About a month ago, I wrote a piece on Revenews.com about diversifying your online ad budget. Well, a few weeks later, Wade Sisson invited me to discuss online ad budget diversification on Affiliate Marketing Insider on WebMaterRadio.FM.
The episode is called Savvy Advertising Budget Planning got 2010, and we chatted about social media ad networks, as well as second tier PPC networks. The discussion was mostly from the perspective of an affiliate marketer, but the approach is something that pretty any marketer can use:
- Social media ad networks let you better target campaigns through user profile data.
- Second tier PPC networks can offer either (1) better ROI on certain keywords, or (2) access to content networks that don’t deal with the top-tier PPC networks (such as Adwords).
- Know your average CPA when evaluating a networks pricing.
- Start with a test budget to see whether an ad network can improve your CPA/ROI.
In a nutshell, users are diversifying the way they are using the web, so marketers have to diversify how they target them. While social media sites are becoming a bigger and bigger source of traffic, many top-tier content networks opt to monetize through second-tier networks because because they offer more personalized account management. So if you’re looking at ways to expand the reach of your campaigns (and possibly bolster online acquisitions), you might want to consider going beyond top-tier PPC networks such as Adwords.
Thanks for your perspective CT. Typically, I ignore content networks. I have thought these to be more passive than people who are actually searching for a topic. Also, I have never gone beyond the top-tier search networks – who are the good second-tiers and how do you choose them?
mp/m
P.S. – I believe Podcamp Montreal is over, so that ad with the naked guy can go, please!
Hey Mike,
I haven’t personally touched a second-tier PPC network in ages. But what I have had some success with are the social media ad networks – especially StumbleUpon. They really let you target users according to interests, etc.
And the picture is gone ;)