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Is Pay-Per-Click Advertising Still The Only Alternative?
By Robert HartnessThe popularity of pay-per-click advertising shows no sign of falling, but it's a lot more expensive than it used to be. There was a time when you could keep your listing at the number one slot for cents - now you have to shell out dollars. It's a question of supply and demand. More and more people furiously bid for the coveted number one postion.
Things are different now though and the cost of clicks is often measured in dollars rather than cents. Also, it's developed into an arcane art-form that requires hours of careful study by keyword trial and error. Not only that, a small fortune can be so easily frittered away by the eager, uninitiated entrepreneur.
First let's get a few things straight. Pay-Per-Click traffic websites like Google or Kanoodle can be expensive for the average user. This is due to using keywords that are certainly relevant, but that bring in visitors who are only casually interested in the item being sold. Moreover, the costs are climbing all the time as those desperate to sell their products compete with one another to pay ridiculous amounts, say $3-8 for the possibility of converting a click into sale.
Yes, pay-per-click is a step ahead of blind blanket advertising, but the rising costs force busy web marketers to consider other ideas too. At least, that's my view. Especially when there are alternatives that have ditched keywords in favor of targeted traffic from a network of sites.
That is how Have Traffic is independent of the use of keywords - no more head-to-head bidding wars with your competitors.
This third advertising service did NOT depend on keywords and pay per click techniques. It's a form of advertising known as "contextual advertising". My ads were shown on a network of sites instead of as the result of query on a search engine. Here are the results....
First, for the Google traffic, my average cost per click was 45 cents for the range of different keywords I was bidding on. I received a total of 449 visitors and 1 order. I also received 20 sign-ups to my newsletter providing a sign-up conversion rate of around 4.4% and ROI of 43%
Kanoodles's traffic was disappointing although much cheaper. I actually received 1523 visitors for my $200 investment. This works out at less than 8 cents a visitor for the same keywords. But the campaign resulted in zero sales an only 2 sign-ups to my newsletter...not good!
Have Traffic was the real surprise package.
I received 1,000 visitors for my $200 and actually received 3 sales and 46 subscribers to my newsletter. The actual return on my investment was a 135% plus I received 46 leads with which to follow-up
Only one of my three campaigns even broke even and that one only earned 135% ROI. I obviously need to optimize everything a bit better and then I could at least get a profitable return from both Google and Have Traffic. It really looks like Kanoodle is a bust no matter what I do. I it's a shame. In the distant past, I could count on decent traffic from them.
I guess it's possible that the results may have been different if I had used different keywords for the campaigns
But overall, this test shows that it is still possible to find cost effective pay-per-click advertising. You just have to look harder (sometimes at unexpected sources) and optimize your ad copy quite a bit more than was necessary in the past for even solid known good sources of traffic like Google.
About the Author:
An article by Robert Hartness, successful freelance photographer and author of Cash From Your Camera which offers a step-by-step guide to those on the threshold of freelance photography and is illustrated with 40+ published photographs. Acclaimed as a great reference source for serious freelancers. Please visit http://www.cashfromyourcamera.com for more information