What is traffic arbitrage? Online marketing for beginners: attracting targeted traffic Traffic in marketing

Let's consider a hypothetical situation: you've built a great website, a great mobile app, or a great online store. You also have customers who are loyal to your traditional, “non-digital” business and have written a lot of praise about you on social media.

“It doesn’t matter how beautiful the website is, if no one is visiting it, good luck building an Internet business,” John Brandon, editor of online publication Inc.com.

It was, of course, a joke about customers obediently following their favorite brand from offline to online - if it were that simple, the billion-dollar Internet industry would become completely useless.

Your landing pages/websites may be amazing, but most likely they default to the dark corner of the internet, where traffic is as rare as the Loch Ness monster appearing before the eyes of astonished witnesses.

So what to do?

You should think about attracting new visitors to your landing page or eCommerce site. You need to build your own traffic acquisition strategy. There are a number of options for this, from paid advertisements to content marketing. We'll cover these topics, but first we need to explain a key concept:

Connection with the audience.

You must use your traffic acquisition strategy to connect with your target audience—the people most likely to become paying customers.

Even if you're new to internet marketing, you've probably read a lot about blogging, paid advertising traffic channels, and social media marketing. This guide takes a different approach by providing the holistic view you need to create a powerful marketing strategy.

Traffic acquisition is much more than search engine marketing (SEM) using Google AdWords: it is one of the most important marketing techniques to reach your target audience.

We need clients, not just traffic

Marketers often group traffic into different categories: traffic that converts into sales and traffic that doesn't. Traffic that converts over the long term and traffic that converts in immediate response to a conversion action. There is “junk” traffic, good traffic, targeted traffic. What does all of this mean?

Some types of traffic are more valuable to your company than others. But this distinction is always subjective and depends on the unique needs of your business. As this guide has emphasized many times, you must understand your marketing goals so that you can determine what kind of traffic you need.

This means taking a step back to look at the big picture and understand your customer acquisition goal.

What target audience are you hoping to attract?

Answer this question first. The next step is to determine where exactly the people you need are grouped on the Internet. You may decide that the most direct and productive way to acquire leads is to reach your audience through Facebook or LinkedIn. You may decide that you need to expand your blog's readership.

Cloud service Speak2Leads, for example, is in the very early stages of launching a traffic acquisition strategy. As part of this process, the company launches a blog on its website that publishes posts from industry leaders.

But here’s the problem: the site doesn’t have a wide audience yet. Speak2Leads regularly publishes new content, so over time the blog will certainly gain readers. But this process does not happen by magic, and the problem of attracting an audience will not be solved overnight - it takes time, dedication and patience. Realistically, it takes 6 to 8 months for a blog to prove itself as a lead generation factor.

At the same time, Speak2Leads provided the rights to publish their texts on third-party platforms ( syndicated content), for example on Business2Community, a website with an established audience of small business owners, entrepreneurs and corporate executives. And that's not all - Business2Community, in turn, syndicated this content to the Yahoo Small Business marketing platform.

Initially publish content on your blog, and then expand your audience by distributing original materials. The idea is to find an audience that is much larger than yours and establish a meaningful connection with it. One way to do this is to advertise on social media. Another way: distribute branded content through a major online publisher.

This distinction brings us to an important point: distribution is the heart of Internet marketing. To direct visitors to the site, you need to position the brand outside the Internet. This timely concept applies to almost any marketing environment.

Eagle Rock Brewery has grown its craft beer customer base through partnerships with local restaurants.

Eagle Rock Brewery's marketing practice embodies the concept that Estee Lauder previously used to build its cosmetics business by distributing products through chain department stores, i.e., places where target customers were most likely to spend money. Today, Estee Lauder's international empire is worth billions.

The main difference between traffic acquisition and more traditional distribution methods is that you will have to do more than just go where your potential customers are likely to be. Attract them to your landing pages/websites and motivate them to visit again.

Understand the Key Drivers of Internet Traffic

Key driving forces - drivers- traffic usually falls into one of two categories - paid and free.

Free traffic includes visitors coming to landing pages/sites through organic search, word of mouth from referrals, social media posts, viral videos, news outlets that track your company's activities online and link to your website.

Paid traffic refers to users who come to your web resource through banner advertising, social media advertising, paid blog materials, etc. If you find it difficult to understand which content is paid and which is not, pay attention to the inscriptions “sponsored by support" or "from our partners". By law, companies are required to indicate when advertising is paid.

