I often get asked how to market certain websites, but I’m not a marketer by trade. Much of my marketing knowledge comes from what my clients are doing for marketing. I decided to start an Excel file and mark what methods clients were using.
Below are my favorite paid marketing methods that I noticed!
Buysellads
Buysellads is an add network that allows owners of high traffic websites to sell banner spaces on their website. Out of most ad networks that allow publishers to sell advertising, buysellads has the largest variety and the highest quality sites available. You are more likely to find a website that is offering a good price on traffic and is related to your product. There are a lot of well known websites that have spaces available for purchase. Before purchasing an ad, make sure to contact the site owner regarding their audience and ask any questions you may have.
Clickonomy
Clickonomy is a marketplace filled with users in various niches looking to sell clicks. Most of these clicks come from the seller sending an email to their list about your product. This is the best site to buy advertising through email because the sellers are very reputable in their field. You can see what users liked and disliked about working with certain sellers which is also very handy. Pretty sweet huh? Everything from women health to investing and trading. If your product is in one of the fields listed on the site, this is a pretty nifty traffic method.
Retargeting
When a user visits your website and leaves, how can you be sure they will come back? You spent time and money driving that visitor to your website, and if you didn’t capture their email you lost them for good. Just kidding! There is a super simple way to make sure they come back to your site. All you need is a re-targeting advertising service like perfect audience. They will show your ad only to people who have visited your website. That way, you can remind them who you are and what you do. Then you can get them to take some action.
PPC Advertising (Paid Per Click)
PPC is probably the most well know and recommended source for paid traffic. Websites like Google, Bing, and Facebook are very popular and offer their advertisers targeted traffic. The only problem with some of these larger PPC networks is that they charge a lot of money per click. When directing PPC traffic to your website, remember to capture the email of the visitor. That way, you can market to them or follow up with them later and get the most out of your campaign.
PPV Advertising (Paid Per View)
Paid per view advertising is a very unique advertising source. PPV networks allow you to advertise to a certain audience and you only pay when someone views your website. Unlike PPC advertising, PPV has a lower competition and lower pricing. However, with PPC you get to really know your audience and target them more accurately. PPV advertising is broad. This advertising source is best for advertising to a broad niche, such as weight loss. When researching a PPV network, make sure to do your research and know your audience before placing an ad.
Paying popular pages
It seems like there is almost an unlimited number of facebook pages and youtube channels that have a lot of targeted subscribers but do not make any revenue. If you have something great to offer, contacting one of these popular pages to post about your product or service. I would look to see if they have an email listed on their page and write out a respectful email showing what you have to offer their audience. If they agree, you can work out a payment.
Sponsoring Niche Sites
This is one of my personal favorites. I like to find small websites in my niche and offer to pay them to post my banner advertisement. Small niche sites usually have a decent sized audience but don’t have any advertisers. If you get them to say yes to your offer, you will pay them a lot less per impression than you would for a banner ad on a larger site.
Press Releases
If you are running a start-up, or have a website that would benefit readers of popular blogs, then write out a press release and submit it. Depending on where you submit your press release, it will be picked up by popular blogs that are looking for interesting content to post. When writing a press release, remember this is not written to “sell” to the reader, but inform them. Don’t make your press release one long advertisement. If you do, the chances of getting it picked up by blogs and news.
Paying Per Tweet
This method is the very first paid traffic method I spent money on and I still use it to this day. When I started my first website in the music niche, I found a guy on Paid Per Tweet with a large following with potential customers interested in what I had to offer. I paid this dude $15 to tweet about my product and got 30+ optins to my landing page. Remember to check for how many of their followers are real and see how active their page is.
Brandyourself
If you are a consultant or offer some type of service, you may need to look into brandyourself. It is like an SEO service that helps you rank websites you would like your potential clients to look at when they google you. You can have your design portfolio or positive reviews show up instead of an unhappy customers review. You can also check and see who is goggling you and get alerts when your online presence status changes. Not exactly a paid traffic source, but important nonetheless.