Susan the Neon Nurse ([info]neonnurse) wrote,
@ 2007-02-01 12:45:00
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Current mood: curious

Avoidance behavior
Yes, I am supposed to be doing our taxes.

But as we all know, having something annoying and boring you HAVE to do just simply REDLINES the Procrastination Gauge. (Or is that just me?)

So I have of course been doing something else, and I would really like some advice and input from my Flist.

I read on [info]studiofoglio about a new system for putting ads on websites, called Project Wonderful. It's something different from the services where you get charged by the click or the viewings (which are highly susceptible to artificial inflation via bots). Here, a person wishing to advertise bids on a given spot, specifying the maximum they are willing to pay and the number of days they want to do so. That way, the best sites get the most money, but beginners (both advertisers and sellers) can get a foot in the door and try it out inexpensively.

I am pleased to be getting new visitors checking out my online bookstore, but I'm sure I can do better with my ads. That's where you guys come in.

This one is generating the most hits, but it is in the most different spots, so that might be the only reason. Not a lot of room for words on the button size.


This one is getting the next most, but it's on the two newest Girl Genius pages (and two others), so it's maybe a more book friendly audience.


This one is only on two pages. Not as popular a size, I guess. Still, I have had a couple of clicks. I think it's kind of generic.


This one is on 4 pages which are admittedly a bit low traffic, but there have been no clicks yet. Tell me honestly, is it annoying rather than funny?


What I would like to hear from you all is what brief info data bursts would make you interested in clicking over to see my book page. My reliability (selling online since 1996)? Special deals like a 1 cent book with every $10 in purchases? 1000's of satisfied customers? My free book search service?

OK, you think about it and I will go start the gol-danged taxes.


(10 comments) - (Post a new comment)


[info]redrob
2007-02-01 08:11 pm UTC (link)
#4 (the last one) is entertaining, but it's not informative. It would make a lovely bumper sticker, but it's a lousy billboard. It would be easy to mistake it for something other than a link to a cool online bookstore. Ideally, I'd stick with the top one - if you get more space, blow it up. Also #2 (the largest) is entertaining and DOES engage the viewer into clicking through.

#3 takes up more space than #1 without really giving anything additional for it.

So, I'd go with #1 for most purposes, and #2 where the target audience justifies paying for the extra size. You could probably jiggle #2 around and make it a bit smaller or change dimensions if necessary.

Alex

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[info]neonnurse
2007-02-01 08:36 pm UTC (link)
Thanks for being so quick to help!

The great thing about this system is that (so far) size doesn't matter. :) The website owners decide what dimensions and placement suit their page best, and allow bids on those sizes of ads. So the price is the same no matter what size.

The only limit to how many variations of my ads I can have is how much time I want to spend making them. I have templates for all the sizes now, so the time per each is really negligible.

I am thinking about tailoring unique ads for specific sites, once I get an idea of which ones are working best for me. It seems to me that putting ads in in rotation, with the one common image of the yellow neon heart(s) might be a good idea too.

So these ads need more words. :)

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Deeply meaningful input
[info]liveavatar
2007-02-01 08:14 pm UTC (link)
Yeah, I guess those top two are my own favorites.

The bottom one is slightly annoying. I think, "Yeah, I'm not, but bite me".

I have a lot of minority interests when it comes to books, so I'm hard to advertise for. But special deals would probably attract me first, of the things you mention. I worry about online shopping and identity theft (hard to tell how much other people share that concern), so reliability and safety would reassure me.

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Re: Deeply meaningful input
[info]neonnurse
2007-02-01 08:41 pm UTC (link)
That's what I was afraid of, about the last one....

Thanks for the help, and also the idea you just gave me! As I said to Rob, above, I can tailor ads specifically to sites they will run on. One of the ones I picked is a site for math competition students in Texas. I might try putting on an ad that suggests fun vintage textbooks are a good teacher gift!

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[info]drdelirium
2007-02-01 09:33 pm UTC (link)
Being a student and inherently cheap, I like it whenever any company stresses cheapness.

For example, for #4, I didn't find it annoying, but I don't think I would have clicked on it. However, if it had said "...who would surf past an online discount bookstore..." I'd have been more likely to investigate.

I don't think #3 says much or adds much.

