|
ClixSense Review – Advertising Results Analysis
Like many people, I have to admit I was unsure about trying this type of online advertising. The question always arises: Are real people viewing the ads?
|
In this case, I can say they are for two reasons. First, I signed up as an ad viewer (read the review of the ClixSense User Experience here) and I saw plenty of ads myself. Second, as described in my actual results analysis below, I made sales and got sign-ups so I know that real potential customers were viewing my ads and turning into actual customers.
ClixSense Return On Investment
I set all my ads to pay .01 cent per view. Since ClixSense pays that .01 to advertisers, they charge a 20 percent premium in order to make their profit. In effect then, it costs a very reasonable $6.00 (which is the minimum spend) to purchase 500 ad views. That is how I ran all my ads detailed here except for the final one in which I double my spend and ad views.
Advertisers can also choose to target their ads geographically by only showing them to US Residents or using any combination of different continents.
Granted this may represent limited advertising, especially since I was testing various products rather than trying to refine one particular campaign. In any case, here are actual statistics that I compiled running various ClixSense advertising experiments.
- Promoted an online money making product that cost $50 and also offered a free course. Five people signed up for the course, but none bought the product. Those people could become customers later because they are now on the company's mailing list. Considering your point of view, the conversion level could be either five percent or zero. (Net loss – $6)
- Promoted an online money making product that cost $10, there were no sales. (Net loss –$ 6)
- Advertised a $40 product to help people make money online. Made one sale. Reran same ad and did not make any additional sales. (Net Profit – $11 after advertising costs and owner cut)
- Promoted an affiliate marketing program that cost $25 and did not make any sales. I have to say lack of response for this one was a complete surprise as this was an outstanding bargain and a rare high quality product. (See for yourself here: Affiliate Marketing: Quit Your Day Job) I expected to make several sales from this one because the material is fantastic. (Net loss – $ 6)
- Promoted a book about how to generate income online from Amazon.com. No sales of the book, but there were sales of other Amazon products. The commissions almost equaled the ad costs. (Net loss - $1)
- Promoted the number one bestseller on Amazon.com and on the New York Times bestseller list to 1,000 people. There were no sales of the book or any other Amazon products. (Net loss - $12)
- Advertised a $24 product teaching people how to make money working from home (not online income). Made one sale. (Net profit - $10 after advertising cost and owner cut)
- Referred people to a free program that paid $15 per referral. Two people signed up . (Net Profit - $24)
All losses added together total $31.
Overall profits added together total $45.
Final Net Profit of $14 on $48 spent. (Just to be clear, that means I spent a total of $48 and I took in a total of $60.) I think that's an acceptable return for my initial ClixSense advertising experiments.
Conclusion: I think there is a lot of potential advertising with ClixSense. Advertisers should advertise in incremental amounts as they refine their pitches and sales copy and / or determine which types of products will appeal most to ClixSense users.
Also, since the ClixSense advertising is so cheap and cost effective, one sale can pay for the advertising campaign several times over.
There was one more advertising experiment I ran on ClixSense that I didn't include with the above profit and loss numbers because it's a little more complicated. I referred people to a free program about making money online and driving increased traffic to websites. Out of 1,000 ads (a total cost of $12), 28 people signed up. It's harder in this case to pin down the exact profit number because it will continually be increasing since additional website traffic will bring increased profts over time. Also, the money making portion of the program is comprised of several different ways to make money. (See Marketing Pond) I will continue to bring in small amounts every day from all of those programs from my referrals. After about a week, the advertising has almost paid for itself and created a new continuing stream of income. Clearly, the 28 sign ups will far outweigh the advertising costs.
If you would like to read about using ClixSense from an Ad Browser's point of view, visit the ClixSense Review page.
| 
