All you Internet Gurus, need advertising advice.
Discussion
Basically my site is clearing 60GB a month now, and can only get bigger. How the hell do I go about putting advertising on the site in order to contribute to the costs.
I just want some pop-ups (maybe one), big problem I have is
a) I need some decent preferable UK based pop-up providers.
b) Those providers I have found have a clause which excludes my site as it provides music d/loads, don't think it's illegal as none of the d/loads are copywrited since they are all internet radio live-sets with the tracks mixed together.
Are there any other ways to help fund the site, I'm getting desperate else I will have to cap the site bandwidth.
I just want some pop-ups (maybe one), big problem I have is
a) I need some decent preferable UK based pop-up providers.
b) Those providers I have found have a clause which excludes my site as it provides music d/loads, don't think it's illegal as none of the d/loads are copywrited since they are all internet radio live-sets with the tracks mixed together.
Are there any other ways to help fund the site, I'm getting desperate else I will have to cap the site bandwidth.
Speaking as someone who uses the internet rather more than he should, and far rather longer than I should have! I would suggest avoiding popups if you at all possibly can.
The reason for this is when browsing you want the information when you need it. It seems silly with a medium such as the web that your market it is so time sensitive but it is. Anything that gets between your user and your data is a bad thing and unfortunately popups fill this gap.
Just my twopenneth.
Edited to add: Classy website Dave!
Matt.
>> Edited by plotloss on Tuesday 17th December 17:06
The reason for this is when browsing you want the information when you need it. It seems silly with a medium such as the web that your market it is so time sensitive but it is. Anything that gets between your user and your data is a bad thing and unfortunately popups fill this gap.
Just my twopenneth.
Edited to add: Classy website Dave!
Matt.
>> Edited by plotloss on Tuesday 17th December 17:06
Just a suggestion but how about signing up to some affiliate schemes, i.e you put their ad up and for every customer you refer you get £x of their order, as your site is a music one you could for example affiliate with CDWOW.com or Amazon.co.uk, which both do affiliate schemes.
If targeted properly these can be more productive then simply getting paid on banner clicks or impressions.
If targeted properly these can be more productive then simply getting paid on banner clicks or impressions.
Personally I detest pop ups big style.
Hence the affiliate progs are probably a better idea. But can I really see people purchasing the CDs if they've already got the mp3's mixed, hmmm. If anything they'll want the vinyl, and that certainly isn't for sale on Amazon etc.
I'm in a bit of a quandry here.
Hence the affiliate progs are probably a better idea. But can I really see people purchasing the CDs if they've already got the mp3's mixed, hmmm. If anything they'll want the vinyl, and that certainly isn't for sale on Amazon etc.
I'm in a bit of a quandry here.
Popups are surprisingly effective although it's probably a dying breed of advert as software is increasingly being used to stop them. The latest version of Netscape will block them by default apparently (except AOL's own sites!).
Anyway, back to the core topic. It's extremely difficult to get any advertising that pays. Unless you're prepared to chase some companies to advertise direct on your site then you'll not realise enough cash from the off the shelf advertising solutions available.
There are pay per click systems operated by Advivo and Doubleclick but these pay only a few pence per click. Based on an industry average click through rate of only 0.5% you're not going to make much that way.
Your best hope is to use affiliate deals, where you promote relavent products and get a kick-back if someone buys something having clicked through via your site.
These affiliate deals may be the ones that you mention with reference to their terms and conditions exluding download sites. You may be able to get around that by talking to the affiliate operators.
The main affiliate operators in the UK are
www.amazon.co.uk (probably the most lucrative)
www.ukaffiliates.com
www.tradedoubler.com
Don't expect to make much money from these deals though. Income is sporadic from them (except Amazon which is fairly predicatble) in our experience. It may be that you can find some products that are so perfectly matched to your site that you can milk more from them.
Depending how much of a community you have built/are building on your site then you can ask them for money. I've heard of some quite successful implementations of the Paypal 'donation' button. I think Amazon may be operating one now too. I was told of a site recently that raised about £1000 from its readers who were very keen to see this particular site continue.
Good luck.
Anyway, back to the core topic. It's extremely difficult to get any advertising that pays. Unless you're prepared to chase some companies to advertise direct on your site then you'll not realise enough cash from the off the shelf advertising solutions available.
There are pay per click systems operated by Advivo and Doubleclick but these pay only a few pence per click. Based on an industry average click through rate of only 0.5% you're not going to make much that way.
Your best hope is to use affiliate deals, where you promote relavent products and get a kick-back if someone buys something having clicked through via your site.
