Who do you advertise with?

A

agentblack

New member
As we look to dip our toes into full fledged advertising, I'm curious to hear who everyone has advertised with as well as your results. Did you do just print like Pingzine or The Whir, online only like Web Hosts Directory, or a little of both?

What was your ROI? Do you still advertise with those places? This is a big step for us as we have never paid for advertising and we want to make sure that the money we do invest is spent on quality advertising and gets us a return for our investment.

Thanks for the feedback.
 
The best advise I could give anyone is to test, test and then do more tests.. :)

There is no magic formula, unfortunately. All you can do is spread your advertising budget around and run test campaigns constantly to see what works for your company and what doesn't. Your first 10 campaigns using Google Adwords might fail and give you no sign ups for example, and then the next one will bring you 10 sign ups in two days just because you changed the wording on your Ad, or your keywords.

First, ask yourself this question.. How much am I willing to spend, or can afford to spend, for ONE client?.. $20, $30, how about $50? For me, if I spend $100 in Adwords and gain 2-3 new clients from it I consider it money well spent. This also has a lot to do with your company's Customer Retention Rate, and client loyalty for your brand. If your customers are happy and stick around, then you should be willing to spend more money in order to gain a quality client.

What do I mean by quality client? I mean "know your market".. Don't advertise somewhere just because it's a cheap place to put a banner there. Advertise is places where the customers YOU WANT, will hang out at (e.g - If you're selling web hosting, don't advertise on a hacker forum...). Also, don't just throw money away just because you have it.. There are many places where you can advertise your company for FREE and gain quality sign ups as well. :D

Some places I recommend you start with:

1. Hosting Discussion Showcase and Marketplace Forums
2. Web Hosting Talk Forums and WHIR
3. Twitter, Facebook and other social network sites
4. Google Adwords (requires a lot of trial and error, but it DOES work)
5. Local Advertising (signs, flyers, post cards, ect..)

And as always try your best to exceed your customer's expectations and treat them how you would like to be treated if you were in their shoes.. Lets not forget about the most powerful form of advertising: WORD OF MOUTH. ;)
 
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As much as I personally despise WHT and parent company behind WHT, sadly they are one of those necessary evils of the industry. However their advertising costs are outside of our limited budget at this point, except for The Whir's yearly host guidebook.

We are already on Facebook at this time, havent really looked into Twitter. Have not looked into HD's advertising costs yet so might have to do that.

I know some other folks in the industry that used Google Adwords and nearly lost their backside due to the fraud that occurs with them. How do you prevent the fraud with the Google Adwords? What's Googles policies on the fraud?

@Artashes: he needs a good chunk of change for that post. It was very helpful :)
 
Mark me down as another fan of HostLeet. Let's not forget directory advertising - I've made plenty of sales by posting specials there.
 
You can find tons of suggestions published online and the top points introduced by hosting gurus and at the end, your website will get advertised, results to be examined thoroughly. Whatever systems you use, just make sure you have some tracking software programs installed on your website, like using the popular Google Analytics and consult with your web logs on a constant basis.

Why are they important, you might ask? Well, if a hosting directory or internet advertising network promises you thousands of page views for an affordable package, how can you track those visits without having some solid tools and web logging systems? Before spending money on your advertising plans, check out the possible solutions already tried out by some of your colleagues.

Can you find their ads and text links on some hot directories, forums, blogs and other online social portals? If the answer is positive, why not attempting to reserve your spot on the same portals and maximizing your web impressions and exposure? Sometimes there is no need to reinvent the wheel, just try to be a good observer and find the ultimate advertising solutions.

Do not forget about using offline, local advertising which can definitely rock. Flyers can sometimes spread the word about your newly set up business faster than you can even imagine.
 
Anyone tried facebook advertising for web hosting? Ive been thinking about testing it out, im just not sure about it. I mean with all the people that use facebook these days i feal it would be a great place to advertise. Only negative is its gonna cost you 1-2 dollars per click!
 
Facebook is a nonsense site, so unless you're selling nonsense crap, you probably won't do very well. To connect with hosting users, you'll need to find sites (or offline venues) that would cater to the right demographics.

:twocents:
 
Tried Facebook, honestly its not worth spending a penny on facebook ads. The type of audience on Facebook is very immature I would say. Don't expect any conversion from facebook ads.
 
Yea I tried facebook with a free coupon I had, got nothing from it. I think most people click those links accidentally, I find myself doing it all the time on facebook.
 
GoogleAds
I recommend hiring a marketing specialist to do that for you if you do not want to waste your money by trial and error.
 
We use forums, print (flyers, brochures, business cards, yard signs, etc.), we also use social media like Twitter and Facebook for special offers, ads, communication to the world as well. We find that most business comes from the forums we post on.
 
We target our local market extensively. College campuses, internet cafes, business plazas. We have sales people that actually call upon local businesses with a lackluster or no online presence and explain how easy it is to get online. We've been very successful using this method.

For our non-local market we like to use Bing or Google Adwords. The ROI beckons repeat campaigns. We also use social media. namely, Facebook and Twitter.
 
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