Traffic Academy: Get In the Driver’s Seat! (Part 2)

Welcome to Part 2 of our guide to driving traffic online!
In Traffic Academy Part 1, we covered what online traffic is, why it matters, and how you can increase it using free methods.
In this section, we will cover the paid methods you can use including Facebook ads, banner ads, solo ads, and PPC advertising.
By the end of this series, you will have the knowledge to form a strategy which integrates both paid and free traffic methods to get the results you are looking for.
Let’s get started!

Paid Traffic Methods

Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are available through the Facebook platform as long as you have an active Facebook business page.
Facebook offers a user friendly ad creation process that you access right from your profile page.
The native ads they provide can appear in the newsfeed of your audience so they blend in with other posts.
Alternatively, they can appear in the right-hand column of the desktop version of Facebook.

 

There are many objectives you can choose from depending on what your goals are.
You can drive traffic to your website, drive conversions, increase app downloads, increase video views, or even just boost a post to reach more people!

 

Once you select your objective, you can target your audience using very detailed options.
From demographics to interests to behaviors, Facebook really allows you to fine tune your audience.
They even allow you to create custom audiences through existing lists you have, and look-a-like audiences so you can target users who are similar to those on a list you already have.
For more on targeting and audiences, check out our Facebook Targeting 101 post here.
Once you target your audience, you will select your schedule, set your budget, design your ad, add in calls to action, and then place your order.
When you have ads running, you can track their performance and cost in the Facebook Insights section.
It is a relatively easy process and the ads have shown they can be very effective.
Facebook continues to focus on improving the experience for their users by limiting the amount of organic business posts in news feeds in favor of friends and family posts.
Facebook ads can help you to still get the exposure you need to reach your desired audience!

Best Practices

When designing an ad for Facebook, keep in mind that visually appealing ads do best.
Be sure to choose engaging media whether it’s an image or video.
You will also want to invest some time into strategizing your ad copy as you have a small amount of space to engage and interest the reader to click through.
It can also be helpful to create different messages to different audiences.
You can create an ad targeted at people who have never heard of your business before, one to retarget those who have previously visited your website, and one for those who have watched your videos, etc.
Lastly, once your ads are posted, be sure to always follow up to gauge ad performance and make adjustments accordingly.
Better yet, try out this tool to check out the ads that have worked for your competition and save yourself some of the guesswork!

Banner Ads

Next up are banner ads.
These are advertisements that you can purchase that will show up in rectangular displays horizontally or vertically on host web pages.
They are typically image-based with some text and can link to the destination that you choose.
You can pay host sites for these advertisements using 3 pricing models: views, clicks, and conversions.
If you are interested in investing in banner ads, you can buy them direct from websites (i.e. Waze), by joining an ad network, or by hiring an ad agency through a catalog type environment where you buy remnant from various publishers (i.e. Google Adwords).
There are various sites available for banner ads, but here are some options you can check out:
http://web.blogads.com
https://www.buysellads.com
http://valueclick.com/
http://www.bannerspace.com/
http://www.eads.com/
http://www.doubleclick.net/

Best Practices

When using banner ads, you’ll want to identify your goal, who you are targeting, and what websites your target audience visits.
Once you know, it is time to design your banner. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Identify what you want to communicate in the small space available
• Keep your message clear
• Include a call to action
• Use colors that match your branding
• Consider interactive elements to attract more attention
• Stick to standard sizes
• Create a hierarchy
• Forget flash

As far as designing the banner, you could hire a professional web designer, a freelancer off a site like 99designs, or create your own.
There are also services like envatostudio available which handle all the back end coding for you so you can just design it from the front end.
These can be a viable option for reaching a new audience and directing them to your desired destination.

