I've had a site online for about a year now. I've notice that I consistently make between $20 and $25 for every 1000 unique visitors I get. I have never paid for advertising. when you do the math, it works out to about $.02 per unique visitor. now, in my mind, it seems like if I paid $100 for and ad that offered $.01 cpc, I would turn a $100 profit. is this likely to play out in reality, or am I leaving out other factors? any advice?
Consider my post here: http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=223064 Also a lot of people assume that just because traffic goes to ones site that they will receive sign ups, sales, leads, etc simply from that. When in fact the ones that produce such effects at a higher percentage are those who prepare for the traffic before it reaches their site. They do this through list building or creating squeeze pages. For examples of that try here: CLICK
Yes, it makes a difference. If your ad is on a targeted website you might experience a better CTR (users stay on the site longer, and are more likely to click something). On the other hand, your ad might not be as targeted and you'll get users who aren't interested in your product (leave right away, thereby lower your clickage chances). If I were to guess I'd say the traffic from the ad would probably perform worse since the traffic you have now is 100% natural (you said you never paid for any ads). In my experience natural > paid. Just my .02!