Perhaps the most famous myth in online marketing is that free traffic is better than paid traffic. This is not true - both types of marketing require a significant investment of time and money. In other words, “free traffic” is not free—you still need to invest time and human capital into developing a thoughtful strategy and putting it into action.

The next two paragraphs include a general overview of paid and free Internet traffic drivers. Let's start with the big picture and then drill down into the details.

Use free traffic drivers

There are several main sources of free traffic in online marketing. These include the following channels:

Public Relations:

To gain attention from media channels, establish relationships with journalists. To act in the best interests of the brand, connect with top bloggers in the industry and give them your content to publish.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

Develop a strategy to improve your site's position in search engines. When potential customers search for information online, your brand should be at the top of the search results list (SERP).

Social media:

Blogging:

Share your knowledge and expert opinions through your blog. This will make you a trusted source of information for existing/potential clients.

Video Marketing:

Create compelling videos that explain your offers and convey your brand's story. Branded videos also have a certain entertainment value and create a viral effect.

Content syndication:

There is no audience for video or text materials, what does your company produce? Post content on your home resource and distribute it through websites or video channels (for example, YouTube) that have a larger audience. Some of the viewers or readers reached by your content will go to the landing page or website

Create a subscription base:

Attract visitors just once is not enough. Encourage them to come back again and again. A list of email addresses will help achieve this goal. For example, you can send a notification to subscribers about new blog posts (see example below):

As we mentioned in the previous section, the term “free traffic” can be misleading. There is no magic - companies still need to invest time and resources to build a strategy for acquiring traffic through the channels listed above.

Let's take the Speak2Leads blog as an example. As we mentioned, the brand syndicates its own content with third-party media channels including Business2Community and Yahoo Small Business. The company also promotes its blog posts through sales discussion groups on the social networking site LinkedIn, the social knowledge-sharing service Quora in CRM-related threads, and, to a certain extent, on Twitter.

Even though the blog is relatively new, these posts drive a small amount of referral traffic to the Speak2Leads site. Speak2Leads content is distributed through members of LinkedIn groups who are interested in reading these posts. Readers who liked the article share a link to it on social networks.

If a company decides to syndicate content, the article is republished by Business2Community and Yahoo Small Business, sending referral traffic either to the Speak2Leads website directly or through social media.

The cost of web traffic itself is zero. But creating this “marketing engine” requires payment:

• Hiring a content strategist who oversees editorial policy and builds relationships with a content syndication partner (Business2Community).
• Time to prepare texts, which often comes with a cost (CEO time spent on an article is paid at the highest rate), or the direct cost of hiring a copywriter or editor.
• Costs associated with building a social marketing strategy, as well as individual costs for conducting promotions on social networks.

But your team's skills will reduce your marketing costs. A case in point is the story of Dollar Shave Club, a Santa Monica-based startup that sells subscription boxes of men's shaving accessories.

CEO Michael Dubin had some experience as an improv actor. So Michael and his colleagues made a funny “viral video.”

Result? Millions of dollars in venture funding and 5,000 new customers signing up to have shaving kits delivered within one day of launching the campaign - all thanks to a video that cost just $4,500.

Don't expect a great video or great copy to drive traffic to your web properties overnight. Fabulous success stories like those portrayed in Hollywood movies are rare, especially in online marketing. Let's take a lesson from Karen Cheng, founder of the video channel “Dance in a Year” (rough translation: “Learn to dance in a year”).

So, Karen spent a year learning to dance and documented the process on video every day. In early recordings, she moves like a newbie to dancing. As the video reports continue, you can see that Karen's movements are becoming more and more refined. In the final recordings she dances like a true professional.

Karen's videos tell an amazing story of patience, dedication and performance. They give strength. They inspire. That's why this "home movie" has over 6,000,000 views on YouTube to date.

What seems like luck at first glance is actually part of Karen's carefully planned marketing strategy.

“I put a lot of effort into marketing, and that started long before the first video was released. The fact that it went viral was not an accident—it was the result of work,” Karen Cheng in an article for Fast Company magazine.

Here's what Karen writes about her marketing steps:

2. On the second day, bloggers who had seen Karen’s video the day before began retelling her story through new media channels: Mashable, Jezebel and Huffington Post. These blogs provided a significant increase in traffic to Karen's video channel. Expanding the range of traffic sources increased the number of views to 800,000 per day.