Solo Ads

 

Above is an example of a solo ad vendor website.
Solo ads are another great opportunity for you to reach a new audience, particularly if you know your conversion rate based on past data.
With solo ads, basically you create an ad in the form of an email.
Then you find a vendor who has targeted lists of email addresses and you pay them to send your email to their list.
Now, to be clear, you are not buying an email list.
An email you create is sent out to someone else’s list as a way for you to reach their audience.
It is important to understand that there is a risk in solo ads because you are trusting that the vendor has a list of engaged recipients and that they are actually sending your email to them.
You will want to choose a vendor who is reputable to decrease your risk.
You will also want to look for a vendor that offers performance-based pricing models in comparison to fixed rates.
This will ensure you are only paying for click-throughs, opens, and conversions.

Best Practices

Once you decide you want to use solo ads, it is important to calculate your marketing budget in order to ensure your investment is profitable.
You will need to name your goal, for example: email sign-ups, sales, etc.
Then calculate how much each conversion is worth to you and how often conversions to your target audience occur.
For example, if you get 100 email subscribers and 5 out of every 100 subscribers buy your product or service which costs $150 a piece, then every 100 email subscribers is worth $750 gross.
Then look at your conversion rates from the solo ad.
If you can get 100 subscribers and still end up profitable after your costs then this can be a useful tactic.
To find reputable vendors, you can go to well-known sites like Udimi.
In general, just keep in mind that if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.
Lastly, when creating a solo ad, keep in mind you have a small window to make an impression.
Your headline must be eye catching, your copy engaging, and you need to include a strong call to action that directs readers where you want them to go.
For more information about solo ads check out our Beginner’s Guide to Solo Ads article here.

PPC

In section 1 of this guide we talked about SEO and how to increase traffic organically by using certain tactics.
While highly impactful, it can take quite awhile to climb up to first page rankings.
If you need results faster, that is where pay per click (PPC) comes in.
PPC advertising allows you to display ads and only be charged when people actually click on them.
This means you can be making impressions and increasing brand awareness without paying.
Paid ads show up above organic search results on the search engine results page (SERP).
Here is an example where you can see the top results are marked as ads:

While getting to the top of search engine results can take some time with SEO, paid ads allow you to buy your spot right away.
However, it has been reported that organic search results have an 8.5x higher click through rate.
So, paid ads have their place as a part of a joint campaign with organic SEO efforts.

Best Practices

When running a paid ad campaign, keyword research is of the utmost importance.
You will need to use a tool such as the Google Keyword Planner to identify the right words to target.
You will find that short tail generic keywords like ‘sweaters’ are searched more, have more competition, and cost more to bid on.

 

Long tail keywords like “hoodie sweaters for women” which are more specific to your product or service, are searched less and are more affordable.
Additionally, these long tail keywords often have higher conversion rates as the people who type them are further along in their buying journey.
So, your campaign should include a balance of both.
Once you have your keywords chosen, you design an ad which will be relevant and attractive so that searchers will click on it.
Then the ad should lead to a destination which is also relevant to the ad and keywords.
In choosing which ad gets shown, Google takes into consideration what is known as the quality score.
This is basically an analysis of how relevant and effective your ad is to the page it leads to as well as the results of the click through.
So the more relevant and effective your ad, the more it will be shown.
As your campaigns run, you should be tracking and analyzing results to find out which ads and keywords are most effective.
Over time, you can improve campaigns and earn a higher ROI.
The ideal ads will result in high click-through rates and conversions with a lower cost per click.
To learn more about PPC Advertising, check out our article on 8 Reasons to Try PPC.

Time for Action!

Now you have an understanding of the fundamentals of driving traffic!
It’s important to consider the benefits available from both paid and free methods and to combine them strategically.
For example, if you have implemented an active social media presence on Facebook and Instagram paid Facebook ads can expand your reach even further.
Additionally, by implementing SEO practices on your website and blog you can climb the ranks of organic search engine results, while PPC advertising campaigns can give you visibility in paid results.
By doing both, you can end up with total domination of the search results page for your terms.
A combined strategy is the best strategy.
With this in mind, take some time to review your options.
Here is a quick overview of what we covered through this 2-part guide to driving traffic:

