I bought 3 banners (ad spaces) on 3 forums for $170

[msulcs]

Lately, I've been looking for new places to advertise one of my websites, and I thought to give a try on buying banner ads.

I myself am blind to ads and banners, so I didn't have high hopes about them, but I thought I'd give it a try, since my product is about SEO, and I had the opportunity to buy ad spaces on 3 forums about SEO and online marketing.

On May 6 I launched ads (banners 728x90) on all 3 websites.

I spent $170,10 on 3 ads. They'll be shown for a month, 10K impressions each. That's 30K impressions TOTAL.

The month is almost up. I've got 28743 impressions so far and the results are... TERRIBLE!
I probably could improve the banner design and all, but for $170 and 30'000 impressions, the click count is just ridiculous.

Here are the stats:

From 28,7K impressions, I received only 52 clicks!!! Which is only 0,18% CTR.

The results from each website vary. The best CTR is 0,27% and the worst is 0,11%.

This has been one of the worst investments I've ever made. But if I wouldn't risk it, I wouldn't ever know.

Maybe my banner ad looks like shit (I don't think it does), and maybe the CTR would have been better by testing different designs.

I did, however, make a huge mistake by not adding my own affiliate tag so I could track sales. So I have no idea if I made any sales from these 52 clicks. Next time I won't make such a mistake.

 

[Graybeard]

1. The effect of backlinks that are contrived is very unstable
2. We spent over $2,000 advertising on some major adult webmaster forums -- it was also a fail. Very low CTR but we got a few new webmaster affiliates; @ $700 per signup; we tried and lost ... In the end it was our product I think ... A dated and an over competitive market. Take that for what it is worth.

 

[msulcs]

1. The effect of backlinks that are contrived is very unstable
2. We spent over $2,000 advertising on some major adult webmaster forums -- it was also a fail. Very low CTR but we got a few new webmaster affiliates; @ $700 per signup; we tried and lost ... In the end it was our product I think ... A dated and an over competitive market. Take that for what it is worth.

I believe there are better ways to spend advertising money than banners. In fact, now I know for sure.

 

[Graybeard]

B2B marketing success is all about branding, market acceptance, brand trust and brand reputation, IMO. Most of these are earned values --marketing's purpose is to create earned value in the buyer's mindset.

Banners and other display advertising do serve a purpose -- brand and product awareness in the market.

As they say: "One picture is worth a million words" < in context meaning you have to be seen to become known. So, display advertising is of some real value. The undefined "*intrinsic value*"

However, in a cash on cash ROI basis of some product purchase in a B2B market --I think you will be disappointed ...
Our goal was a contest entry to an affiliate program with $10,000 in prizes. Not cash on cash but affiliate acquisition in a very competitive market. There was no direct cash cost just time --design a whitelabel as an entry.

Why did it fail:

• The contest judging was not transparent.
• The contest was judged internally by company officers subjectively and had the appearance of being rigged. I protested this policy.
• The CEO made this decision -- the contest failed -- and I was proven right.
  
• The participants in the contest all should have voted on the best 3 designs (excluding their own design of course)
  
• Remember what I said above about transparency (brand reputation) and trust?

This is a concrete example. People want fairness in any B2B offer.

Unless you are the dominant incumbent, Google Ads as an example, you cannot make an arrogant a take-it-or-leave it offer --you have to be fair with a give and take in your B2B offer.

And I am not talking about the cheapest price here. That means little as pricing can change with little or no notice at the will of the seller --truth I have seen this happen many times and seen sales prices, commission payouts along with terms change at will with little or immediate notice many times.

Integrity, reputation and financial stability and most importantly reliability matter foremost in B2B business.
That is not to say that the newcomer, or disrupter, cannot succeed in capturing a market share --just that he must reach out to these market touchpoints to corral a share of his market.