
Ask HN: What kind of advertising have you tried that worked? - vrikhter
Our startup is looking to use banner advertising to help increase sales. So I have a few questions for the HN community:<p>1) We have ideas of what the theme of some of these banner ads will be, but we don't know the best wording that should be used. Should we get a copywriter? If so, where? How much should we expect to pay?<p>2) We can do the ads ourselves from a creative (art) perspective, but it may make more sense to have someone else do them for us if they are better. Where can we find a good designer for banner ads? Again, how much should we expect to pay?<p>3) Is there a resource online where we can gauge the potential success of these ads? We're interested in knowing what we can expect for CTR rates and/or CPC.<p>4) Any additional information that we should consider?<p>Thank you for responses ahead of time!
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jellisnyc
We just ran a few campaigns. Here's what we found.

The Deck - <http://decknetwork.net/> We received roughly 4300 uniques across 2
weeks. We got about 9x the clicks from daringfireball than any of the other
sites in the network (37signals, A List Apart, Kottke, FFFFound, etc.) If you
email them they are open to negotiating.

Fusion Ads - <http://fusionads.net/> Very similar model as The Deck. We ran
one of the $400 one-week "bursts" that they offer. Received about 1400
uniques.

Before we ran either of these campaigns we experimented on Facebook to see
what sort of graphic/copy produced the greated CTR. We found that a very
simple graphic, and simple copy always did the best.

After we ran the campaigns we also realized that Facebook advertising is a
great deal. You can run really targeted ads on FB for cheap and get great
results. I would definitely experiment here before spending big money on one
of the larger networks.

Regarding art/copy, I would see what you can come up with on your own. Unless
you're running a massive campaign, not sure a designer/copywriter is worth the
expense.

Finally, it should be mentioned that a clever blog entry or two can generate
far more traffic than a banner ad campaign.

~~~
vrikhter
Did you run it for Actual Objects? We have a B2B product, wondering if this
will have a similar return for us.

~~~
jellisnyc
Yes, we ran this for AO, which is for the most part a B2B product (most of our
customers are ad agencies and design firms). I'm not sure how this compares to
your product.

~~~
vrikhter
We have a B2B product focused on small businesses.

------
il
Based on several years experience optimizing Internet ad campaigns, here are a
few banner advertising tips:

1\. Test and track EVERYTHING. Every variation, headline,layout, domain ad is
on, etc should have a unique ID, so you can see not just what gets the highest
CTR but also which ad converts/backs out the best.

2\. Good design does not necessarily mean good ads. I've had the highest CTR
and conversions come from the simplest, ugliest ads. See Plenty of Fish banner
ads for an example of ugly,yet effective advertising.

3\. Regardless of the direction you take your design, have a clear, easy to
see call to action ("click here!" button for example). Design the ad to draw
the eye towards that button.

4\. There are two main strategies in banner ad design, blend or clash. Either
blend in with the design of the site your banner appears on with similar
colors and visual elements, or go the other direction and make an ad that
clashes with it and stands out.

More specific banner media buying advice:

Taget smaller sites your customers are likely to visit. Ask to buy remnant
inventory, and pay CPM. Don't pay more than $2-$3 CPM except in specialized
cases. Don't go through ad ad network unless you have a big testing budget,
instead go direct to webmasters. Use your own adserver and pay based on your
adserver's numbers, not theirs. 1% CTR is fantastic for banner ads, but your
EPC/conversion numbers will be the way to determine if an ad is succesful.

My email is in my profile, you(or anyone else here) can email me if you have
other questions.

PS I don't think you need to hire a copywriter, you're obviously good enough
at writing headlines based on how many upvotes this submission has!