Free Traffic Sources

• Email marketing
• Blogging
• Social media
• SEO

Paid Traffic Sources

• Facebook ads
• Solo ads
• Banner ads
• PPC

By experimenting with the different channels available and tracking your results, you can gradually find those which work best for your business.
As a result, you can invest your marketing budget and time into those channels.
Also, always remember to strike a balance between free and paid traffic.
This will benefit your wallet and help your efforts since free and paid traffic methods drive different types of results.
Finally, don’t be frustrated if your results aren’t what you hoped for right away.
It is important to think of your marketing strategy as an ongoing process of refinement rather than one you get perfect on the first try.
The only way to really know what works is to research, plan as best you can, experiment, track and adapt.
Best of luck in your traffic driving efforts and if you have thoughts to share, feel free to comment!



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7 Reasons Why No One Clicks Your Affiliate Banners

Placing affiliate banners on your blog is one of the most common blog monetization techniques.

Not the most or the least effective. In-between.

Since the case when (almost) no one clicked a certain banner is not very uncommon, let’s analyze together why such an unpleasant situation usually happens and see what you can do to avoid it.

Speaking about solutions, the easiest one is to remove all banners. Remove all so called distractions and you won’t need to read further. There’s a huge disadvantage though…

Putting all your eggs in one basket (for example focusing only on building your list) and copying a good method without having the right skills frequently lead to a big fat failure.

It’s your risk and your decision.

If you’re still here, let’s start today’s journey…

1. Banner Ad Blindness

It’s true that some people trained themselves not to see the banner ads.

The same as I trained myself not to see the opt-in boxes and all the “great” random incentives I never planned to read or watch.

Easy Fix: Move on. Focus on the problems you have better chances to fix.

And don’t even think about listening to the bloggers who claim that banner advertising is dead. If 90%+ of your visitors don’t take action on your marketing goodies (banners, opt-in boxes, etc), it doesn’t mean that banner advertising or list building are dead.

The only sure thing is that the people claiming that banner advertising (list building, etc.) is dead simply don’t understand marketing.

Have you ever gone fishing? Have you ever caught all the fish? Period.

2. The Mobile Traffic and the Sidebar Banners Are a Bad Match

Does your blog have a lot of mobile traffic? Well, then there’s no wonder that no one clicked the sidebar banners.

If you use a responsive theme, the layout of your blog is different for the mobile visitors. The sidebar isn’t a sidebar anymore. It goes to the bottom of the page…

The article comes first, then maybe the related posts and/or the sharing buttons, then the comments, and finally the sidebar.

Who do you think will scroll down to the sidebar, and why? Almost no one. I guarantee you.

Solution: If most of your traffic comes from mobiles, you should consider the total removal of your sidebars. The blog will load faster. As for the blog monetization, focus on the areas that are seen by your readers.

3. Bad Banners, Designed for Branding Purposes Only

See the banner on the left side? There’s a brand name and then some text that doesn’t reveal any information – it may be related to almost any product or service.

If your readers have no clue what SBI! stands for, why should they click that banner? Is it because they click banners for no reason? :P

If some readers are kind of familiar with that brand name, why should they click the banner? Is it because they’ve seen it again and again and now decided that it’s time to find out more about it? Well, if they click the banner you should consider yourself very lucky. But this is gambling, not affiliate marketing.

Solution: Before choosing a banner, forget who you are and what your goal is, and put yourself in your reader’s shoes. The reader needs a reason to click. Not understanding what you advertise isn’t a good reason.

4. Stupid Banners. Plain Stupid

I discovered this masterpiece on someone’s blog…

Free domain starts at $3.95/month

Is this text designed to make people laugh at both the company and the affiliate?

The designer and the Affiliate Manager didn’t notice the problem. The blogger didn’t notice it either.

So many people… I wonder if it’s not something wrong with me. Maybe I don’t understand very well the meaning of the word “free.”

Solution: What can I say? Open your eyes.

5. Ad Blockers

Did a blog or a business bother you? In the past, the elegant solution was to boycott that business by not buying anything and never returning back.

