I wanted to do a little follow-up about the results of the advertising I started with BlogAds and Google AdWord’s CPM based SiteTargeting a couple months ago. I have played with and tweaked the AdWords Site Targeting and am paying about 70 cents a click and there have been VERY few clicks. Even though the sites are all highly relevant affiliate sites the traffic is just not coming through. I think maybe people are developing Adwords blindness, just like they developed banner blindness. Impressions are fine and all, but I want visitors.

Now onto BlogAds. One BlogAd was a real bust! (Won’t mention the name of the site.) The other BlogAd on SearchEngineJournal.com has turned into one of my better ad buys. My ad on SearchEngineJournal.com is sending LOTS of traffic at around 21 cents per click. Thanks Loren Baker and SEJ - I appreciate the traffic and love reading the blog too. Thanks go out to BlogAdsas well. They offer a very nice large ad medium compared to other ad options out there. I just wish they had more sites like SEJ I could advertise on.

Original Post - Wednesday, August 17th,

Just thought I would share with you some VERY early results on 2 new ad mediums I am testing for the 5 Star site. BlogAds is looking like a big winner and the new Google Adwords CPM “Site Targeting” is not faring very well so far. My average CPC with traditional Adwords is .56 a click which is what I currently consider (right or wrong) by baseline. Based on my Adwords CPC, my $75 a month BlogAds spend should pay for itself in 4 days. I placed my ad on a fairly popular SEO blog and am very happy with the traffic so far. If you can find a high traffic, well targeted site on BlogAds, I would recommend taking a close look.

Now when it comes to “Site Targeting” with Adwords, while I was excited about trying this option, I am not impressed so far. I am paying an average CPC of $1.55 per click. I started this ad due to one of my favorite forums that says “Put your ad here: We use Google AdSense to serve ads. If you wish to see your ad there, you would need a Google AdWords account. Once you have an AdWords account, you can use the SiteTarget feature to specifically target our site.” Since it’s a very high traffic forum the impressions have added up to lots of eyeballs, but not very many clicks. I also targeted some affiliate directories that display Adsense – but so far the return just isn’t there overall. I will continue to tweak the “Site Targeting” to see if I can make the ROI work.

Have any of you tried either of these ad options yet? If so, what have your results been?