Where would you suggest the places to advertise on with the best ROI?

WebHost's, now's the time to tell us some of your secret money making avenues....

In short, I would like to spend $5,000 over a few months?, just need some good niche places (not Google Adwords, Overture-type sites)... (anyone who has a popular webmaster related site here, you know who to contact.. :)

I tried spending $1000 weeks ago on Google Adwords and Overture and another $1000 on a niche (webmaster) site. I found that the niche webmaster site gave me a much higher ROI/signup. So if you know or have any good webmaster sites, please list them here....

Walk down the street and start handing out $5 bills to people wrapped in a little piece of paper with your domain on it. If nothing else I doubt it's been done before.

-Matt

Maybe Google AdClicks?

I've heard bad things about AdClicks

Do I hear AOL? ;)

Originally posted by RackNine
Walk down the street and start handing out $5 bills to people wrapped in a little piece of paper with your domain on it. If nothing else I doubt it's been done before.

-Matt

Is that $5000.00, US or Aussie $$ ?

Run a print campaign in a highly targetted publication like HostingTech?

<<Mod Note>>Signatures need to be set up in your profile.

Originally posted by universal2001
I tried spending $1000 weeks ago on Google Adwords and Overture and another $1000 on a niche (webmaster) site. I found that the niche webmaster site gave me a much higher ROI/signup . . .
That's a definate misconception that spending $$ on promotion has to lead to a positive ROI. You really need to ask yourself why you want to spend this $$$ on promotion and what you expect in return from this investment.

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
That's a definate misconception that spending $$ on promotion has to lead to a positive ROI. You really need to ask yourself why you want to spend this $$$ on promotion and what you expect in return from this investment.

I think a distinction should be made between advertising and marketing. Promotion falls more under marketing, which can include anything you do for name recognition, brand awareness, brand building, public relations, etc.

The goal of advertising should be to sell. Like Bob said, what do you expect from this $5,000? If you want local brand recognition, you could get one of those huge roadside signs on your local highway professionally designed, installed, and pay for the first 6 months rent. (going by pricing in my area) If you expect to make back your $5,000 right away, then that's a bad idea.

If you are talking about advertising, I believe you should look for a positive ROI. But, you should adjust it out to the lifetime value of the account. If you spend $5,000 to get $3,000 worth of one time sales, that's just not going to work. Since you are selling hosting, you should calculate what a customer is worth to you lifetime. If you can spend $5,000 and you get only $800 in immediate sales but the lifetime value of those accounts is greater than $5,000, then you are on the right track.

Asking for where to advertise is great, but you should also test your ads for effectiveness and I think Google adwords is a good place to do that. Why not run more ads in the area that worked for you already? Was the ROI not good enough?

i am assuming that he cant spend all the money in that one place. also, if the site is a community with largely repeat visitors, it can be lead depleted within a few months.

i *suggest* making deals with niche sites whereby their members would get a discount or a promotional advantage. the site owner knows how to put the proposition best to his visitors and carries more credibility. naturally, the owner will have to be compensated with a flat fee as would be the case for traditional banner or text ads.

paul

Try some slashdotting (Slashdot.com)

Greetings,

If you can afford around US$ 6-7K , I would recommend Commission Junction (www.cj.com). Thats the best you can get out of your dollar.

Bests,
Amir Golestan

and how is he going to compete with companies that offer $40-50 commissions on $7/mo accounts?

paul

Greetings,

There are many publishers who are looking for extra money, doesn't matter 20 or 60, as long as they can get paid for each sales being made through them. Also he doesn't necessary need to offer flat fee. I believe he can still be competitive by offering one time 80-100% commission per each sales. For long term its very profitable. He pays the publisher 7 buck for the sale and thats it. The client might stay with him for 8-12 months, who knows.

