When I first looked into Google's pay-per-click advertising program, it seemed like the ideal way for any digital content creator to promote their creative endeavors and build an audience. It also seemed like a way for a new business to actually generate some sales. What happens though, considering how the Adwords system works, if your content is made up of very low priced items? As we all have seen in the recent months the value of digital entertainment content, as it proliferates far and wide across the web, continues to drop to "free". The marketplace this creates is one where branded content, such as that of the major Hollywood studios, may be able to find a means to generate revenue from direct sales of their products, but new and independent creations may very well be left out in the cold. So the issue here is actually two-fold. Late last year I created a website dedicated to original comics and graphic novels made for Apple's iPhone and its beautiful screen. I decided to promote this project via Adwords. I offered a free sample or two and priced the comics at $0.99 each. While the free comics got thousands of downloads and I received enormous positive email feedback, sales were dismal. Add to this the fact that, bidding on the necessary keywords to find the target audience, the cost per conversion could be 20, 30 or even 100 times the cost of the item being sold. So while "free" may be the present and future of entertainment content on the web, we here have an example of a website that likely needs tend of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of visitors to get a few decent sales. So was Adwords and pay-per-click a pipe dream? Can a system like this work for a website with such low priced digital media items?
Unless you have a strong back end marketing system in place that converts well, you're going to be fighting the uphill battle you've already seen. Are you squeezing your freebie visitors for a first name and email address before giving them their free trial taste? Have you tried making something that would go incredibly viral that users could spread for you that drives traffic back to your squeeze page? Are you posting any videos of your comics on video sharing sites (YouTube, etc.) that are properly tagged and that drive traffic to your squeeze page? Seems that with the rabid interest in comics and anime you have a product that's rich with possibilities for freely generated, viral traffic, especially through all the various social networking sites. If Apple can sell downloadable songs for 99 cents and movies for whatever it is they're charging ($2.99/$3.99?), surely there's a market for comics (if they're good) at 99 cents.
Selling comics online is a silly idea to me but if you want to monetize it why not give them away for free and get up a subscriber base while putting ads on your site. Then you will have a steady traffic stream and you will have to pay less and less to buy traffic and everything you make from your ads will be profit. Just an idea
hmmm what a great question and post. here is my 2 cents for you. You can't beat the big guys if you play the game by their rules. They will eat you up and spit you out or what ever LOL. 1. Look out side of adwords: many KW there are over priced for your niche. Think ( adbrite,yahoo,adengage etc.. ) 2. Target the content network on adwords: Find sites by hand that have an excess of traffic and only purchase KW on them and that might bring your adwords cost down some. 3. Again you have heard it before: Use youtube and other sites and design something viral so users can help you spread it. 4. Link exchange with sites in your niche: Free traffic and if you are paying may as well network with other guys so that you can get a bit more targeted traffic from them. 5. Social networks: Nothing new just start building friends etc on every site you can find. 6. What do you do offline: Find classifieds in your niche 7. Build your list because the money is in the list Blah Blah 8. Monetize your site with ads & T-shirts etc.. Consider widgetbucks because they have a category specific to this. maybe you want to use my ref link in my sig ( Shameless plug I know Sorry ) Don't give up and take action. Work your but off for 6 months to a year and maybe you will have a great site with good following. There is no such thing is a silly idea ( look at the stuff on ebay that sells ). You just have to build your audience of guys who are interested in what you have to market. Also you might look at releasing some comics with a higher pricetag as you build your brand. One reason we little guys get ran out of business is because we undercut our way out of business. That is my 2 cents and I hope it gave you some Ideas.
I think these two quotes are the key and very important. I also think they are representative of where the tide of entertainment media is going online now and in the future. Thank you both for your input and ideas.
I think something like that could get a bunch of cheap clicks on the content network too. If your product is good, after a while word of mouth will hopefully kick in and you can reduce your ad spend. On your site, make sure you're building an opt in list though to monetize in the future.
I think you're best of with the advertising model for monetisation. If you got thousands of downloads then you may be in the position to offer a sponsorship deal whereby you add an advert on the very last comic frame in exchange for $$$. Companies like Coca Cola and Nike have always tried to find new ways to target younger audiences, so this could be a solution for you. Then there's publishing adsense on a website that hosts your comics. I would say per thosand views getting $2 is fairly realistic assuming your adsense gets the average 2% click through rate and you get 10 cents for each click. Although CTR can be much higher and so can the amount you get per click (anywhere from 10 cents to $30). Or you could even compile your comics as videos and place them on the revver.com video site which places an ad on the end of your video and earns you money. I believe Revver also distributes their videos on the apple iphone. If you're looking to drive traffic, try the above mentioned techniques but also consider facebook ads. With a facebook page that publishes a sample of your comic you could end up with a lot of facebook "fans" which will be notified everytime you update your facebook page. The beauty of facebook pages is that once you get a few fans, all the friends of the fans will be notified that their friend became a fan and thus are likely to take a look and perhaps become fans themselves. Its a sort of viral effect that could be started by using facebooks own advertsing platform, which might I add will allow you to target facebook users who may have already expressed an interest in comics or are within your target age group.
Very good ideas and information. I do already use Adsense on my sites and actually get $0.50 or more per click with image based ads. One of the keys now is certainly to build a much larger audience. Your ideas about Facebook sound like something that I need to try. Thanks for the information. Direct sponsorships is one of my main goals. Since my comics read like a magazine through a javascript widget, (or on the iPhone native image browser) I hope to simply offer full page ads, one or two per comic.
definetly go the opt in list route and figure the lifetime customer value rather then the 1 time sale value.
Hi Teruchan Very intresting article, personally I believe adwords should be treated with a bit of care, as they're not suitable for low cost items. Have you pursued in marketing your website through SEO, which would remove the cost factor (and risk) for advertising your comics. Hope this helpful Paul
Yes I use SEO techniques as well. It's not always easy to keep up with, though, as I also write content for paying gigs more often than for my own sites.