3. The popularity of the video “pushed” Karen to the main page of YouTube. This chain of events helped Karen reach 1.8 million views on the third day.

The video also helped connect with potential sponsors for Karen's project. These included Lululemon and American Apparel, two brands from which Karen wanted to receive informational support. The offer did not go unanswered: companies posted her video on their social accounts.

Among other things, Karen released her video on Tuesday, guessing that on Monday potential viewers would most likely be catching up at work on what they didn't finish before the weekend. Her tactic was to “catch” the audience in their offices at the right moment, keeping the entire week available for the video to grow in popularity.

The beauty of the strategy lies in two aspects:

• Marketing and distribution of the product is relatively cheap.
• The strategy applies to any quality, unique content, including electronic books (eBooks) and blog posts.

It's also important to recognize the echo effect created by this marketing initiative: if you Google the phrase "learn to dance," Karen's video will appear at the very top of the first SERP.

Google Keyword Planner reports that this phrase is a highly competitive search term—in other words, there is intense competition for the attention of searchers asking "How to learn to dance?" when asking search engines.

Karen's video, promoted by the high social and PR activity of its creator, is among the top ten best search results. Ranking high on SERPs like this generates a strong residual effect and drives more traffic.

“How to learn to dance?” - highly competitive search query

When attracting visitors to your site for the first time, immediately take care of their return. Email marketing is an inexpensive and powerful way to achieve this key goal for marketers. This is how the PassivePanda blog grew its audience from zero to 350,000 unique visitors in a year.

If you ever feel confused as a marketer, remember: people are the heart and soul of your marketing strategy. You have to fight for the audience's love, support and attention.

Buy traffic? - Also an excellent solution!

Paid marketing channels are powerful traffic drivers. These include online banner advertising, search marketing campaigns on Google, Yandex, Bing, and retargeting campaigns aimed at users who have visited your landing pages/sites before.

Acquiring paid traffic is a strong strategy when it comes to increasing brand awareness or driving customers to your eCommerce landing pages/site.

With enough care, the online advertising ecosystem will significantly improve your company's results. But if you spend your advertising budget without defining the final goals, then buying traffic will not be beneficial.

Small business owners and startup organizers are often simply hesitant to buy traffic.

Why?

On the one hand, they are skeptical of online marketing in general. On the other hand, they do not want to risk their funds. But by ignoring paid marketing channels, you're missing out on users.

Facebook, for example, has launched an advertising program in which marketers purchase traffic on a Cost Per Install (CPI) basis. Users install apps directly from Facebook's mobile platform, and advertisers pay for each such action.

In addition, in terms of costs, this method of acquiring traffic is more than competitive - sometimes the cost of a visitor is less than $1. Facebook isn't the only mobile advertising platform - there are a number of options available to match what your target customers are willing to pay to the prices needed to achieve a level of profitability (a positive ROI).

And here's the thing: companies that avoid the risk of investing in paid marketing channels are probably doing it wrong. Contrary to what our instincts tell us, marketing is not a money drain. When done correctly, marketing becomes a reliable profit driver.

Harvard Business Review, one of the most respected online business publications, published an article entitled “End the War between Sales and Marketing.” The meaning of the article is clear from the title: both business units are included in one team, the power of which increases many times over when sales and marketing are equal in importance and work together.

When your marketers know their job, their activities don't even require budget expenditures. This is a controversial point of view, but it must be made public. If your marketing department is a money sink, it's probably best to disband it. Otherwise, why pay for nothing?

The trick, however, is not to spend a million effectively. Start tests with small investments in marketing (what is called “budgetary”) and increase the budget gradually. Here’s what business owners will be especially pleased to know: you can start testing even with a hundred dollars. Yes, you'll lose them, but the trick is to keep the data you collect about which pricing models, targeting options, and ad networks are best for you.

The AdRoll cloud service allows you to develop and launch a new retargeting campaign in just 3 steps. In fact, you get $60 as a gift for a two-week trial.

One more step and a new retargeting campaign will be launched

Thanks to the presence of online media giants like Facebook and Google—as well as thousands of smaller companies—the PPC marketing industry is worth hundreds of billions of dollars. And rest assured: these numbers are constantly growing (we will go into more detail on methods for successfully buying traffic in the following posts in the “Online Marketing for Beginners” series).

