I bought 3 banners (ad spaces) on 3 forums for $170 [CASE STUDY]

[jefis]

Lately, I've been looking for new places to advertise one of my websites, and I thought to give a try on buying banner ads.

I myself am blind to ads and banners, so I didn't have high hopes about them, but I thought I'd give it a try, since my product is about SEO, and I had the opportunity to buy ad spaces on 3 forums about SEO and online marketing.

On May 6 I launched ads (banners 728x90) on all 3 websites.

I spent $170,10 on 3 ads. They'll be shown for a month, 10K impressions each. That's 30K impressions TOTAL.

They've been Live 10 days now, and the results are... TERRIBLE!

From 7,5K impressions, I received only 17 clicks!!! Which is only 0,23% CTR.

The results from each website vary. The best CTR is 0,36% and the worst is 0,10% (which is, by the way, the most expensive site).

This has been one of the worst investments I've ever made. But if I wouldn't risk it, I wouldn't ever know.

Maybe my banner ad looks like shit (I don't think it does), and maybe the CTR would have been better by testing different designs, but purely on the results so far, it sucks so much.

By the way, I've been testing ads on Quora, and the CTR is way higher (around 5-7%) and the cost per click is way lower.

Here are stats from Quora ads:

I'll update the thread once the ads stop showing, to show you the final results.

 

[globemaster]

Great information we will learn, all the best and following.
P.S. I also don’t hope much from banner ads though I am excited to see the end results.

 

[BassTrackerBoats]

This is a terrific share for the community!

 

[jefis]

This is a terrific share for the community!

Thanks. Would love to see similar stats about BHW banners, since they cost so much

 

[Learn SEO]

This is a terrific share for the community!

Thank you. Great information I can learn, all the best and following.

 

[Gogol]

OMG thanks bro for doing this!! It will be really helpful.

 

[M0n3y.]

You got any end product sales?

 

[Tipitip]

Thank you for the share. I will definitely follow @jefis casestudy. Looking forward to Quora ads as well

 

[jefis]

You got any end product sales?

Well, this is another thing that I failed to track (forgot).
Basically, the only way to track sales from these banners is to make an affiliate link for myself, to know if there is a sale from these banners. I haven't done so, so I can't track it.
There's another option, which is to put a coupon code in the ad, but I didn't do that for these ads.

I know this case study won't show if I earn anything from these ads (which is stupid, I know), but at least you'll see how many clicks you might get from such ads.

 

[Heiko]

WickedFire is a dead Forum, not even the registration works anymore!

 

[thescrrr]

Thats the way of banner ads, you need tó spend way more and rotate banners all the time until you find the banner with the best ctr. And your banner sucks, you should aim atleast 0.60% ctr.

 

[ScribScribScrib]

Well, this is another thing that I failed to track (forgot).
Basically, the only way to track sales from these banners is to make an affiliate link for myself, to know if there is a sale from these banners. I haven't done so, so I can't track it.
There's another option, which is to put a coupon code in the ad, but I didn't do that for these ads.

I know this case study won't show if I earn anything from these ads (which is stupid, I know), but at least you'll see how many clicks you might get from such ads.

Did you use the same banner on quora as you did in the other forums?

 

[M0n3y.]

Did you use the same banner on quora as you did in the other forums?

Quora doesn't support banner advertising.

 

[Mr Positive]

I am no seo guru, but I have a simple philosophy when it comes to advertising, I’ll only advertise where I would click the ads.

Banner ads are good as a publisher, but as a advertiser no most of times I click on them is by mistake and I close them before they open.

Since you’re into seo best way to do advertise is would be Facebook groups which are active some are owned by bloggers some are open for all.

A bonus seo method Testimonials and Mentions, if you have built a reputation connect with your industry leaders then ask them if they would accept your testimonial on their sites (if you habe good reputation they’ll). Now for second method mention industry leaders via a natural way, target 10 -30 in different or few articles, use freelancers to go to their site and type hey xyz you should consider giving a shot out to abc it’s on his blog I saw your mention and came to this amazing site. (Add some more words chances are they’ll reciprocate and give you a shoutout.

 

[jefis]

WickedFire is a dead Forum, not even the registration works anymore!

People still read it and write posts. Right now it shows that there are 959 users online.

Did you use the same banner on quora as you did in the other forums?

No, it's text-based. But the text it almost the same as in the banner ads.

 

[Stitches and Burns]

I advertised on Reddit before. CPC was about $0.10.

 

[vishy]

@jefis your post has just saved me $200. wonderful share!

 

[mzonas]

It's a great share. I have done some banner ads and believe me, forums perform the worst. They are communities and most of people go there on regular basis to catch up on the topics they are interested in. They are likely to be blind on ads as well.

Also, Wicked Fire and Warrior Forum ... really? I remember WF used to so good and then it died ... and WaFo never was a good community ... large, yes but their content and WSOs are so terrible, scammers all over the place ... believe me ... I have undergone this Shiny Object Syndrome ... even if you go to their SEO section, there is so much false information ... not even worth it to try and fix it ...

I am not sure about the second one.

Anyway, sorry for off-topic. I would rather go with blogs that have smaller audience ... or sponsored posts or guest posts (not to mix these two; while similar, they are different).

Good luck!

 

[Gogol]

Banner ads are good as a publisher, but as a advertiser no most of times I click on them is by mistake and I close them before they open.

.

Well this is debatable. As an user, I don't hate banner ads atall. I would click it if I like what I see in the banner. There's less chance that I would click a text ad, because most of the time I wouldn't even notice it properly.

 

[Sherb]

WickedFire is a dead Forum, not even the registration works anymore!

WickedFire's story is depressing. It was a haven for incredible shares in the Enlightened Members section, and had a ton of super heavy hitters sharing extremely valuable content. Like next to no spam whatsoever, no garbage BST threads, no repetitive questions. Strict rules and open and welcome member abuse made it a haven for quick wit and required strong knowledge.

Then the owner saw the writing on the wall, tried to monetize too hard ($47 a month for the section mentioned above and a few other sections), and all of a sudden the most valuable sections disappeared from public view. The owner abandoned the site completely, all the mods left, and it grew legs with rampant spam and low quality garbage.

Many people quickly left, including all of the heavy hitting money makers mentioned above, and Builder Society was born. Now it seems like that site is slowing down in engagement as well. That's what happens when knowledgeable people grow their businesses. They don't have time to engage and contribute with public forums.The lifecycle of a forum.

Why you would advertise on the shell of WickedFire and put money into Jon's greedy pockets is beyond me, but I guess it was a small expense for an interesting case study and warning as to where not to go. Good thread.

I would love to see these numbers contrasted with screenshots of results from actual banner buyers here on BHW. The traffic is clearly higher, but the quality of traffic is likely debatable. I've heard mixed reviews that banners either performed very well or godawful on here. Would love some comparison numbers. @SMMnet @t0mmy @LukaB ? (I have an ad blocker, but those are the three that I know have advertised in the past off the top of my head).