Guide to Startup Advertising

Last Updated on Mon, 17 Oct 2022 | Startups

Guidelines

The Three Prongs of Advertising

There are THREE sides to this game the Publisher (website who hosts the ads and generates the traffic) Ad Network (the company that connects advertisers to web sites that want to host advertisements) and the Advertiser (Company looking to place advertisements in the publishers ad spots)

Good vs. Bad vs. Ugly Traffic

Click through rate (CTR) on each network varies and is very important when determining what advertising options will generate the most conversions given a set spend. CTR can be greatly improved based on ad copy but the quality of the traffic also has a strong correlation (make sure the publisher you’re advertising with has quality traffic of which a high percentage represents your target market)

How you can Pay

When assessing the best advertising options for your startup ALWAYS break down the cost so you can look at every option in parallel. Publishers will almost alway charge one of the following:

Cost per period (ex. $400 for 30 Days) If you advertise on this pricing structure find out how much impressions your ad spot typically gets, and break the cost down to CPM.
Cost per Thousand Impressions (CPM) (ex. $4.00 for 1000 impressions of your ad). If you explore this option, try to find out what the average CTR on your ad spot will be month by month, you can typically ask website owners, or the ad network itself.
Cost per Click (CPC) (ex. $0.17 cost per click) This gives you guaranteed traffic at a set price point.
Cost per Acquisition (CPA) (example $4 per registered user). When you’re starting off, paying CPM or Cost per period can be a nightmare because your conversion funnels will not yet optimized, so try to buy traffic with the last two options, this way you are guaranteed users get to the end of your pipeline.

Test in Paralell

Testing a few advertising option in parallel will give you a strong understanding which one is performing the best for you.

Make your Spend Count:

Ultimately all you should care about is “How much will it cost me per conversion?”. Conversion could mean registered user, email signup, purchase, or other. To give you an idea using the StartupPlays model:

This is a Hypothetical:

If you have 1000 emails, on average every time you send an email out 4% of those email result in a sale, and the average purchase unit costs $40, then the value of that email would look like this:
1000 emails x 4% = 40 Units sold
40 units * $40 unit price = $1600 R
$1600 / 1000 emails = $1.60/email

This simple breakdown would justify an ad spend of up to $1.59 per conversion to remain profitable witha margin of $0.01. (not ideal) the less you pay per click the greater your margin

Advertising Networks/Mediums

Banner Advertising:

InfluAds - Banner Advertising

Insight: Niche Publisher Network, heavy Web 2.0 theme. The transparency of this site is amazing, probably the best (pay for what you get) destination for startups looking to advertise in their niche. Notable Publishers include Venture Hacks, Producteev, SimpleNote, Betali.st, and more.

Networks: Average CPM (Cost Per Thousand Impressions) – $2.40 Weighted Average

Consumer Apps – $2.60 CPM
Work & Producttivity Apps – $3.80 CPM
Design – Art & Creative Culture – $1.53 CPM
Brand & Identity – $1.53 CPM
Data Visualization – $1.40 CPM
Typography – $2.30 CPM
Writing, Publishing & Journalism – $4.30 CPM
eMarketing & Social Media – $5.80 CPM
Startups & entrepreneurs – $5.40 CPM
Tech, Gadgets & Geeks – $1.35CPM
Web Development – $2.27 CPM

BuyAds.com - Banner Advertising

Insight: This is the advertisers buying dashboard to iSocket.com. Notable publishers include Mashable, TechCrunch, and the Blog of Tim Ferriss. The only Q/A process involved in applying as an publisher seems to only be “have heavy traffic volume”, many publishers have a washed down brand, and are composed heavily of user generated content (ie. I Haz Cheesburger, GrooveShark and others). An advantage here is you can purchase ad spots on a website by website basis, so do your homework. Many of these website are also on the Google Display Network, where you can pay on a CPC basis normally much cheaper.

Networks: Average CPM -$5.27 CPM (Based on top 15 Publishers per Category)

Technology & Gadgets – $6.25 CPM
Gaming – $3.43 CPM
Entertainment – $4.75 CPM
Business & Entrepreneurship – $8.45 CPM
Beauty & Fashion – $4.46 CPM
Lifestyle – $4.32 CPM
Social Media – $5.27 CPM

Buy Sell Ads -Banner Advertising

Insight: Similar to buyads.com but more extensive publisher network, as a result CPM is reduced due to competition among websites.

Networks:

Business & Marketing – $2.95 CPM
Design & Development – $1.06 CPM
Gaming – $1.72 CPM
Media & Technology – $1.97 CPM
Travel & City Guides – $0.95 CPM
Style & Beauty – $1.49 CPM
Weddings – $1.98 CPM

Google Display Network - Banner Advertising - CPC (Cost-per-click) *Varies by Publisher

Here is an example spreadsheet with Publishers in the Tech space. Using CPC I’ve averaged anywhere from $0.40-$0.70 CPM using these publishers.

Insight: This is the best place to get started as an advertiser and it has the highest number of publishers. Almost every publisher I look at runs ads on their own, or on a select Ad network like buy sell ads, or influads, then supplements other ad spots/pages with Google banner ads. This means if you do not feel comfortable with their price point, or want to pay cost-per-click instead of a flat rate then more often than not you still can. To find out if a publisher is on the Google Display Network follow these steps and enter their URL in the website box.

Search Ads:

Micorsoft AdCenter - Search Engine Advertising

Google Search Advertising - Search Engine Advertising

Social Sites:

Reddit Sponsored Links - Sponsored Links (Sub-Reddit specific)

StumbleUpon Paid Discovery - Paid Stumbles

Digg Ads - Sponsored Diggs

Remarketing:

Chango - Search Remarketing – Average CPC $1.00

Insight: Really neat, if you have an existing keyword list you’ve generated for your product/service, you can plug it into the Chango self serve dashboard. They have data partnerships, and a collection of publishers that will show your ads to users who have searched for your search terms within the past 30 days. (ex. If you have a project management application, you can remarket to individuals who search for “project management software” across their entire display network)

Google Remarketing - Banner Remarketing (Across the Google Display Network) - CPC (Cost-per-click) *Varies by Publisher

Insight: Google gives you a script, put it website wide, or on select pages where you display products or services, and even after they’ve left your site, you can show ads across the Google Display Network to that individual. I’d suggest looking specifically at custom combinations they’re basically if statement like (IF the user visited “social media consulting service” BUT did not fill out our form THEN display the “Social Media Consulting Ad”)

If you land on a site, and want to find out what ad Network is dishing out their advertisements, you can use Charles to determine its source.

Continue reading here: You're bad at entrepreneurship, and you should feel bad

Was this article helpful?