Advertising for traffic on a tight budget?

by lafit1
27 replies
Hi everyone,

Can someone advise on paid advertising strategies (adwords is out of the question) to increase traffic, lead generation, list building etc?

What worked for you, what didn't?

Hope to hear from you, and if you recommend an affiliate product that's ok too, as long as you share your personal opinion based on your experience.

Thank you, and Happy Holidays to all!
Luz L
#advertising #budget #tight #traffic
  • Profile picture of the author GailTrahd
    Your big options are media buying and solo ads. In both instances you can lose quite a bit if you aren't positioned well before sending traffic. You mention 'increase traffic' which leads me to believe that you already have traffic and have tested your squeeze and sales process? If you have decent conversion rates that satisfy you, there are some advertisers in the WF classified who are selling solo ads at good prices. Read through the threads for comments. You can use a media buyer (when you have the financial backing) or can approach website owners yourself with offers for banner advertising.

    You mention advertising on a budget and if the niche is what is in your sig line - Facebook would be a great outlet. Advertising budget there is still relatively inexpensive and the audience will talk about weight loss and getting healthy, as opposed to making money (which people on FB don't like to talk about!)
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  • Profile picture of the author petemcal
    As mentioned above make sure that your site is 100% ready and optimised to convert any traffic you send to it before launching an ad campaign.

    It takes work and time, but it stops you wasting what little ad budget you have.

    I would say a good solo ad could be of help, but it's a strategy with very variable results. A lot of people report a "direct" loss on solo ads but they make up the investment off the "back end" over time.
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  • Profile picture of the author KC Marketing
    I agree that Solo Ads are a great place to start but you really need to have your sales funnel dialed in. You will have the most success with a low priced offer after they optin and then focus on the followup.
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  • Profile picture of the author paul nicholls
    solo ads are a great option

    you can start with as little as $25 for around 50 unique clicks to your squeeze page

    as long as you have a good list of solo ads that send quality traffic and buyers you will do fine

    it's then just a case of how much traffic you want and how good your funnel converts
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    • Profile picture of the author lafit1
      Thanks Paul, my first priority is to build a list for my authority site.

      The way I see it, once they land on my site if they enjoy my content they will come back, and eventually they'll sign up to get my free nutrition report...eventually they will trust me enough to purchase from my affiliate products...or sign up for my personal coaching sessions OR my online fitness training.

      But first I gotta market the site (paid ads or SEO). I have done the usual forum commenting, blog commenting, and even some classifieds.

      Which solo ad media would you recommend?
      Luz
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      • Profile picture of the author RogueOne
        Solo ads are mostly only available to the "make money" niche. You can find them for other niches but they are not readily available for niches like "health."

        You might try ad brokers like Buy/Sell ads.
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      • Profile picture of the author GlenH
        Originally Posted by lafit1 View Post

        Thanks Paul, my first priority is to build a list for my authority site.

        The way I see it, once they land on my site if they enjoy my content they will come back, and eventually they'll sign up to get my free nutrition report...eventually they will trust me enough to purchase from my affiliate products...or sign up for my personal coaching sessions OR my online fitness training.

        But first I gotta market the site (paid ads or SEO). I have done the usual forum commenting, blog commenting, and even some classifieds.

        Which solo ad media would you recommend?
        Luz
        You should also be looking for 'content syndication' opportunities.

        That's where you seek out sites in the same or similar niches as yours.

        Then you approach the site owner and offer to provide them with quality content (written by you) to post on their sites.

        This is a proven strategy for helping you to build traffic and links back to your site.

        It a sound long term strategy, and Google will love all the 'natural' links you'll be building.

        Yes...it does take work, but well worth every bit.
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  • Profile picture of the author Randall Magwood
    I do alot of free marketing. Paid sources that i use are PPC, solo ads, warrior forum image signatures, and advertising my affiliate program. Joint ventures are a good option too.
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  • Profile picture of the author mrelk159
    If you have a tight budget and want traffic, then you can try to rank your website and get organic traffic.
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  • Profile picture of the author writeaway
    Just how TIGHT is your budget? If you have a decent budget, you might be better off hiring a TRAINED TRAFFIC VPA to produce daily traffic results for you through forum posts, email group posts, blog comments, and other methods. Of course, you need be on the VPA like white on rice so you get TWEAKED results. Don't just set it and forget it. You'll be wasting money if you did that.
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  • Profile picture of the author DotComBum
    You can write articles and use your signature's space to promote your site, these are just 2 of the many free methods. You can also buy low cost banner advertising at Publisher & Advertisers sites like BuySellAds and PublicityClerks.
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  • Profile picture of the author lafit1
    Hi Gail,
    I decided to go ahead and join your Health plr membership. I have been reading your blog and believe you truly like sharing your knowledge for a good cause, like I do.

    My goal is to be able to do it in a more efficient way, so as to be able to reach as many women as possible who are desperate to lose weight -and prevent diabetes and all its horrible consequences-but feel trapped in a sea of information and mis-information.

    Diabetes killed my sister and I was unable to help her, and I am determined to put in my two cents to help other women before it's too late.
    Thanks
    Luz
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  • Profile picture of the author angshuy2k
    Dear Lafit,

    You can try online marketing ad to drive traffic and please do not forget the traditional way of marketing: offline marketing. Think of flyers, posters and freebies and many others to drop in your local areas with really good sales letter to visit your site.

