Startup marketing lessons learned: adwords is only the beginning | Hacker News Reader

Startup marketing lessons learned: adwords is only the beginning

insight.io

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"and finish with a little-known traffic tip I’ve never told anyone before"

Nice post. I wonder if replacing "tip" with "secret" would improve blog signup conversions.

Also, please add email subscription so I can get emails of new posts.

"Yes, I’m talking about banner ads and yes, they still work."

I am quite unsure as to why I should take your word for it.

In October I paused a lot of my banner traffic because it wasn't converting directly to sales. But then search conversions dropped off like never before. It was a huge mistake. Now I'm ramping up banner ads like crazy and seeing more and more sales from direct traffic.

To add to the original post, once you have banners up I'd suggest you pay attention to view-through conversions. It's the most measurable way to show that your banners are paying off--aside from conversions from clicks.

IMO, banners should reflect the philosophy, attitude, aesthetic and goals of the brand. If you're the real deal, your visitors will find out sooner or later and become real customers.

I'll post some data and case studies soon. But surely Google's acquisition of Doubleclick validates the model somewhat.

And if you don't buy that, I have anecdotal evidence: I paid for 4 years of college only through buying banner ads on targeted sites.

What is your experience with banner designs that look like they are using plain html (sorta like google adsense)? IMHO these designs convert better than graphical banners because users just filter our the latter.

Plain text banners can convert incredibly well- just ask anyone who's seen a PlentyofFish banner.

There are two main techniques in banner design- clashing or blending with the site you're on. AdSense generally takes the blending approach, but you should try both.

I'm surprised the author didn't talk about using inbound marketing techniques such as articles, infographics, whitepapers, ebooks etc

I've also got mixed feelings about "retargeting". On one hand, it's great because it keeps your brand omnipresent. On the other hand, it can really bug the hell out of existing customers. For example, I'm an existing Grasshopper subscriber but their insect ad keeps following me everywhere. I wish I could squish it!

There's only so much I can cover in one post. All of those are definitely important- I'll get to them in later posts, I just wanted to cover some basic suggestions I found myself giving over and over again.

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