These days people are more pragmatic… Why not getting the stuff they’d like (the tips, the content) under the conditions they decide and without having the owner’s agreement?

So the ad blocking technology was developed. An ad blocker hides totally or partially the ads from your website. Without your agreement. Millions of users and supporters.

I wonder how far is the moment when a piece of software will also decide that some of your opinions suck and they should be hidden. Or replaced by other ones that will please the visitor. Unfortunately it seems that we aren’t that far.

How to Fight Against Ad Blockers

– host the banners on the server that hosts your site;
– don’t put your banners on folders titled “banners” or other names that may relate to advertising;
– cloak your affiliate links;
– don’t use in your site code classes or ids that may be related to advertising. Example: id=”ad_45″
– don’t use ad management plugins that use classes or ids that may be related to advertising. Examples: “Ads by datafeedr.com” or “Datafeedr Random Ads V2”
– use anti ad blockers plugins.

6. Promoting Products That Don’t Match Readers’ Interests

If you promote products or services that don’t match readers’ interests, it’s obvious that they won’t click your banners.

The question is, how to know in advance the interests of the future readers?

The easiest solution is to look at your own blog post. There’s the answer. Ask yourself, “Who is my blog post addressed to?”

For example, I don’t know who you are, but long time before you decided to visit this page, I knew some things about you.

I didn’t know whether you have a cat or not. I didn’t know whether you use Twitter or not. But I was 99% sure that you’re a blogger. And you’re interested in monetizing your blog. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have had too many reasons to read this article.

Based on these two interests of yours, I planned what to promote on this page.

Does this monetization strategy always work? Of course it doesn’t, have you ever seen a perfect strategy? But it maximizes the chances to get the click.

7. Promoting Very Popular Products or Services

You may be surprised. Promoting very popular products or services via banners usually doesn’t work so well. Here’s why…

Case Study: I decided to promote GetResponse, one of the most popular email marketing services.

Based on their relationship with GetResponse, I divided the readers of my blog in five categories:

a) GetResponse users
b) GetResponse former users
c) People who heard of GetResponse but decided to use another service
d) People who never heard of GetResponse and use another service
e) People who don’t use any email marketing service.

Now let’s see what the chances for getting the click are:

a) GR users will never click the banner.
b) GR former users were disappointed or discovered a service they thought that fits better their needs. Hard to make them come back just by showing them a regular banner.
c) and d) Usually people don’t switch from one service to another just because you show them a banner.
e) If they think that they don’t need such a service, it’s hard to make them change their mind by showing a banner.

No big chances to get the click, don’t you agree?

Solutions

Of course that the best solution is to write a review or a comparison between that popular service that you promote and a competitor. Like I did it here: AWeber vs GetResponse. But we’re talking about banners here, aren’t we?

The banners provided in the affiliate area usually aren’t that good. They won’t make people from categories b), c) and d) change their mind.

In GetResponse’s particular case I was lucky. If you’re not on mobile, you’ll see on the sidebar a floating banner that actually doesn’t promote GetResponse email marketing service but a free training program. That banner addresses all categories of readers.

What to do if you’re not that lucky?

The possible solutions are:

– design your own banner
– use a regular banner, but add additional text around it.

Irrespective of the solution you choose, the additional text added around a regular banner or included in a new banner should have the goal of changing people’s mind. It’s not easy. Spend more time on it. Otherwise you’ll get another regular but useless banner that won’t change anyone’s mind.

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Traffic Academy: Get In the Driver’s Seat! (Part 2)

WELCOME to Part 2 of our guide to driving traffic. In Traffic Academy Part 1, we covered what online traffic is, why it matters, and how you can increase it using free methods. In this section, we will cover the paid methods you can use which include Facebook ads, banner ads, solo ads, and PPC advertising.

By the end of this section, you will have the knowledge you need to form a strategy which integrates both paid and free traffic driving strategies to get the results you are looking for online.

Facebook Ads

Facebook ads are available through the Facebook platform and you can use them as long as you have an active Facebook business page. Facebook offers a user-friendly ad creation process that you access right from your profile page.

