Using PPC to Promote Flippa Auctions is a Failure

4 replies
Hello everyone. I've noticed that several Warriors have asked if running a PPC campaign is effective in promoting their Flippa auctions. I wanted to share my own results so others don't make the same mistakes.

First, there are a couple of variables that might have influenced a poor performance in my advertising campaign. The site that I'm selling doesn't have an exceptional amount of traffic or sales. The other issue is that the ads might not be attracting the right audience. But if you have any suggestions for future reference then please make a constructive comment.

I ran two context ads on Bing Ads with the intention of increasing the bids on one of my Flippa auctions. My ultimate objective was only to increase the bids so the auction would appear on the Most Active list. My second object was to increase the Listing Watchers. Neither goal was reached.

Before running the ads I already had 26 people watching the auction. The Listing Views were at 250. Since my profile is included in 26 viewers, there were really only 25 people watching this listing. But this means that 10 percent of the the people who clicked on this auction chose to watch this particular listing.

After spending $24.52, the ad received 411 clicks at a cost of $.06 per click. But the auction only received one more Listing Watcher. And I can't be assured that this one additional person was a result of the ad. The total views for the listing after the ad were 951. The other ad for the key phrase "buy a website" didn't receive any impressions.

A screen shot of the text ad results is provided below.
#auctions #failure #flippa #ppc #promote
  • Profile picture of the author TheRealRazzy
    I can understand doing a PPC campaign if you were selling a website for a bunch of money. But if you're selling a site with little income and a bit of traffic I don't see the point of doing a PPC campaign.

    I'm assuming you targeted more than just "buy a website" right? Did you target keywords like "Buy a profitable website" or "Buy a This Is Why I'm Broke website"?
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  • Profile picture of the author OLechat
    We've seen some sellers promote their listing with PPC ads successfully, but it was always high-end listings for revenue-generating sites.

    Keep in mind that "buy a website" is a popular keyword, and you're likely competing with many other ads. I'm not very surprised that you didn't get any impressions for that ad. What other ad permutations did you try?
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    • Profile picture of the author cspencer421
      Originally Posted by OLechat View Post

      We've seen some sellers promote their listing with PPC ads successfully, but it was always high-end listings for revenue-generating sites.

      Keep in mind that "buy a website" is a popular keyword, and you're likely competing with many other ads. I'm not very surprised that you didn't get any impressions for that ad. What other ad permutations did you try?
      Thanks for the reply OLechat. The other ad I ran on Bing Ads was for the key phrase "business opportunities." Following are the results:

      Clicks 719
      Impressions 183,151
      CTR .39
      Avg CPC .06

      This advertisement did not produce any result. But you're probably right, I should have developed the web traffic before putting the site up for sale. Oh well. I won't rule out PPC campaigns in the future.

      Still, it would be interesting to see some examples of successful PPC campaigns used with Flippa auctions shared on the Warrior Forum.
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      • Profile picture of the author OLechat
        That's a good idea -- I'll see if I can dig up a case study from one of our sellers who used PPC successfully.
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