Is Pay-Per-Click The Only Way to Get Traffic?
The 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.
But just suppose for a moment that you
could get targeted traffic without jumping into the "bidding wars". I tried
to break free recently when I was promoting a new e book.
I thought that I'd try something a bit
different, so I ran an advert trial using two well-known PPC sites and
one that did not rely on keyword bidding at all, that is, using three sites
in all.
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 is what happened....
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. 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
One of a series of articles by Robert Hartness,
successful freelancer 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
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