Inbound marketing as a “pull mechanism” for your company

Inbound marketing is a term that has been popularized by Boston-based marketing company HubSpot over the past few years. The term is catchy and memorable, but what exactly does it mean?

In a nutshell: inbound marketing is a kind of “lever” that directs traffic to your landing pages and websites. It is a marketing discipline that encourages business leaders to position their companies as “pull” rather than “push” market forces.

Examples of inbound marketing: branded content (distributed through blogs and video channels), social media, and giveaways/free product samples. Inbound marketing is optimal for companies that position themselves as thought leaders in a specific field and valuable sources of information.

As with any marketing initiative, quality is key. If the content is bad, no one will want to read or watch it, or share links to it (because there are many others on the Internet - good- texts, videos, etc.). The only thing your company cannot do is fake authenticity marketing message. So focus on value, not gimmicks that potential customers see right through.

Key Findings

1. Marketing makes your web resources more visible on the Internet.

2. Traffic by itself does not work. You have to invest time and energy to ensure it connects you with the right audience and brings visitors to your landing pages.

3. Acquiring traffic requires time and resources. Invest in strategy and back up your plans with action.

4. Marketing generates income. If there is no measurable return on investment, you are probably doing something wrong.

5. Don’t rush to conclusions that paid traffic is inferior to organic traffic. Well-run PPC campaigns are highly effective.

6. Focus on quality products and marketing content. If it's stunningly good, there will be an "echo effect" that translates into free social media marketing and repeat visits to your landing pages/sites over time.

7. Consumers can sense deception from miles away. Give them the respect they deserve. Start with your target customers and work backwards through the conversion path to refine your marketing strategy.

High conversions to you!

Based on materials:

Before we talk about ways to attract new customers, let's understand what lead generation is from a marketing point of view. This is to ensure continuous traffic from interested customers. Accordingly, a lead is a potential client with contacts.

To create traffic of new buyers use 5 steps.

Customer traffic: Target audience

Before you start attracting new customers, you must clearly understand who your company's clients are. You need to define your target audience. As soon as you draw up her portrait, the sales manager will immediately understand what question can be asked of the buyer in order to identify his needs and correctly submit a commercial proposal. For example, if your audience is clients over 50 years old, the offer for them should be written in at least font size 14. Because most people at this age have reduced vision.

There are two ways to understand who your target customer is:

According to science

Any marketing textbook suggests doing a ton of research based on income, location, education, gender, and more. This is quite difficult; this method is mainly used by large companies with a large marketing department.

How can we make this process as practical and simple as possible? One of the most convenient ways is to create a photo collage. One picture can replace about 100 words. For example, for a women's magazine, a collage might include: white collar, washing machine, pets, dishes. Then you will be able to accurately explain to managers who your target client is and, thus, visualize your audience.

Intuitively

Use the opposite method: discard the “bad” customers. The formula for determining your customers = all are “bad”.

Who are the “bad” customers? These are those who:

• They take the company's budget into the red when selling,
• Pay with deferred or delayed payments,
• They scold and discredit the organization,
• They buy little and rarely,
• They require a lot at once (high quality, but inexpensive),
• They are chasing a low price (defectors).
• Don't irritate yourself and your team.

They bring nothing but negativity. Remember that the bad will definitely be replaced by the good, with whom it will be pleasant to work and who will bring profit.

Customer traffic: tools for attracting customers

Customer traffic: capture points

When talking about lead generation, it is important to understand that in addition to the buyer, there are also capture points. They should be used when you have just joined the company and want to get the necessary information or make a decision.

Capture points can also be online or offline. The first includes the website, social networks and mail, the second - telephones, answering machine, office and employees.

Every business has its own capture points. It is important to work them out carefully. After all, the image of your organization and how you work directly with customers is related to traffic and then sales. Otherwise, buyers will go to competitors.

Customer traffic: sales funnel

Most companies believe that to create traffic and increase conversions, you just need to increase the number of cold calls at the initial stage. However, this is not quite true. The classic sales funnel begins with a cold call, followed by a presentation, sending a commercial proposal, then contracts and payment.

In fact, one of the key points for traffic growth at each of the listed stages is the analysis of the manager’s intermediate actions. Ask yourself: what can you do to increase the number of payments? At what stage is the company doing something wrong? What can you do to make cold calling more effective? What presentation should you make to ensure maximum impact?