Bests,
Amir Golestan

amir,

you are missing the point. publishers can sell hosting for a much higher commission than anyone in their right mind would offer (read: anyone who doesnt plan to build up a huge clientbase and sell out). no publisher i know would pick a percentage of $7/mo over an $40-50 flat fee payable immediately (and neither would i in their shoes).

paul

I heard that cj was not accepting new hosting companies at the moment - but not sure if that is true or not.

and how is he going to compete with companies that offer $40-50 commissions on $7/mo accounts?

The breakeven at $40/sale @ 7$/month on a contribution margin basis is only 6 months. Everything beyond that is positive contribution. On top of that - if each customer refers 1 other customer - the returns are much higher. An attractive ROI at $40 commission is easily possible.

The main attraction of CJ though is the size of their advertiser base. At $40 a sale - many people are attracted to join the affiliate base - many will not bring sales, but they do bring a large coverage of sites 'recommending' the host - which is cumulative in terms of branding impact & impact on sales from other channels.

Take a look across the web - there are a multitude of 1 or 2 page sites that pretend to be "review" sites with top10 recommended hosts - the top 10 being a direct mapping to the commission scale of said hosts in CJ. This can only have a very positive marketing impact on the hosts offering the large incentives.

Come the revolution this will all be the first up against the wall - but until then - a high affiliate payout on CJ looks like a winner.;)

If he's ok paying 6x's monthly cost to gain customers at CJ, he could just buy customers outright. Why not buy $5,000 worth of customers every month?

I suggest you can pay for editorial space in a local paper for a weekly column so you can keep us up to date with your current opinion of dedicatednow/pwebtech

- they are bad
- they are good
- they are bad
- they are good

sort of thing - you can alternate each week.

Best of luck :)

You can paypal it to me. I can help you make use of the money :) Generally, we don't do much advertising and promotion. Google is a waste of money unless you do really targetted advertising. We throw a bit of money here and there, and frankly, none of them really works very well.

Originally posted by Aussie Bob
That's a definate misconception that spending $$ on promotion has to lead to a positive ROI. You really need to ask yourself why you want to spend this $$$ on promotion and what you expect in return from this investment.

Wise words :)

If you give the money to me, I can guarantee you $4000 in sales. :)

I actually think the question was a good one, but I dont really see any real answers :)

I agree with setting goals, and what you wish to achieve etc etc.. but sometimes you just need to go out and spend some money, see how things go...

There are a lot of web developer / web master sites around, that are small enough for your budget, and willing to customise things just for you.

Id take a look around, and ask some sites whether or not they have a newsletter, how many subscribers, and what they would charge for a couple of ads inside the newsletter.

I remember running a small ad on a free web template site, which worked really well... so I build my own free web template site, so i wouldnt have to pay for advertising :)

Places like that are usually strapped for cash, and willing to trade a couple of hundred dollars here and there for mentions in newsletters and so forth.

Alternatively, you can try more niche markets, like programming sites, i.e. www.hotscripts.com, or www.devarticles.com

Need to recognise your customer base very well, i.e. are they novice users, are they real tech heads, are they simply web masters with their own sites, or are they web developers with multiple clients.. then make an offer / ad for that specific market, and chase it. If they're novices, beginners etc.. maybe tayloring a "Beginners Package" thats cheap, simple to use, comes with tutorials, free setup etc etc.. running ads on SitePoint for example..

otherwise, lets say your customer base is relatively techie, lotsa programmers, php gurus etc.. taylor your offer to that market, tell them all the different stuff they get, MySQL database, PHP, a list of the PHP modules and so forth.. then go get some ads on Devarticles, or inside the newsletter (newsletters seem to work better from what ive used)...

get inside your customers head, then get inside their inbox :)

With 5k, you could easily do a pretty decent sized campaign and try and hit potential customers from mroe than one angle.. theyd see you in their inbox, then on a site they visit, then on Google.. not only are you improving your brand.. but you're also meeting the 7 rule (customer is more likely to purchase when theyve heard or seen a product at least 7 times).