    Word of mouth would be your best option and then of course go out for pub and club night and do share some drinks on the name of your website.

    Sponsor a small school program with your website address. Some of the small school program goes as low as £90 but if your website is shown on banner and being announced somewhere that might as well work. Some short radio advert is another way of promotion.

    What about local new paper advertisement with your website description and a very eye catching single colour ad.

    Some of this technique might be a little bit expensive but surely will have a long term effect on your website promotion.

    Kind regards,
    Swrajit

    N.B. I am just a pm away to share more ideas with you or add me on skype

    Originally Posted by lafit1 View Post

    Hi everyone,

    Can someone advise on paid advertising strategies (adwords is out of the question) to increase traffic, lead generation, list building etc?

    What worked for you, what didn't?

    Hope to hear from you, and if you recommend an affiliate product that's ok too, as long as you share your personal opinion based on your experience.

    Thank you, and Happy Holidays to all!
    Luz L
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    • Profile picture of the author JohnMcCabe
      You said Adwords (and I assume other PPC) was out of the question. If your budget is tight, doing Adwords the way most people Adwords, you're likely right.

      You may be pleasantly surprised at the cost of running site- or even page-targeted ads on the content network. Using image ads, you can even advertise on a cost-per-thousand basis (similar to a more traditional media buy).

      Given your niche, I'd wager there are thousands of potential sites which are monetized solely with Adsense. Present the right ad on the right sites/pages and you could end up drawing (not 'driving') bunches of highly targeted traffic.

      If I were to do this, I would send clicks to a landing page with an incentivised offer along with some content tightly themed to the ad. Build up that list, and you can create the relationship you say you want to create.
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  • Profile picture of the author Tom B
    Banned
    Originally Posted by lafit1 View Post

    Hi everyone,

    Can someone advise on paid advertising strategies (adwords is out of the question) to increase traffic, lead generation, list building etc?

    What worked for you, what didn't?

    Hope to hear from you, and if you recommend an affiliate product that's ok too, as long as you share your personal opinion based on your experience.

    Thank you, and Happy Holidays to all!
    Luz L
    You will probably lose money no matter what you do. I am assuming this is a new campaign you want to start testing and you don't have any real numbers as of yet.

    It might be better to wait and save more money before trying to test this new campaign.
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  • Profile picture of the author surferman
    If you are tight on budget I would not advise buying clicks. I would go for spending my money on SEO.
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  • Profile picture of the author freeadstime
    Tried both paid advertising and SEO. SEO will pay off a lot better, it's not even comparable.
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  • Profile picture of the author tac88
    I do a lot of ad swap's & solo ad's and direct to site media buy's.
    Direct to site media buy's are a great source of a ton of highly targeted traffic for cheap.

    In other words do some research in your niche searching your buyer keywords and located websites that are ranking high for your keywords and contact them to cut a deal to advertise on their site.This works great for videos also.
    Some of my best media buy's I did this way and literately got 1 cent clicks sometimes even less.

    Site owners can be a pain in the neck when getting back to you but keep going and you will land a goldmine.
    Best of luck
    TBone
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  • Profile picture of the author ViralOxygen
    Could you please lead me to the best way to do a direct site to media buy ? I have never done one.
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  • Profile picture of the author 1robert
    I would be careful buying solo ads.

    They seam good at first, but you can lose a lot of money fast.

    For example, you can buy 300 clicks at $150 so it appears your getting a good deal. But if your squeeze page converts at 25%, then you are really paying $2 for every subscriber that you get.

    That's more expensive than Google Adwords for some niches.

    And you have to remember that not everyone who subscribes will see your sales page. Some people will never open emails after they get the freebie.

    This goes for any type of paid traffic. You really need to know your numbers.

    If you have a $197 coaching program, then maybe you can make a profit from solo-ads, but for $20 products you will probably lose money on the front end.

    I like banner ads because you can buy them cheap.

    One time I spent $10 and made $47 of of 3 sales and my conversion rate on my sales letter was disgustingly low.
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  • Profile picture of the author musclepain
    For Social Media Analytics, advertising is as important as the products themselves, but can often be cost-prohibitive. Many young entrepreneurs find it difficult market their businesses, because it just seems to be so expensive. However, there are many ideas that you can use to increase your visibility.
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  • Profile picture of the author moneyman2010
    I use Yahoo/bing ppc much cheaper than Google..Article marketing works good too if your on a tight budget..
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  • Profile picture of the author trafficmasters
    If you are on a budget I would say media buys are out the question, they usually require a minimum deposit of $500 / $1000

    Your options are really PPV, Pop ups/unders and solo ads.

    You could maybe try going to alexa.com and searching for websites similar to yours then contacting the webmaster and try broker a monthly ad deal

    Some of these sites would be more than happy to accept $20 or $30 a month to place your banner on their site.

    You could also search youtube for videos in your niche, if they have a decent amount of views contact the account owner and ask if they would be willing to place your link in the video description for some $ per month.

    Worth a shot!

    Good luck
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  • Profile picture of the author YasirYar
    Try solo ads and PPC or Adwords to drive traffic and advertise on a budget. You can monitor how much you spend and what amount of traffic you'll be getting.
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  • Profile picture of the author RachelLily
    Small budget? Get the most from your Pay-Per-Click advertising. Unlike display advertising, you pay only when your ad is clicked in search results--not every time it is displayed. Remembering, the amount you pay is based on the maximum cost-per-click you specified.
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