Customer Traffic: Marketing Funnel

The marketing funnel is an extension of the sales funnel. After you have made a sale, your task is to solve several more problems:

• create buyer loyalty towards the company;
• organize upsells;
• enable recommendation service.

It is important to understand that the transaction does not end when you are paid. And then, when you have achieved recommendations and positive reviews.

Customer traffic: brand advocates

An additional source of customer traffic can be the customers themselves. But you need the most loyal ones. After all, it is necessary to stimulate word of mouth. How to identify the most loyal?

The easiest way is to carefully study your funnel and especially your sales “skirt”. This is where your “lawyers” sit. Having identified them, come up with a pleasant reason for contact that is not accompanied by a sale: a gift, bonus points, a sample. Check with them to see if they are happy with everything.

Next, approach the matter with determination and a scientific approach. Start measuring your Net Promoter Score. Those who give you a rating of 9 or 10 on a ten-point scale are potentially ready to recommend you to others. Then come up with a “refer a friend and get...” campaign for them.

We've covered 5 steps to help you improve your lead generation system. Use them to create continuous customer traffic, introduce new tools and improve existing ones.

What is Internet marketing and what is its essence? What promotion tools and strategies are suitable for beginners? Where can I get comprehensive training in the basics of Internet marketing?

Hello, dear readers! With you are the founders of the business magazine HiterBober.ru Alexander Berezhnov and Vitaly Tsyganok.

Today we will look at such an interesting topic as Internet marketing.

If you work in the Internet field, then knowledge of the basic tools of Internet marketing will be essential for you. Personally, we use them on our site and it gives us great results.

Thanks to knowledge of the basic Internet marketing tools described in the article and their correct implementation in your business, you will be able to increase the income from your Internet projects significantly.

From the article you will learn:

• What is Internet marketing and what is its essence?
• What promotion tools and strategies are suitable for beginners?
• Where can I get comprehensive training in the basics of Internet marketing?

The tricks and techniques described here will help you increase your online sales and gain a comprehensive understanding of how to promote and attract customers online.

1. Internet marketing: definition, features and benefits

Any commercial project needs to expand its field of activity.

Almost all modern commercial companies have a presence on the Internet in the form of a full-fledged resource, blog, or page. However, simply by creating a network resource and even filling it with information content, you will not automatically increase sales and increase the popularity of the company (website).

More targeted work with the site is needed, involving its promotion, SEO promotion and increasing conversion. This is what online marketing specialists do.

Let's give it a definition.

Internet marketing is a set of techniques on the Internet aimed at attracting attention to a product or service, popularizing this product (website) on the Internet and its effective promotion for the purpose of sale.

Modern dictionaries define online marketing as the practice of using all aspects and elements of traditional marketing in the network space. The main objective of events of this kind is to get the maximum effect from potential site users and increase their flow.

Integrated Internet marketing uses all possible channels of advertising and promotion of resources on the Internet to increase website traffic and sales growth.

Basic internet marketing tools:

• SEO optimization (promotion in search engines);
• e-mail newsletter;
• advertising on social networks;
• contextual advertising;
• banner advertising;
• traffic arbitrage.

Web marketing tools will be discussed in more detail below.

In the meantime, let’s find out the features and advantages of professional website promotion in the network space.

The basics of Internet marketing are the same as in regular marketing.

Classical (traditional) marketing is the process of identifying and effectively meeting the needs of individual customers and the consumer audience as a whole.

The main task is to provide and promote goods and services to consumers and establish direct relationships with the client for the benefit of the company.

The rules of web marketing are quite simple: you can understand them in a few hours, but knowing the basics does not mean that you will be able to apply them productively in practice (just as knowing the rules of a chess game does not make you a grandmaster).

Ideally, the business of promoting and promoting products on the Internet should be handled by professionals. Today, Internet marketing services are provided to website owners by special agencies and studios, which are becoming more and more numerous in the online space every day.

Effective Internet marketing (e-marketing) consists of the following components:

1. Product (aka product). A prerequisite: what is sold through network resources must be distinguished by quality or some unique properties in order to compete with other sites and regular stores.
2. Price. It is believed that prices on the Internet are slightly lower than in real life.
3. Promotion– multi-level promotion of both the site itself and individual products. This element includes a whole arsenal of tools - SEO, contextual, interactive and banner advertising, working with communities on social networks and blogs.
4. Point of sale- the site itself. A functional resource must have an original design, high-quality navigation, and top-level usability.