These affiliate deals may be the ones that you mention with reference to their terms and conditions exluding download sites. You may be able to get around that by talking to the affiliate operators.
The main affiliate operators in the UK are
www.amazon.co.uk (probably the most lucrative)
www.ukaffiliates.com
www.tradedoubler.com
Don't expect to make much money from these deals though. Income is sporadic from them (except Amazon which is fairly predicatble) in our experience. It may be that you can find some products that are so perfectly matched to your site that you can milk more from them.
Depending how much of a community you have built/are building on your site then you can ask them for money. I've heard of some quite successful implementations of the Paypal 'donation' button. I think Amazon may be operating one now too. I was told of a site recently that raised about £1000 from its readers who were very keen to see this particular site continue.
Good luck.
david_h said:If anything they'll want the vinyl, and that certainly isn't for sale on Amazon etc.
www.eil.com sell all kinds of music on all kinds of media (vinyl included, they pay 7.5% commission in cash or 10% as a store credit, their affiliate scheme is here, there are probely many others.
If you know your the demograph of your visitors quite well you could sell things that would appeal to them rather then things directly related to your site.
I would be intrested in seeing your site, any chance of a URL?
>> Edited by rpguk on Tuesday 17th December 17:44
as usual top ideas/info from everyone on here. I'm a car nut as well, it's just I find there are a lot of IT people on here who know their stuff as well.
Will do a bit more research, but the affiliates idea is looking the most promising. However, I can write the code so that people are forced to click through if they d/load an mp3, cheeky I know.
Site is www.feedthehabit.co.uk
not to everyones taste for sure.
Will do a bit more research, but the affiliates idea is looking the most promising. However, I can write the code so that people are forced to click through if they d/load an mp3, cheeky I know.
Site is www.feedthehabit.co.uk
not to everyones taste for sure.
Rather than try and raise revenue through advertising for other Co's you could try reducing your costs by advertising your host Co (easily.co.uk?)– if they will go for it. I, until recently, worked for a Co that did hosting (amongst other internet related stuff)- still do, different Co, and a colleague had a site he hosted with them for free (still does). That Co paid an absolute fortune to a marketing Co to increase the hits on their home page - ok hits went up a bit. My colleague’s site was very popular and he put a banner ad on for them in return for the hosting - produced more than double the hits of the Marketing firm, all they (the hosts) did was host it. Try running that by them, they may reduce your charge by x per number of click throughs - if you get enough hits, great - worth a try IMO.
Good looking site BTW
Paul
>> Edited by gopher on Tuesday 17th December 22:24
Good looking site BTW
Paul
>> Edited by gopher on Tuesday 17th December 22:24
That's a very valid point. Try a few ISPs if your current one won't go for it. I got a good deal when I set up PH because one of the hosting companies I approached were aware of the site and the directors were real petrolheads. Had I not stumbled across those guys I'd probably have had to give up in the early days.
has anyone done this successfully on any kind of long term basis?
PetrolTed said: The other trick might be to spread your files over a number of the free ISPs. Would be a bit messy but could be a last resort.
Lots of free providers can now prevent files being referenced by external html pages. All have it in their contract.
I pay for Freeserve to actually get online from home, but I've never touched the 100mb of webspace I'm entitled to because I have my site hosted properly. Freeswerve contractually disallow me from using my webspace for images etc which routinely appear inline on my website.
Code can't be stored or run from the FS space so I can only really use it for images.
Of course, speaking as a businessman who has hosting packages to sell, I don't think free providers should allow external referencing in any way
>> Edited by CarZee (moderator) on Tuesday 17th December 23:27
I'd ask yourself how you see the site evolving ? What else can you offer, what do you have planned. How many 'members' do you have or how many on your mailing list ? You obviously know who your profile is and who you want to target. Don't want to be dull but as you are not selling anything it is less easy to attract potential advertisers. I'd have a rough guest that the average visitor is probably between 16 - 35. What else do they like ? Affiliations are probably the least complicated route to making a few bob. Business catering for the Music, Electronics/PC, Games (console) markets are probably the best. Affiliations cost bugger all and are low risk. If you start to build up your data base though and bring in some offline information and take into account Data Protection people will pay £50 to £100 for that sort of info and you can do it under the guise of putting them in touch with others they might be interested in. ie Magazine subscrptions and mailorder businesses that are both on and offline.
Good Luck.
RC
Good Luck.
RC
This is all really useful stuff. Coming from a finance background rather than marketing/IT I'm slightly naive in matters such as these.
Basically the site is hosted on 2 servers currently. All the flash coding/message board etc is hosted by easily.co.uk. The data transfer/costs for this side of the site are minimal.
