Is paid advertising a shortcut to success?

[Jericho]

Hi all,

Do you think it's a shortcut to gain traffic and users to pay for ads such as Facebook and Adwords? I have been considering this, but I don't want to invest money and get a disappointing return. Of course, I would like my community to grow, and I'm doing this naturally by spreading the word and creating social media accounts and so on. I have a website which has a forum and a blog, but my website seems geared more towards the community forum, but new blog posts do get added regularly.

What is your take on this? Have you had big success with paid advertising? If so, did you have to invest a considerable amount of money?

 

[Golddisk]

Paid advertising is hit and miss. It can draw some traffic to your site and be beneficial, but you're going to need to have a decent budget set aside for it to really have any type of effect.

 

[Yoda]

Unless you have a serious marketing budget then you won't see much of a difference or return on what you are investing, long term sustained paid advertising has a better effect than short term low budget marketing.

 

[MrHorror]

Paid advertising is good for a specific target. You want to drive traffic to a particular article or page on your site? You want specifically more twitter followers or Facebook LIKES? Then it's a worthy investment. But you really have to aim it at one thing instead of a whole site.

 

[Hugop]

It's not a shortcut to success but attention. You get noticed faster than the organic way.

 

[Drew]

I learned this the hard way by investing over $150 into AdWords to only have 15 new accounts on my host, only 2 of which are still active.

 

[Page]

I did use some low cost paid advertisement and that got me nothing. It's hard I mean you can spend over $100s and still get low poor traffic

 

[Drew]

I did use some low cost paid advertisement and that got me nothing. It's hard I mean you can spend over $100s and still get low poor traffic

It's a shame that there's not an easier way.

 

[Drew]

Paid advertising is good for a specific target. You want to drive traffic to a particular article or page on your site? You want specifically more twitter followers or Facebook LIKES? Then it's a worthy investment. But you really have to aim it at one thing instead of a whole site.

Unless you have atleast $300 set back then conventional advertising will get you nowhere. It sucks that you practically already have to be successful to make your business bigger. It's tough on small businesses like me, I go to forums and Facebook to advertise my webhost.

 

[MrHorror]

Unless you have atleast $300 set back then conventional advertising will get you nowhere. It sucks that you practically already have to be successful to make your business bigger. It's tough on small businesses like me, I go to forums and Facebook to advertise my webhost.

Yes and No. Conventional advertising can be a struggle at times but if you really point it in a specific direction and at a specific target - particularly in terms of social media advertising (Facebook for example)... then you will get your moneys worth. The key is to spend small at the start. Then when you get a big ROI on a small amount? You take those keywords or tags and run a second small campaign. If that campaign returns the same results or slightly better than the previous one? That's when you pour in the $300 or so dollars.

 

[Jason76]

If wisely done, paid traffic could do wonders. In fact, the only thing stopping many smart people is the budget.

 

[MrHorror]

If wisely done, paid traffic could do wonders. In fact, the only thing stopping many smart people is the budget.

Advertising isn't really that expensive if you see a return on your investment. Most people who complain of pricing have had some bad experiences with people or companies. Now of course - you have shaky looking sites out there that make wild, impossible promises. But before you fall for those - you should really implement your business instincts and common sense. If someone is promising you 50k youtube views in 24 hours - it's most likely bot driven.

 

[Raichel Simon]

It's a myth that paid advertising is a shortcut of success it's only can seek attention for your site or product.

 

[Marketpl4ce]

Paid advertising is a shortcut to success. Try SEO, that is long-term success.

 

[Jason76]

If the thing become a hit, yes. I mean, I was trying to get one forum owner to try to do some press release type things - with no avail.🙁 The idea being if it's awesome, the mass exposure will eventually propel it into something big - kind of like how a star morphs into a super-nova. 🙂

 

[topned]

If done properly/successfully (is helping you achieve your financial goals) paid ads are a clever way of having your money work for you.

 

[Tyler Banks]

Yes if used correctly and cleverly with organic SEO. It can boost your ranking and will help you in your stable future keyword ranking.

 

[Jason76]

Advertising can always bring success to something with high demand and a decent or well-designed site. However, though, for a situation around lower demand, say a video game product on a video game forum, it will be tougher cause visitors are not coming to buy or click (early in the buying or clicking cycle).

 

[lucycarter]

Paid advertising is a good way to get quick attention but if used wisely it can benefit you immensely. But for using paid advertising, you need to have a decent budget to get good results.

 

[Jason76]

A lot of paid ads are a scam - and in more legit cases, like AdWords, if the ads aren't leading to an email list or social/media page, it's easily wasted.

I mean, if your going to pay - then why not keep them in a club (social media page, email list)? It's a collection of leads.

Best Solutions

• AdWords and BingAds when the results are headed to a social media list or email list
• Just plain old social media boosting - where your follower count is made larger
• Social media ads where people are drawn toward an email list