Other components also play an important role: target audience, content (website content), and involvement of visitors in marketing processes.

An Internet marketing strategy involves step-by-step work to determine the needs of the audience, create and promote content, and involve visitors in active purchasing processes.

Involvement– a key indicator of the effectiveness of modern web marketing. This element shows the level of user interest in your site and ultimately determines the success of a business venture.

Before you start promoting a resource, you should determine its target audience and the needs of each client who comes to your website. Only in this case is it possible to increase resource conversion and make a profit.

We continue to conduct our “ABC of Internet Marketing”, in which we reveal the basic concepts in simple words, without abstruse terms and complex examples. Read, join in - everything is simple and clear with us! In this article we will tell you what website traffic is, what its types are and how to find out website traffic.

What is Internet traffic?

To best visualize this, let's move from the virtual world to the offline world and understand the concept of traffic using a specific example. Each of us has a shop near our house where we go to buy bread, milk or something for dinner. A saleswoman, Aunt Masha, whom you know very well, works there. Besides you, people who live or work nearby come into the store every day. Let’s imagine that the store is a website, Aunt Masha is its owner, and the people who go there are site visitors. So, all the people who came into the store today are traffic.

The same thing happens in the online world. Traffic is the number of people who visited a site per unit of time - a day, a month, etc. For example, if 150 people visited a day, it means that the daily traffic to the site is 150 people (or, as they also say, 150 visits or 150 unique visitors).

It is clear that the more traffic to the site, the better, because those people who visit the site are your potential clients, your consumers. They come to the site for a reason - they are interested in your offer, products, services.

So, Internet traffic is the number of people who visit the site per unit of time - a day, a month or a year.

Sources of traffic to the site

Now let's figure out how visitors get to the site. We are transported again to the offline world and stand at the door of the store. All these people who come into it - how did they know about the existence of this store, why did they come here? One, for example, saw an advertisement in the elevator: “Wow, there’s milk for 39 rubles - you have to come in!” The second one was given a leaflet on the street. The third heard the advertisement on the radio, the fourth was told by a neighbor. These are the channels through which visitors come.

The online world also has its own sources of traffic:

1. Search results. You search for information in a search engine - it returns sites based on your request. You follow the links, become a visitor and increase site traffic. We will tell you more about search results in the next issues of our “ABC of Internet Marketing”.
2. Contextual advertising. Again, you enter a query into a search engine, and the topmost ads are contextual advertising. Companies buy these spaces and pay for clicks.
3. Advertising on social networks. Have you seen advertising blocks on the side on VKontakte or Odnoklassniki? By clicking on them, you are again taken to the site.
4. Direct visits. People learn about the site not only from the Internet - some are advised by friends, others hear advertisements on radio or TV.

So, there are several types of traffic through which a person gets to the site. If you are the owner of a resource, it is in your interests to use all these sources. The bigger, the better!

How to find out website traffic?

In the good old real world, website traffic analysis is a piece of cake. You can place a stern guard with a notepad at the entrance to the store so that he manually counts the number of visitors. You can install counters at the entrance that automatically respond to each visitor and send a report to the store director.

What good is a website if no one visits it? Who will place orders, read articles, click on advertisements? Users are the raison d'être of the Internet; millions of sites compete for their attention every day.

To attract the attention of the audience, that is, to increase traffic to the resource, is within the power of everyone, even a beginner, a website owner or an Internet marketing specialist.

Traffic (from English traffic - movement)- the total number of unique visitors who came to the site from all channels per unit of time.

When talking about traffic, we will use the term “traffic”.

The conclusion suggests itself: increase traffic, and sales will increase. However, this is a common mistake made by beginners because not all traffic is created equal.

We can talk about the effective operation of a website when visitors perform targeted actions on it: register, place orders, subscribe to a newsletter, or call the company. Therefore, it is important to bring as many interested audiences, that is, targeted traffic, to the site as possible.

To do this, you need to choose and configure advertising tools correctly. The most effective advertising is the one based on the principle of selectivity - targeting.

These tools are:

• search engine promotion;
• contextual advertising;
• media advertising (banners);
• social media marketing.

You can use one or more types of online advertising depending on the theme of the site and the goals of your company. Below we will look at each of them in detail and tell you how to direct a specific type of user to the resource that meets the goals and needs of your site.

