Regardless of where and how you start your business, you can bet your livelihood that if you are serious about it, at some point or another you will have to start using paid advertisements. While it is true that you can achieve a lot by dishing out high-quality articles and properly optimizing all of your content, there comes a time when your business needs a bit of an extra boost, and the StumbleUpon Paid Discovery feature can help you with that.
Why Pay-Per-Click Ads are the Way to Go
It is normal that the prospect of buying traffic makes many bloggers skeptical. It is quite understandable that as a beginning blogger, you don't have that much money to invest in your business, and every penny needs to be wisely spent. With that being said though, here's a look at a few reasons as to why ads that charge you a certain amount of money per click can be the right way to go.
- Firstly, the type of traffic search engines bring is over-valued, at least to some extent. In comparison to a Paid Discovery customer, one that comes from the search engines isn't necessarily planning on staying on your site. Rather, those who have reached your site via a search engine probably have a few other sites lined up that they are going to check out. On the other hand, someone who gets to you through an ad will be more likely to spend time on your site and actually check out what you have to offer.
- Secondly, it can actually help you to narrow down your target audience. While you may think that you know who your customers are, chances are that you are only guessing rather than using facts and observations. The ads are generally going to attract only the most dedicated and responsive members of your target audience, allowing you to focus on the people that will actually yield you some profits.
- Finally, it has to be said that that regardless of how great your content is, your old audience is or will start to lose interest in you at some point. You can use social networks to promote yourself, but even that isn't as efficient as it used to be. Using paid ads can actually breathe some new life into your blog.
StumbleUpon Paid Discovery - The Flexible Option
One of the greatest things about StumbleUpon is the number of options that it comes with when you are trying to purchase an advertisement online. You can buy ads that are based on impressions (the amount of people who see it), although they are quite outdated, not to mention that after all, you want people to click and not just look. In other words, you are going to be charged a certain amount for every time a person visits the page the advertisements is located on. If you are a hundred percent confident that you can get people to click your ad, then this is a pretty good option however, it's not the only one.
The second option available to you is Paid Discovery and it follows a pay-per-click scheme. Explained otherwise, with a Paid Discovery ad, you are going to be charged a fee every time someone clicks on it. Contrary to the option elaborated on above, you are only charged when there are actual results. It costs 5 cents per click for basic ads, 10 cents per click for standard ones, and 25 cents per click for premium ones. It's actually pretty good considering that elsewhere, these types of advertisements tend to cost around a dollar per click.
How to Use Paid Discovery
To help you get started, here's a brief walkthrough to set up your first campaign. Fortunately, it's quite easy with StumbleUpon as they do most of the heavy lifting for you. The first step consists in deciding the website you will want your visitors to be directed to, and how much you want to pay per click. Until you figure things out it is recommended that you keep your budget at around a dollar a day.
Once you have decided on the more basic factors, you'll have to choose some of the advanced ones. You will need to name your campaign, and although the target audience is selected based on the system's recommendations, you can give your own input. You can target people based on their age and gender, and if your campaign is to be geographically-restricted, you can make a note of it as well. You can even decide whether you want to target people on their desktops, mobile phones or other devices.
Following that, you will need to categorize the website the ad is linking to, and there are quite literally more than a hundred categories you can choose from. You can even let the StumbleUpon system do the job for you, although the results may not be as narrow as you envisioned them. That's all there is to it.
Remember, regardless of what your instincts may tell you, there is nothing wrong with paying for traffic, especially when it comes to advertisements. These ads are simply part of the large arsenal of tools you have at your disposal as a blogger, and if you actually provide helpful, high-quality content to your visitors, then there is really nothing you can be blamed for.
Author Bio: Jason Smith is an online manager for SEO company. He likes blogging about online strategies that are related to SEO, Content, PPC & Lead generation.