One of the benefits of paid advertising is that you can test out a venue and your ads very quickly. In some cases, you can have traffic flowing to your site literally within minutes or an hour of placing an ad.
So where are the best places to take out these sorts of ads?
Here’s my list—you can test these out to see how well they work for you…
Niche Websites and Newsletters
Some of the most targeted traffic you can get is by advertising directly on niche sites or in their associated newsletters.
Here’s how to find these opportunities:
- Ask your partners and colleagues if they offer advertising on their sites. You can ask even if they don’t specifically solicit advertising. Ask about ads on their blogs, other pages of their websites, their social media pages, and their newsletters.
- Search Google for your niche keywords followed by words such as “advertising.” For example:
- Organic gardening advertising
- Organic gardening banner ads
- Organic gardening ad submissions
- Organic gardening ad opportunities
- Organic gardening place an ad
And here are tips for making the most of these opportunities:
- Ask about demographics. You want to be sure your ad and this market are good fit.
- Ask where the traffic is coming from. Here you want to be sure it’s targeted, qualified traffic.
- Start small. If the test goes well, then you can reinvest your money and take out a bigger ad buy.
For example, if you’re placing a solo ad in a 50,000 member newsletter, you might send out a small test to 5000 or 10,000 of the subscribers first. If that goes well, you can send an ad to the rest of the subscribers.
Next venue…
Facebook is powerful advertising platform simply because you can really hone in on a very targeted market.
Use the ad editor to drill down by:
- Gender
- Age
- Location
- Interests/hobbies
You can even show your ad to people who exhibit specific behaviors.
For example, if you’re selling an app, then you might decide to only show your ad to those who access Facebook on a mobile phone.
Next…
Google AdWords
The idea behind this platform is that you bid on keywords, and whenever someone types those keywords into Google your ads will show.
For best results, choose longtail keywords. That’s because these keywords are more specific and tell you what people want.
Let’s take the example of the niche keywords “organic gardening.” If someone types that into a search engine, you have no idea what they want.
Perhaps they want:
- The definition of organic gardening.
- A full blown tutorial on organic gardening.
- The benefits of organic gardening.
- The history of organic gardening.
- An organic gardening supplies store.
And so on. You just have no idea.
That’s why you’ll want to use very specific keywords, such as:
- Organic gardening tutorial
- How to get rid of aphids organically
- Organic gardening plant diseases
- Organic gardening pest recipes
And so on. The more specific your keywords – and the more these keywords match what you’re offering – the better results you’ll get.
And finally…
Ad Brokers
This is where you go to a third-party site, one that matches publishers with advertising. One example is BlogAds.com.
These sorts of sites can be hit and miss. That’s why you’ll want to run careful tests and do small ad buys before you invest larger sums of money into this type of advertising.
Closing Thoughts
Sometimes it’s easier to do a two-step advertising strategy. So instead of directly advertising a paid product, what you do instead is advertise a lead magnet.
You then get people on your list, which gives you an opportunity to follow up with them and close the sale.