SEO traffic

SEO traffic (traffic from search engines, organic traffic) is visitors who go to a resource via links from the search engine results page (for example, Yandex, Google). Users themselves make requests to search engines about goods, services or information; they are interested and ready to consider offers, including those from your website.

Obviously, most of the organic traffic will go to resources that occupy high positions in search results (usually the first page, otherwise the TOP 10). In order for a website to reach the TOP, it is necessary to promote it purposefully. To do this you should:

• Prepare: conduct an audit of the site, analyze its current positions and the positions of competitors in the search results.
• Optimize resource: eliminate errors on the site that interfere with promotion, improve the technical, textual, visual characteristics of the site and further constantly develop the resource, making it more useful and convenient for visitors.
• Work with reference mass: increase the number of external links that direct the user to the promoted site from other resources, optimize internal links that help navigate through the pages of the site. The volume and quality of the link mass are one of the most important factors on which the position of a resource depends.

Who is it suitable for?

Search engine promotion is an excellent solution for companies that want to:

• get a stable flow of target audience;
• increase sales via the Internet;

This is the most universal method of attracting traffic to a website. It is suitable for all companies that have a product, demand for it and a high-quality website. Based on your goals, business characteristics and web resource, you can use search engine promotion options: promotion by positions and promotion by traffic.

Promotion by position

The classic promotion option is to bring the site to specified positions in search results for a limited number of high- and mid-frequency queries (HF and MF), which bring the largest amount of traffic. (If you prefer to use the services of SEO companies, then payment for their work will be made for bringing the resource to the given TOP for the necessary queries.)

This promotion option, as a rule, brings bonuses: related queries that are not included in the list for promotion are automatically moved up to higher positions - low-frequency (LF), but bringing the visitors most interested in purchasing/ordering.

For example, following the high-frequency query “cars” or “buy a car” (users enter these phrases into Yandex search 7,775,276 and 368,384 times a month, respectively), a low-frequency query, for example, “buy a car in Moscow inexpensively” ( administered 286 times per month).

Advantages

• Search results are not perceived by users as a means of advertising - after all, they themselves made a request to Yandex or Google, found the necessary information, and made their choice.
• Long-term, stable effect: an optimized, that is, convenient and useful, site will be able to maintain high positions in search results and attract new visitors who will willingly become clients.
• The low price of this method compared to traditional offline advertising (outdoor advertising, radio, TV, etc.); successful promotion through positions repeatedly justifies the investment.

Flaws

• Search engines have certain requirements for the quality of a website that affect rankings. However, they do not provide guarantees of reaching the TOP, much less clear recommendations for achieving it. You will have to independently understand the intricacies of ranking algorithms, which can change monthly. As a result, the result is difficult to predict.
• Effective promotion in search engines is a continuous process: constant monitoring of changes in search engine algorithms and regular work on website development are required.
• Bringing a site to the TOP of search results takes at least 4-6 months (this point is more of a useful limitation than a disadvantage: by accelerating promotion, you can incur sanctions from search engines).

Get better results

• Fill your site with high-quality content that is useful for your visitors and don’t forget about optimizing it (this is discussed in the books “A Visual Guide to SEO Copywriting” and “How to Tame a Search Engine”). This way you will significantly increase the resource’s chances of ranking high in search results, and therefore of quality traffic.
• Take a responsible approach to creating a list of requests for promotion - the semantic core of the site (SC). Use, for example, the Yandex.Wordstat service and select words and phrases that most accurately describe your activities, name the goods and services you offer: the more precise the request, the more clients it will bring.
• To promote, choose queries for which your site is already in the TOP 100 search engine results, this will save your money and time.
• Regularly “clean” the semantic core: if you see that queries are in the TOP, but do not bring traffic, refuse such queries and select new ones.
• Use the analytical services Yandex.Metrica or Google Analytics: set up goals, collect statistics on clicks from search engines, identify the most converting queries and promote them to the TOP (we recommend using the book “Web Analytics in Detail”).
• Analyze the usability of the resource (ease of use of the site) using the Webvisor tool (Yandex. Metrica), regularly analyze competitors' sites, borrow usability elements from them, techniques for persuading/encouraging the audience to take action - this way you will increase the conversion of visitors into buyers.
• Don’t chase the number of external links, focus on quality: place links to your site only on high-quality sites (their topics should match the topics of your resource as closely as possible).
• Don’t rush to build up your link mass, take into account the age and reputation of the site: a sharp increase in external links may cause the resource to fall under the “Link Explosion” filter. A balanced, and therefore safe, purchase of links, as a rule, requires from 3 to 6 months.