Above all, track everything... and keep a close eye on what is working and what isnt.. sometimes you may sign up 2 web developers, but 5 web masters.. which is worth more? Most would say the 5 web masters obviously, but I would say the 2 web developers.. why? because web developers have clients. And they grow their business like every other business. If theyre happy with what you offer, then more than likely, they'll put every client they got with you, just cause its a whole lot easier managing all their clients with the one company...

Good luck :)

Hunt down Jim at amusive.com, he's a member of these boards. He has a couple good webmaster oriented sites that might do you well.

Have anyone tried http://listings.looksmart.com, I had some pretty ok ROI on a different product I was selling.

However, I had to spend alot to see a good outcome.

I'd be willing to print an ad on a t-shirt and wear it around the city for only half of that :D

i've seen excellent returns from slashdot in the past with previous companies, may be worth trying for your product.

If you are looking for webmaster-related sites; try some of the larger IT info companies like CNet.com, Internet.com, and IDG.com. All may have opportunities that match a $5K+ budget.

Originally posted by Amdac
I'd be willing to print an ad on a t-shirt and wear it around the city for only half of that :D

Damn, I was going to suggest that. :-)

Brian

We have had great luck with buying leads and calling on them. Most people are so grateful to talk to a real person that they are willing do dump their accounts they just paid an annual fee for and sign up again.

We have used many different sources for leads, but so far the best ones came from DomainNameData.com.

After calling over 600 leads, I have only got my butt chewed out once. We spend a few hundred bucks a month, but I always exceed my quota since we started this method.


BDenver
WebBizNow@yahoo.com

Tophosts.com

re: tophosts...

naah it's no good. give a try and search

Originally posted by IntraHost
Hunt down Jim at amusive.com, he's a member of these boards. He has a couple good webmaster oriented sites that might do you well.

I agree. Hunt me down and send me money ;)

I really don't recommend buying ads on a large site... at least last time I checked out ratecards they want around 10-50 times the actual value of their adspace. I remember LinkExchange used to want $10 CPM for banners that appear who-knows-where, anywhere on the page. Then they raised their prices!

Your best bet is finding smaller sites and advertising on them directly. You can probably buy adspace for $2-$3 CPM on a fairly targeted run; maybe less, depending on what you're advertising. You'll probably also get better results.

I assume you're selling webhosting, there's tons of sites that get small webmasters that probably would love to get a couple bucks cpm (again, maybe even less). If they list a ratecard saying their space is more, email or call them and tell them what it's worth. It's a buyer's market in advertising.

If you're going for large sites I'd recommend script sites over webhosting directories. I can't imagine webhost directories converting very well -- people there are going to be comparing you to many other places. Heck, if they compare, isn't it enough just to be in the index itself?

Your best bet is finding smaller sites and advertising on them directly. You can probably buy adspace for $2-$3 CPM on a fairly targeted run; maybe less, depending on what you're advertising. You'll probably also get better results.

I recommend www.geekvillage.com/forums ;)

I've been chewing at the $5,000 WhenU minimum campaign bit. Dying to see how it pays out. Apparently it did VERY well for dot5hosting.

For those who don't know, WhenU is the spyware installed with Kazaa. Pops up when you visit a related site. You can make a wishlist of 100 domains where your ad will popup on. The targeting is amazing. Keep your enemies closer...

What a fantastic idea, advertising on scumware...

Go for the independent sites it would be cheaper and it will be more profitable for you.

Regards,

I'd give webmaster resources and hostign directories a try - the most targeted traffic - due to the fact that there are dozens of directories out there you can actually find some great bargains.

Before you go and commit to a media buy, you may want to get your site analyzed for usability and how well it converts.
If you can increase the ease of purchase and lower the number of abandoned checkouts first, your advertising dollars will go much further.

If you display your company URL, I would be more than happy to give you a few suggestions.

Regards,
Chad
TopHosts.com