~~~
staunch
I just want to second point #2. I spent 5 minutes creating some horribly ugly
test ads in The Gimp, just so I could get our campaign started quickly.
Afterwards I had our badass graphics guy create some beautiful banners. My ads
performed 5x better than his over months.

~~~
brlewis
I think sometimes pretty will sell better, sometimes ugly. It probably depends
what you're selling. What were you selling?

(Side note for everyone: Please don't withhold useful information from your
readers for fear of self-promotion. But if you must, at least fill out your
profile.)

------
jasonlotito
My company was B2B, so it might be different for us then you. However, I'll
still spell out what worked for us.

1\. Tradeshows. We went to industry tradeshows, and our sales guys really
worked the shows. We didn't know anyone in the industry, either. They worked
the shows, really got out there to know the people, and worked the people
covering the shows (magazines, photographers, etc). Basically, it was all
about networking.

2\. Advertising in print got us coverage. We bought ad space which came with a
write up in the mag and online. Is good because it gave us presence.

3\. Presence is important. We'd go to trade shows all over the place, and
really mingle. Tradeshows seemed to do well, and was the place for face to
face meetings.

4\. Incentives to get word of mouth advertising. We would pay commissions to
clients who would bring in other people. It wasn't merely a link to click on.
Rather, it was direct referrals. "Hey, here's a guy who could use your
services..." and we'd give him a fair cut.

But really, presence was the big thing. Being out there, being seen, being
apart of the environment was big, and really allowed us to get out there. If
you present yourself as a successful company, people assume you are. Obviously
you need to back it up when they sign on, but it's getting them to call you
back that is important.

Should also stress that most of this was between 2003 and 2006 when we started
this and really pushed.

------
RDDavies
1\. Yes, get a copywriter. KNOW someone through contacts. I've got one, email
is in my info, if you need one.

2\. Same as #1.

3\. There are SO many variables in what you're looking for. I recommend using
some sort of tracking system (I use Omniture) to track as much information as
you possibly can, so you can better target future advertisements.

4\. Depending upon what you're doing, you may not do very well with banner
ads. I found that in my last business, being active in the "community" behind
what it was based (posting on forums, showing up at events, etc.) was
INCREDIBLY effective, and the banner ads didn't get me more than around 2-3K
in sales (I was only making an average of 20% margin or so), which barely paid
for having them in the first place.

~~~
vrikhter
1&2) Would definitely love the contact info! Unfortunately your email is not
in your info. Could you leave it on here?

3) Wouldn't tracking it yourself be the best method? 4) What was your last
business? Ours is a SaaS product targeted to small businesses. Would be very
costly to attend events.

------
petewarden
In tests I was able to get new users for around $2 each using Facebook ads. I
went into the details here:

[http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2009/11/get-
new-...](http://petewarden.typepad.com/searchbrowser/2009/11/get-new-users-
for-2-each-with-facebook-ads.html)

In my limited experience it's all about testing and iteration, lots of it. Or
just find a feeble excuse to show a picture of a busty girl, judging from most
of the ads I see on Facebook.

Also, be prepared for shockingly low CTRs on banner ads like Facebook's. Even
highly targeted I was seeing 0.07% on my best ads, and from talking to others
that's not uncommon. Even at that low of a rate the ads were cheap enough to
be worth running.

------
eam
You might want to read Gabriel Weinberg's blog post on what worked for him.
URL: [http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/my-duck-duck-
go-...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/my-duck-duck-go-reddit-ad-
by-the-numbers.html)

~~~
vrikhter
Thanks, just read through that.

------
barmstrong
Is anyone making Adwords convert these days? I haven't.

~~~
patio11
I still can't get AdWords on the search network to work in a scalable fashion,
but the content network continues its years-long tradition of making my
business viable.

------
JayNeely
Gabriel Weinberg (Duck Duck Go founder) wrote a summary of his experience
using Reddit Ads, which he found to be effective:
[http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/my-duck-duck-
go-...](http://www.gabrielweinberg.com/blog/2010/03/my-duck-duck-go-reddit-ad-
by-the-numbers.html)

 _A couple of key points from the post:_

"My ad ran for 13 days, from 3/7 to 3/20. It cost $650, and I spent $50 per
day. In total it had 1,288,378 impressions (282,732 uniques) and yielded
20,700 clicks (18,420 uniques)."

"Redditors actually try out your site. 3c per unique visitor is pretty good in
and of itself, but it's all worthless unless they actually try out your site.
For example, you can get 5c unique visitors from StumbleUpon (presumably in a
similar demographic), but StumbleUpon visitors never would try out my sites.
Reddit visitors did try out Duck Duck Go."

------
leftnode
Advertising on forums that are specific to what you're selling. I sell
firearms, firearm accessories, and ammunition, so I spend a great deal of time
on forums.

One of the best is SomethingAwful. They have a sub-forum dedicated to
firearms, and a very close knit community. An ad on SA costs $30 for a month
(which is insanely cheap) and I started a thread advertising my company. We've
done incredibly well that way, have already sponsored a competitive shooting
team and met a bunch of nice people.