The native ads they provide can appear in the newsfeed of your audience so they blend in with other posts. Alternatively, they can appear in the right-hand column of the desktop version of Facebook.

There are many objectives you can choose from depending on what your goals are. You can simply boost your post to reach more people, drive traffic to your website, drive conversions, increase app downloads, increase video views, and more.

Once you select your objective, you can target your audience using very detailed options. From demographics to interests to behaviours, Facebook really allows you to fine tune your audience. They even allow you to create custom audiences through existing lists you have, and look-a-like audiences so you can target users who are similar to those on a list you already have. Once you target your audience, you will select your schedule, set your budget, design your ad, add in calls to action, and then place your order. When you have ads running, you can track their performance and cost in the Facebook Insights section.

It is a relatively easy process and the ads have shown they can be very effective. Facebook continues to focus on improving the experience for their users by limiting the amount of organic business posts in news feeds in favour of friends and family posts, so Facebook ads can help you to still get the exposure you need to reach your desired audience and drive them to your website.

Best Practices

When designing an ad for Facebook, keep in mind that those which are visually appealing do best. Be sure to choose engaging media whether it’s an image or video. You will also want to invest some time into strategizing your ad copy as you have a small amount of space to engage and interest the reader to click through.

It can also be helpful to create different messages to different audiences. You can create an ad targeted at people who have never heard of your business before, one to retarget those who have previously visited your website, and one for those who have watched your videos, etc. Lastly, once your ads are posted, be sure to always follow up to gauge ad performance and make adjustments accordingly.

Better yet, try out this tool to check out the ads that have worked for your competition and save yourself some of the guesswork!

Banner Ads

Next up are banner ads. These are advertisements that you can purchase that will show up in rectangular displays horizontally or vertically on host web pages.

They are typically image-based with some text and can link to the destination that you choose. You can pay host sites for these advertisements using 3 pricing models: views, clicks, and conversions.

If you are interested in investing in banner ads, you can buy them directly from websites (i.e. Waze), by joining an ad network, or by hiring an ad agency through a catalogue type environment where you buy remnant from various publishers (i.e. Google Adwords). There are various sites that you can go through. Here are some options you can check out:

http://web.blogads.com

https://www.buysellads.com

http://valueclick.com/

http://www.bannerspace.com/

http://www.eads.com/

http://www.doubleclick.net/

Best Practices

When using banner ads, you’ll want to identify your goal, who you are targeting, and what websites your target audience visits. Once you know, it is time to design your banner. Here are a few tips to keep in mind:

• Identify what you want to communicate in the small space available
• Keep your message clear
• Include a call to action
• Use colours that match your branding
• Consider interactive elements to attract more attention
• Stick to standard sizes
• Create a hierarchy
• Forget flash

As far as designing the banner, you could hire a professional web designer, a freelancer off a site like 99designs, or create your own. There are services like envatostudio available which handle all the back end coding for you so you can just design it from the front end.

These can be a viable option for reaching a new audience and directing them to your desired destination.

Above is an example of a solo ad vendor website. Solo ads are another great opportunity for you to reach a new audience, particularly if you know your conversion rate based on past data. The way these work are you create an ad that is in the form of an email. Then you find a vendor who has targeted lists of email addresses and you pay them to send your email to their list. Now, to be clear, you are not buying an email list but one email you create is sent out to the list.

It is important to understand that there is a risk in solo ads because you are trusting that the vendor has a list of engaged recipients and that they are actually sending your email to them. You will want to choose a vendor who is reputable to decrease your risk. You will also want to look for a vendor that offers perperformance-based pricing models in comparison to fixed rates. This will ensure you are only paying for click-throughs, opens, and conversions.

Best Practices

Once you decide you want to use solo ads, it is important to calculate your marketing budget in order to ensure your investment is profitable. You will need to name your goal, for example: email sign ups, sales, etc. Then calculate how much each conversion is worth to you and how often conversions to your target audience occur. For example, if you get 100 email subscribers and 5 out of every 100 subscribers buy your product or service which costs $150 a piece, then every 100 email subscribers is worth $750 gross. Then look at your conversion rates from the solo ad. If you can get 100 subscribers and still end up profitable after your costs then this can be a useful tactic.

