I must say, I am somewhat surprised, and impressed at our success with HostingDiscussion.com advertising (top banner).

Quick stats:
Total Views: 11466
CTR (click through rate): 0.7% (good for top banner)
Converted click's to sales: 8

That is based on one month, which is very strong.

The ad rates are impressive, and the interface is very helpful (ability to instantly change banners is a major plus).

Any questions have, of course, been answered very swiftly by Artashes, which is again a major plus.

Basically, it seems that if HostingDiscussion.com can keep driving a higher number of users, and members here, it could become quite a good little spot for advertising. My only suggestion would be to have a "sponsor" box, as these do tend to drive more traffic to the advertiser ( i'd take that box off your hands in a split second )

Keep up the good work, Art.

Simon

Thank you for shared info Simon.
It really sounds good!

Simon,

Well thank you very much for your review. Your campaign is indeed doing quite well. I have noticed most campaigns have been doing better lately CTR ranges from 0.3% to 1.2%. The minimum I've seen was 0.1% CTR and when that happens, I usually advice companies to try a new banner, which solves the "bug".

Simon, the "sponsor box" idea intrigues me, but what is that exactly?

Again, thank you for what looks to be the first review of HD advertising. Its always good to start with a positive one.

Best,

Interesting data. Hmm...

On quite a few forums, they have a front page, right hand side "featured sponsor" box.. along the lines of the EV1servers sponsor box at WHT.

The box is usually around "125 x 125".

See attached image for example

Simon

Ah! OK, I understand now. I will consider that, although that would squeeze the front page forum listings to the left and cause inconvenience to some members. And all because of single 125x125 banner.

Instead, I was thinking recently of incorporating a very light and thin text-link area on the top of the page (place of that contest banner) with a strict limit of links to be present there. But this is still under question. Good exposure for some hosts though. What do you think about that?

Best,

Definitely a good idea. The front page of HostingDiscussion is PR4, which means text links there would be a nice little PageRank booster, aswell as a good backlink.


Simon

Actually it has a PR5: http://www.hostingdiscussion.com

How about subforum sponsors?... Like those at freewebspace.net/forums.

They could be text links if those little buttons are too annoying. Just a thought...

Oh no, that is totally annoying and it goes too far to put advertising in between forum content lines.

Best,

As I said, it was just a thought...

And all are welcome.

Thank you for the flowers. No one gave me flowers before.

how much does it cost to advertise here?


Your from N.S. Simon? I am from PEI

We will break our own rules by providing that information with a link here. However, since it is harder to split this thread into a new one, let's just say I will address your question privately.
Our Community Advisor 'Blue' is also from PEI.

After this I may spend some ads on HD