What you don't get, of course, is in depth tracking. You can only see how many
clicks you get (just wrap the link in your ad around bit.ly or another URL
shortener). But it's just as well with me, I know my advertising is hitting
it's target audience and it's worked out very well.

~~~
vrikhter
You're absolutely right. Those just take a significant more time to do, which
we will focus on as well, but would like to test out advertising waters first.

------
alttab
Everyone here has been given some fantastic advice so I'll just add one little
piece.

What I've seen from my own personal experience, is sites that sell advertising
space have been tracking their advertising since they started because they
need to know the value of their real estate.

Over time, this transfers to a fact that where ever you are doing your ad
banners (a web site, a blog, a search engine), _the people you are buying from
know how to reach their audience best._ Serious advertising firms have their
own creative-content guys on the inside, and using them in those cases is way
better than picking an external designer, freelancer, or using your own guys.
This kind of comes down to this:

 _"If someone has a big yard, the kids that live there know how to play in it
best."_

~~~
vrikhter
Are there particular advertising firms that you would suggest to work with? Do
you have an opinion on a firm such as Adroll?

------
guiseppecalzone
1\. Avoid copywriters. I know I'm contradicting someone else's comment, but
copywriters don't help. What does help? Tracking software, split testing, and
data. The copy writer could give you some copy that any logical person thinks
would work, not knowing that statistically, it's not something people would
ever click on. So, use the money you would spend on a copywriter and put it
into more split testing.

So: -Split text your ads. -Use tracking software to do it. -Don't assume you
know what will work. Let the data decide (not a copywriter).

~~~
vrikhter
Are there any tips for word or character count for a banner ad that we should
keep in mind?

------
jarin
Does anyone have any experience with low-cost TV ads?

~~~
eru
I guess you need a product that fits well with the demographic that sees your
TV ad to make that work well.

------
nyc_jenna
We've only tried Facebook Ads so far and it hasn't shown good results. Maybe
Adsense next?!

~~~
vrikhter
May as well!

------
ahoyhere
Give away free educational/teaching/useful content that targets your customer
- e.g. for our time tracking software, we have a fun paper printable time
tracker for the "hipster PDA" and have several articles planned on freelance
foibles / common time mistakes.

I'm pseudo-famous on the back of my Rails tutorials and cheat sheets.

This is way better than any kind of advertising you can simply plunk down
money and buy, for obvious reasons -- it gets people to really like you, to
spend the most time looking at what you make, etc.

------
mkramlich
what's worked best for my game Dead By Zombie:

1\. personal appearances at game conventions dressed as the mad scientist Dr.
Heinrich von Hexenhammer --- NOTE: may not work for your project

2\. listings on niche sites

3\. astroturf forum comments on related sites

paid advertising? oh that actually hasn't worked too well in comparison.
funny.

~~~
JeffL
What are astroturf forum comments?

~~~
ewjordan
Astroturfing == posting fake "grassroots" testimonials about the
product/idea/company in question to make it seem like a lot of people care
about it. See <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astroturfing>

I'm sure it's pretty effective, especially if you only need to get a handful
of people to notice your product. But it just feels so dirty...

~~~
pbhjpbhj
>Astroturfing == posting fake "grassroots" testimonials about the
product/idea/company in question to make it seem like a lot of people care
about it.

This is actually illegal in the EU now under EU's Unfair Commercial Practices
Directive; eg
[http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/08/eu_consumer_protecti...](http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/12/08/eu_consumer_protection_laws/)

~~~
eru
You might get away with just mentioning your product in these forums, but also
mention that you are related with the product. If you are humble enough and
the product really fits the audience of the forum, you might generate some
interest. And you don't need to fear any backlash from somebody uncovering
your astroturfing.

~~~
mkramlich
That's what I've done with Dead By Zombie. So I don't truly astroturf. But I
do chime in. I believe the guy behind Balsamiq used this technique when he was
just starting out. Making comments and doing mini-pitches in various web
forums that had the demographic who might be interested in his new tool.

------
paolomaffei
a sale! just look at steam!

------
dacav
I find flash-based ads extremely frustrating (and that's why I installed
flashblock). Many of my friends did the same, so I guess that besides
annoying, they are not effective.

