as I see it as a little too risky, but some bloggers still do. Proceed with caution.

7. Pay per post

Also known as sponsored posts (advertorials), this is where you’re paid to review a product or to promote it in a post. Bloggers have varied ethical stances on this. Generally these days you are required to disclose that you’re being paid for the post.

8. Job board/classifieds

If you operate in a niche where people are buying and selling products or there are jobs that people want to advertise this can be a nice source of income. You need to be able to attract both advertisers and those they want to see the ads to make it work, though—so you need traffic and profile.

9. Newsletter advertising

This is a growing area for me. Some advertisers love to have their brand included in emails that you send to readers. We find bundling some onsite sponsorship banner ads with inclusions in our newsletter is a good way to sell space to advertisers.

Some ad networks (like AdSense) have ways of doing this but you can also sell sponsorships in your RSS feed directly. We use a WordPress plugin called RSS Footer to add an advertisement in the RSS feed of ProBlogger.

Here are a few more ideas that I should add to the mindmap…

Ad networks like Kontera offer these, and I think Chitika and a few others do, too. They are ads that appear in your posts, turning certain keywords into little ads (they usually change the color of the word and/or underline it to make it look like a link). When someone hovers over the word a little ad pops up with a description of a product that they can buy. Some bloggers find these ads convert well, but others find them intrusive.

12. Video advertising

If you publish videos, you might be interested in Youtube’s integration with AdSense, which allows you to earn money from ads that appear in your videos.

13. Image ads

Yesterday +Scott Fitzgerald alerted me to ImageSpace Media, who have a system that adds advertisements into your images. These are similar to the ads you might see in Youtube videos that pop up and that can be minimized.

There are of course other typs of ads and ads that fit into multiple categories above. What types do you use, if any?