To find reputable vendors, you can go to well-known sites like Udimi and Solo Ads Testimonials. In general, just keep in mind that if it sounds too good to be true then it probably is.

Lastly, when creating a solo ad, keep in mind you have a small window to make an impression so you want your headline to be eye catching, your copy to be engaging, and a strong call to action to direct readers where you want them to go.

For more information about solo ads check out our post on Solo Ads 101.

PPC

In section 1 of this guide, we talked about SEO and how to increase traffic organically by using certain tactics. While highly impactful, it can take at least 6 months to climb up to first page rankings. If you need results faster, that is where pay per click (PPC) comes in.  PPC advertising allows you to display ads and only be charged when people actually click on them.

This means you can be making impressions and increasing brand awareness without paying. Your paid ads show up above organic search results on the SERP. Here is an example. Note the very top result which is marked as an ad. By pursuing both organic SEO tactics and paid advertising, Macy’s has dominated the search result for their name.

While getting to the top of search engine results can take some time, through a concentrated SEO campaign, paid ads allow you to buy your spot right away and show a 1.5x higher conversion rate. However, it has been reported that organic search results have an 8.5x higher click through rate. So, paid ads have their place in driving traffic and that is as a part of a joint campaign with organic SEO efforts.

Best Practices

When running a paid ad campaign, keyword research is of the utmost importance. You will need to use a tool such as the Google Keyword Planner to identify the right words to target. You will find that short tail generic keywords like ‘sweaters’ are searched more, have more competition, and cost more to bid on.

Long tail keywords like ‘hoodie sweaters for women’, which are more specific to your product or service, are searched less and are more affordable. Additionally, these long tail keywords often have higher conversion rates as the people who type them are further along in their buying journey. So, your campaign should include a balance of both.

Once you have your keywords chosen, you design an ad which will be relevant and attractive so that searchers will click on it. Then the ad should lead to a destination which is also relevant to the ad and keywords. In choosing which ad gets shown, Google takes into consideration what is known as the quality score. This is basically an analysis of how relevant and effective your ad is to the page it leads to as well as the results of the click through. So the more relevant and effective your ad, the more it will be shown.

As your campaigns run, you should be tracking and analyzing results to find out which ads and keywords are most effective. Over time, you can improve campaigns and earn a higher ROI. The ideal ads will result in high click through rates and conversions with a lower cost per click.

Time for Action!

Now you have an understanding of the fundamentals of driving traffic. It is important to consider the benefits available from both paid and free methods and to combine them strategically. For example, if you have implemented an active social media presence on Facebook and Instagram through which you have raised brand awareness, connected with influencers, and engaged your audience, paid Facebook ads can expand your reach even further.

Additionally, by implementing SEO practices on your website and blog you can climb the ranks of organic search engine results, while PPC advertising campaigns can give you visibility in paid results. By doing both, you can end up with total domination of the search results page for your terms.

A combined strategy is the best strategy. With this in mind, take some time to review your options. Here is a quick overview of what we covered through this 2-part guide to driving traffic:

Free Traffic Sources:

• Blogging
• Social media
• SEO
• Email marketing

Paid Traffic Sources:

• Facebook ads
• Solo ads
• Banner ads
• PPC

By experimenting with the different channels available and tracking your results, you can gradually find those which work best for your business. As a result, you can invest your marketing budget and time into those channels.

Also, always remember to try and strike a balance between free and paid traffic not only to benefit your wallet but also because they drive different types of results. Don’t be frustrated if your results aren’t what you hoped for right away. It is important to think of your marketing strategy as an ongoing process of refinement rather than one you get perfect on the first try. The only way to really know what works is to research, plan as best you can, experiment, track and adapt.

Best of luck in your traffic driving efforts and if you have thoughts to share, feel free to comment!

Source