I bit the bullet about a week and a half ago, and signed up for advertising on QRZ.Com. I chose to run a 728×90 banner ad (see above) that appears at the top of the page. These ads actually cost less than the 125×125 button ads that run along the left-hand side of the page. The banner ads costs $270 for three months, while the button ads cost almost ten times more. The reason for this is that my ads share that ad space with all the other banner ads, while the button ads appear every time someone accesses a QRZ.Com page.
As I write this, my ad has had 35966 impressions, 12 clicks, for a click-through ratio (CTR) of 0.33%. That seems pretty bad, but that’s about par for the course. The ads that appear on my website, have about the same CTR. Note that the number of clicks are just that. Clicks don’t equal sales.
To reach the break even point, I would have to sell an extra book about every three days. I think that’s probably a safe bet, but of course, I would like to maximize sales. So, I asked on Twitter what I could do to make the ad better. I got the following suggestions:
- Emphasize that a free version of the Tech study guide is available.
- Change the background color from the orange of the General Class book to the blue of the Tech Class book.
- De-emphasize “KB6NU” to emphasize “No Nonsense.”
I’ve also thought about changing the text add a URL. My thinking is that some folks might not click on an ad, but instead, type the URL into a new browser window or write down the URL to visit the website later. I’ve done that myself from time to time.
Anyway, I’m open for suggestions. If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them.
Walter Underwood says
One ad measurement is CPM, cost per thousand impressions. Combine that with clickthrough to get cost effectiveness.
I would definitely emphasize “No Nonsense” and free.
Try a few variations as separate campaigns and check the CTR for each one.
You might even run two campaigns, one focused on Tech and one on General & Extra.
Dan KB6NU says
I do plan to do create some other versions of the ad and do some testing. One of them will definitely emphasize upgrading.
Steve - W8SFC says
I was on QRZ.COM for the better part of an hour today and I did not see your ad anywhere, even though I did a fair amount of searches and browsing articles. It’s difficult to find your ad, which may be a factor in the low numbers.
Dan KB6NU says
I think that’s just the luck (bad luck, apparently) of the draw. According to the QRZ.Com Ad Manager, my ad has been viewed 3625 times and that there have been two clicks.
Bob, KG6AF says
De-emphasize your call if you want, but don’t eliminate it. It’s a good form of branding.
Walter Underwood (K6WRU) says
You may need a lot of impressions to get a statistically good result on different kinds of ads. Might need to run them for a month or two.
One way to get a feel for the size of variation in your A and B test cells (campaigns) is to run an “A/A test”. Run two campaigns with the same ad. The clickthrough should be identical, but it won’t be. The different clickthrough will show you the signal to noise, because the A/A differences are all noise.
Run the A/A test until the CTR in the two campaigns converges and stops moving around. Then use that impression count for future A/B tests. It might be 10,000 impressions, it might be 100,000 impressions. For my search engine A/B tests, it often takes 200k to 250k searches (results page impressions) to get a statistically good read from algorithm changes.