Question about uniques/advertising value

[NaturalBornHustler]

So I am looking at local advertising for my business, and we have a local blog/newsletter thing that I was checking into.

http://parkville.patch.com/

That is just my immediate area, they have about 6 other sites along the same lines for communities within 10 miles or so from me.

Lady called me and she said they had about 20k unique for the home page a month, and a small ad with minimal graphics would be about $115 a month.

Is that in line or reasonable?? The ads go all the way up to $600 a month, but she said the expensive ones are for the inside pages because they get more traffic through links and facebook and things like that.

[danzo]

20k unique a month is quite a bit. Fair price. If the ad doesn't convert, just cancel it the next month.

[SrslySirius]

I've always considered CPM advertising (cost per thousand impressions, rather than cost per click) to be a gamble. If the click through ratio is low, you're getting ripped off. If it's high, you get a bargain. With CPC there are no such surprises, you get exactly what you pay for.

Anyway, since you only know the number of unique visitors (rather than overall impressions), it's hard to say what the CPM even is. Worst case scenario, it's about 5. Whether or not that's a good deal depends on a bunch of things too, such as your product, how relevant the site is to your business, and of course the CTR. There's a lot of ads squeezed in there, which isn't going to help.

I'd suggest you try it out for a month and see how many clicks you get. Then calculate the average cost per click, and compare that to a campaign on AdWords. Google AdWords has some nice tools for estimating campaign costs, and you can target your ads for keywords and specific regions.

EDIT: This is from on online marketing perspective, where only clicks matter at the end of the day. Since you're advertising a local business, there may be value in brand awareness, which you can't really measure. I wouldn't know much about that.

[WillieMcFML]

that's pretty expensive

depending on your type of business, you could get top placement in your area on a site like yp.com or yellowbook for about the same price

[NaturalBornHustler]

Thanks for the responses.

I am a landscape contractor, so my business is very localized and it would mainly be for brand awareness and not click through to my site. Website is still under construction, mainly looking for new local clients that would call. I have never really had to advertise online so I had no idea if 20k was a lot or what.

Probably gonna give it a 3 month run and see what happens.

I have blown $345 on dumber things before many times. Honestly if I got just 3 new customers it would be worth it to me, because my clients are very rarely one shot deals it is various recurring service 90% of the time.

[Belly Buster]

If you go for this, get google analytics set up first before getting any advertising. Then you can see how many click throughs you are getting and get a better idea if the advertising is worthwhile or not.

[curt8105]

Thanks for the responses.

I am a landscape contractor, so my business is very localized and it would mainly be for brand awareness and not click through to my site. Website is still under construction, mainly looking for new local clients that would call. I have never really had to advertise online so I had no idea if 20k was a lot or what.

Probably gonna give it a 3 month run and see what happens.

I have blown $345 on dumber things before many times. Honestly if I got just 3 new customers it would be worth it to me, because my clients are very rarely one shot deals it is various recurring service 90% of the time.

What type of advertising do you do offline? If you're looking for brand recognition radio ads could help a lot in a local area. Also making donations to community fundraisers. For example donating a $50 gift certificate to a Chinese auction would give you a customer plus recognition as a business that supports the community. Calling current customers and offering them an incentive to refer new customers would also produce results if it's not something you already do.

[NaturalBornHustler]

If you go for this, get google analytics set up first before getting any advertising. Then you can see how many click throughs you are getting and get a better idea if the advertising is worthwhile or not.

See I know nothing about any of this shit.

Looking at the website now but of course when I want to see how much a premium package costs they won't fucking tell you. Contact a premium specialist! Go fuck yourself how about that.

I'm guessing they have a basic version that is free?

[Belly Buster]

Google provide a lot of stuff for free - just use this to get started, it's not too tricky.

Create a google account, add a bit of code to your website pages, and then you can use the basic analytics at least.

[Dan Druff]

I put a server-side tracker on this forum about 2 weeks ago, and we've gotten about 11k uniques.

Not sure what that will translate to in a month, since a lot will be duplicates, so I doubt we'll reach 20k.

You have to be careful when people claim unique IP numbers for the following reasons:

1) They often lie.

2) Sometimes these unique IPs have a very high "bounce" percentage. That is, a lot of people get there either accidentally or leave quickly because they don't find what they're looking for. Such visits are virtually useless to advertisers.

3) There could be a low rate of returning users. That is, most users may just load the site on a single instance within a month, which hurts you from an advertising perspective. The more time they spend on the site, the better chance that your ad will eventually be clicked on.


Finally, it is important to know that unique IPs do NOT equal unique users. This is because most users (especially ones that come to the site more than once) have several IPs over the course of a month. This occurs due logging in from different locations (work, home, school, etc), logging in from a phone (different IP unless on the WiFi of your usual connection), IP address changes that the user isn't even aware of, etc. For example, when you visit this site from your phone, you are showing up under a different IP nearly every time (again, unless you are connected through WiFi). This really skews the unique IPs upward.

[The PHA]

I would think in a lawn service business, door hangers would be a better form of advertising. Especially haging them on a Friday, so when a guy gets home, facing the prospect of cutting grass in the heat on a Saturday, he see this lawn service advertisement on his door knob. It's impulsive. I got a pizza door hanger the day from new place and yes, I ordered. Probably order again.

I would think there is a service that can print/hang them in a neighborhood for you.