#2 is my favorite, mostly just aesthetically. I like the pretty font, and its seeming professionalism makes me more inclined to check it out. As a side note, I would put "collectible books" right after "used books, rare books" just to hook those specialty customers, and THEN for the general "fun", "great" etc.

I like #1 because it's small, it's cute, it's unobtrusive, and is simple. "Bargain books" is a great hook for people like me who almost never buy stuff unless it's on sale or clearance, plus for most folks: who doesn't like a deal?

Again, for me it's more about money, so I'd wanna know about your deals primarily (that 1 cent deal is awesome; I didn't know you had that, I'll have to check it out).

The reliability is a good selling point, but not really worth putting on an ad, in my opinion. To me, all those "Satisfying customers since..." claims only impress me in real life when it's from, like, 1950 on. No (or hardly any?) businesses have been online for even 20 years. So it's a pretty fresh market no matter how you slice it. Yes, I'd prefer to deal with a company who's been in business more than 6 months, but whether it's a year or 3 or 10, it's not a big deal to me. Why? Because there's such a high turnover rate for businesses online, and new ones popping up all the time, so I'm okay with giving a new guy a shot. It's more about professional appearance and excellent customer service when I'm looking to buy things online. This is just one person's opinion, of course, but it may be that other young'uns of my age group raised on the Internet feel the same way (but of course, I'm not sure). Also, I'd be more concerned about length of business reliability in a setting like eBay, where I know one person is behind my deal, and one person can be shady/sketchy/unreliable. If a person bothers to go through the trouble of setting up a corporate name and all the paperwork bs that goes with it (both my parents have done so, my mom primarily having independent internet businesses as well eBay ones, so I have an idea of what it's like for you), as well as putting the time and effort into a good website, then I'm more inclined to inherently trust them.

I'd be interested in the search service (I hate endless link lists I have to sift through), but I almost expect sites to have a search function at this point (it's so prevalent), that I don't think it's a major selling point.

I think next I'd be interested in customer satisfaction. I actually do skim through some customer comments sometimes to see what business with so-and-so company is really like. I prefer anecdotal ones (like "X happened to me, and there was this huge shipping problem, but NeonHearts did Y and Z to help me, I was so impressed!" rather than general positive comments. Some sites have sections with customer quotes that just feel entirely made up.

...I'm looking at your home page now, and I'm liking what I see. But if you don't mind a little constructive criticism, I would change the font color on the two colums on the side from red to something else. Frankly, all that red is hurting my eyes (the backs of them, particularly), and if I didn't know the website was from someone I knew (in a way!), then I'd probably skedaddle on outta there toutesuite. Red's fine for the middle section and the headers, but all the red text under the "Navigation" and "Browse By Category" is a bit overwhelming. I mean, I don't know if anyone else has given you that kind of feedback; maybe it's just my eyes?

Anyway, I hope that helped!

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[info]neonnurse
2007-02-08 06:02 pm UTC (link)
Whoops, I thought I had answered this already! (Did it in my mind, I expect.) Sorry!

The one cent deals partly came into being because I kept running across books I thought were really great, or old favorites, but were readily available and so didn't sell for enough to make the cut. (You know, having to figure in time and storage and all that expense stuff against profit margin.) But since it doesn't increase the postage very much to add something to a package, I thought they would make good bonuses!

I took your advice and changed some of the color on the side links to black. I think you are right that too much is sometimes just too much!

Thanks for the feedback, I do appreciate it!

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]bojojoti
2007-02-02 05:24 am UTC (link)
I like the second one because it says "used," "rare," and "collectible." "Cheap" is always appealing. Except with dates and brain surgeons.

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[info]neonnurse
2007-02-05 12:12 am UTC (link)
Yep, some things are not better when they are cheap!

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[info]spiffikins
2007-02-02 06:31 am UTC (link)
I'm afraid I'm probably not much help - I don't click on banner ads.

It's not so much that I am against them, as that I really don't see them as links to pages that I might be interested in. They're just noise on a page that I immediately block out and ignore.





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[info]neonnurse
2007-02-05 12:11 am UTC (link)
I know what you mean, I kind of do that too. And yet, clearly some people don't, so it's worth experimenting with, I figure!

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