All the mp3 downloads are hosted on an asuk.co.uk server, for which I'm using a banner advert to try and reduce my costs. But at 5p a click, I'm only earning around £1.25 a day, as you can't force people to click through.
I've just had the site approved by leadmount, and one of the sports betting co.'s pays 10p per click. I figure if I write the code as a pop-up this will be like a click and can earn everytime someone enters the page.
I'm fully aware of my audience. they range from 14year olds up to around 28 (nothing older, nothing younger). Geographically, the main users are in the US and Canada. They go nuts for the type of music I'm offering.
I'm in the process of getting a friend who's fluent in japanese to translate all the site text into Japanese. Again, this market is similar to the US where everyone has b/band technology and is on-line, and they have v.limited access to quality electronic music.
The guy who mentioned the possible free ISP hosting idea, I will contact you, but I doubt you'd want to host the crux of the site given the level of data transfers, but I'd be happy to discuss this with you. I can be contacted on mailto:studio@feedthehabit.co.uk
BTW I'm fully aware of my competitors, and never ever duplicate downloads on other sites.
Mailing list of 120 people.
Forum members/mailing list of 138 people.This is in just 6-8months.
Thanks again people, probably the most intelligent message board on the net. An oasis of ideas and experience.
Basically the site is hosted on 2 servers currently. All the flash coding/message board etc is hosted by easily.co.uk. The data transfer/costs for this side of the site are minimal.
All the mp3 downloads are hosted on an asuk.co.uk server, for which I'm using a banner advert to try and reduce my costs. But at 5p a click, I'm only earning around £1.25 a day, as you can't force people to click through.
I've just had the site approved by leadmount, and one of the sports betting co.'s pays 10p per click. I figure if I write the code as a pop-up this will be like a click and can earn everytime someone enters the page.
I'm fully aware of my audience. they range from 14year olds up to around 28 (nothing older, nothing younger). Geographically, the main users are in the US and Canada. They go nuts for the type of music I'm offering.
I'm in the process of getting a friend who's fluent in japanese to translate all the site text into Japanese. Again, this market is similar to the US where everyone has b/band technology and is on-line, and they have v.limited access to quality electronic music.
The guy who mentioned the possible free ISP hosting idea, I will contact you, but I doubt you'd want to host the crux of the site given the level of data transfers, but I'd be happy to discuss this with you. I can be contacted on mailto:studio@feedthehabit.co.uk
BTW I'm fully aware of my competitors, and never ever duplicate downloads on other sites.
Mailing list of 120 people.
Forum members/mailing list of 138 people.This is in just 6-8months.
Thanks again people, probably the most intelligent message board on the net. An oasis of ideas and experience.
If you see this expanding in a major way then I suggest you have a long hard think about the basic business model that you want to adopt.
Your costs are going to be relatively high per user given the volume of data transfer.
I'd suggest you need to work out the average cost of each user on the site versus the income each user can bring and work out if the model is sustainable/scalable.
You may need a more lucrative income model which would mean subscrption or something like that. Sadly, making money on the net from a free, service-only model is extremely difficult.
Your costs are going to be relatively high per user given the volume of data transfer.
I'd suggest you need to work out the average cost of each user on the site versus the income each user can bring and work out if the model is sustainable/scalable.
You may need a more lucrative income model which would mean subscrption or something like that. Sadly, making money on the net from a free, service-only model is extremely difficult.
Pop ups suck. I make money from my website and its a free service. I never use pop ups!
www.getlyrical.com
We are in the same industry sector, maybe I could help you with some advertising. I have a LOT of traffic.
Mail me if you are interested, maybe we could work a mutual advertising deal or something similar.
Deester...
www.getlyrical.com
We are in the same industry sector, maybe I could help you with some advertising. I have a LOT of traffic.
Mail me if you are interested, maybe we could work a mutual advertising deal or something similar.
Deester...
Deester said: Pop ups suck. I make money from my website and its a free service. I never use pop ups!
www.getlyrical.com
We are in the same industry sector, maybe I could help you with some advertising. I have a LOT of traffic.
Mail me if you are interested, maybe we could work a mutual advertising deal or something similar.
Deester...
Yes we could link up. Problem is none of the tracks in my live sets have lyrics. Instead people are more interested in the track-listings, and these are very hard to come buy. Usually manually created by those who know their stuff about the genre of music.
That's the problem with all these affiliate programmes, the site is soo specialised and underground I can't really see me making any money from them. I mean I know where I buy my music from, and it certainly isn't amazon, ebay or CDNow.
Need to have a re-think on the business plan.
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