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Selling PPC advertising on my website

by calvin1993
7 replies
  • PPC/SEM
    • |
Hi guys,

I was wondering whether or not you thought this was a good idea.

Currently I have an online directory with over 1 million users annually.

I would like to start charging people for being listed by charging them a cheaper rate than Google current suggested bid for PPC.

For example:

I send a dentist around 400 clicks from my site to there, for a very niche service each month.

The current bid on Google is around £5,00 a click. Would it be possible to contact them and ask for like £2.50 a click so a total of £1000 a month.

Any ideas how I could go about this and contacting them if you think it is a good idea?

Regards,

Calvin
#advertising #ppc #selling #website
  • Profile picture of the author Bright Future
    Hi, Calvin

    That won't be easy.

    One of the main problems would probably be trust. How would the clicks be tracked? How could the advertisers be sure that they are charged for genuine clicks?

    Also, the technical side of it obviously. How would it all be set up? How would they pay you?

    Another thing - a lot of the sites advertising on AdWords actually pay a lot less than the suggested bid shown by the keyword tool. It's just a suggestion and the actual cost per click depends on the quality and strategy of their campaigns.
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  • Profile picture of the author TB Ann
    Crazy.....
    Instead of charging for listing you should place some ads from third party and let your site traffic increased. After a short terms it will be giant money maker site itself.
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  • Profile picture of the author Bright Future
    Yeah, with over 1 million annual visitors you should be able to make a decent amount from advertising or affiliate offers. And it would be much easier to implement.
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  • Profile picture of the author LucidWebMarketing
    I agree it won't be easy. You also set a precedent. If your dentist does get 400 clicks per month - for free - it will be hard to get him to start paying for it.

    Plus all the other stuff that BrightFuture mentions. You'll need to have tracking and other things.

    How many listings in your directory? You mention one million users, which I first took as the number of links in your directory but I think you meant visitors to the site.

    Whatever the number, starting to ask for payment will lose a lot of people. Probably only 2-4% would agree thus making your directory suddenly much smaller. This would affect your traffic and thus the effectiveness and value to those paying.

    You know your numbers so see if it's worth it. Averaging $100 per month from each subscriber, how much would you make if 2% agree to pay?

    Now, if you offer value added services, that's even better and makes it more interesting for the dentist. Not sure what you could offer, he already has a web site but maybe you can think of something.

    Starting to monetize with ads is the easy and fast solution. It may however effect your traffic as well as the value to the dentist. He may get only 200 clicks instead still free to him but may find other more valuable ways and remove his listing. The question is whether you would profit more from ads than selling the links.
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  • Profile picture of the author calvin1993
    Hi guys,

    Thank you for all your responses. I think I will try and put advertisement onto the site.

    Any suggestions on how about doing that as adsense only seemed to make £100 a month, which isn't that amazing.

    Calvin
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    • Profile picture of the author dburk
      Hi Calvin,

      I personally think the idea of a local directory can be a big money maker if you build it the right way. You have to get into the mindset of your typical business owner that might be interested in purchasing listings on your web directory.

      First, and foremost, is that you need to have a directory that is easy and useful for your clients' customers to use. Sounds like you have a great start on that already.

      Next, you need to design a backend for your clients that makes it easy to manage their listings and that provides useful and informative marketing analytics within the dashboard. If your clients cannot easily monitor and measure performance data then they are not going to be very interested. You need to have KPIs in a dashboard, and make detailed marketing reports available as well. Once you have that you will find it relatively easy to sell your listings to businesses, most are starving for that data.

      The more flexible, transparent, and easy to use you make the backend for you clients, the more easily you will be able to market it as a valuable service.

      I would continue to offer the free listings to keep your directory as comprehensive as possible, but offer premium listings, as well as featured listings, for all of your category pages, home page and search result pages.

      Consider including reviews from users, if you don't already, as this will make it even more compelling for businesses to create a listing account and monitor and respond to reviews. It's also a great way to keep the business owners coming back and actively engaged on your website. The more value you offer business owners, the more important they will view your directory. The more important your directory becomes to business owners the more they will be willing to pay for listings.

      Consider integrating Marketing Automation software, there are many ways to make your directory go viral when you combine valuable features with marketing automation.
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  • Profile picture of the author LucidWebMarketing
    All good stuff from Don above. Agree you need to continue offering the free listings. Paid listings would get extras, added value such as his suggestion of having reviews. It works for Amazon.

    Getting £100 a month from Adsense is about £1.20 per 1000 visitors. That may be typical for all I know. Remember that people come to your site for what it offers, not to look at and click ads. A directory to me is not conducive to get a higher percentage of people to click the ads. You may also have a problem in having relevant ads being served to you which doesn't help. Maybe a network like Taboola or Outbrain may provide higher revenues in your case.

    You could sell ads directly. More work but may be worth it. For the dentist, show ads from someone selling toothbrushes and toothpaste. Think outside the box: a listing for a real estate agent could have ads from painters, movers and landscapers. Each could pay you a certain amount per month.
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