Promotion by traffic

The ultimate goal of this option for promoting a resource is not the very fact of bringing the site to the top positions for queries, but the formation of a flow of the target audience from search engines. (Accordingly, if you work with a contractor using this option, you only pay for visitors who come to your site for specific queries.)

The fundamental difference between traffic promotion and promotion by position is the approach to the formation of a strategic position. In this case, several hundred requests are promoted, mostly low-frequency ones, which gives greater stability during promotion and an influx of targeted visitors after just a few weeks of work.

Who is it suitable for?

• online stores offering a wide range of products;
• large brands operating in a high-volume industry (for example, tourism, pharmaceuticals, auto parts);
• portals that resell traffic or advertising;
• for those who want to increase the return on promotion through positions.

Advantages

• Relatively short time to achieve results - a noticeable increase in traffic will be noticeable within 1-2 months.
• A large number of requests for promotion allows you to avoid significant traffic losses due to changes in search engine ranking algorithms (unlike TOP positions for high-frequency and mid-range queries, which can drop significantly in this case).

Flaws

• Applicability: The method is well suited for large multi-page online stores or portals, but is ineffective for small sites. This should be taken into account when choosing a promotion method: by traffic or by position.

Get better results

• Collect the most complete and targeted semantic core (SC), when compiling it, focus on low-frequency queries.
• If you are selling something on the website, then when selecting communication terms, be sure to focus on transactional queries (using the words “buy”, “order”, “cost”, “price”).
• If you work with a contractor, make a list of negative keywords for them - queries for which you do not need traffic. For example, you sell only new cars, and people who come with the request “buy a used car” will not become your customers - this is untargeted traffic for which it is not profitable for you to pay. Accordingly, the negative keywords for your CN will be “used”, “used”, “used”.
• Make sure that the contractor does not use key phrases that include the brand name for promotion (for example: “osago in Rosgosstrakh”, “products of farmer Ivanov”): in response to such brand requests, the corresponding resources are given in the first positions and without the participation of the optimizer.
• Don’t forget to analyze your website statistics: search traffic, conversion percentage, presence of visitors for queries with negative keywords. Based on analytics data, update your communication messages to attract the most loyal traffic.

Traffic from contextual advertising

Traffic from contextual advertising (context, KR)- visitors who came to the site from short text messages. Such ads are shown to users along with search results and correspond to the topic (context) of the request made. Contextual advertising can also be placed on thematic resources - from partners of the advertising service.

Who is it suitable for?

• All companies to quickly attract target users to the site.
• Companies with a pronounced seasonality of goods and services to support sales, regularly holding promotions to quickly notify the audience.
• As an additional source of traffic for resources using SEO: if you managed to bring your site to the TOP for the season, then by also using advertising campaigns, you will receive the maximum flow of visitors.
• New Internet projects that are not sufficiently developed for SEO promotion. As a rule, search engines do not show young sites in high positions in search results.

Advantages

• Advertising is seen only by people interested in purchasing or information.
• The first visitors who move from the context to the resource can be expected within a few hours after the launch of the advertising campaign.
• A contextual advertising campaign can be quickly managed in real time: planned, launched, received a report, paused, reduced or increased the number of ads, and adjusted the cost of user transition to the site.
• The auction pricing model allows the advertiser to choose the best positions for placing an ad, while independently managing the budget. Your ad will be shown to potential customers regardless of changes in search engine algorithms.

Flaws

• After campaign funding stops, ads are not shown and the flow of visitors stops.
• You are not immune from clicking. Payment to the Kyrgyz Republic is made for each click on an ad, and unscrupulous competitors take advantage of this: they organize a massive click on ads in order to “click” your budget and stop the advertising campaign.
• The tool is not suitable for running long-term and large-scale campaigns: investments are much higher than, for example, the cost of search engine promotion of a website.
• Despite advertising services' claims about the universal accessibility and ease of use of context, you will need time, solid experience and knowledge of technology to make an advertising campaign truly effective. As practice shows, unprepared beginners waste up to 50% of their budget.

Yandex.Direct- a contextual advertising system on Yandex pages and on the sites of its partners; in 2001 it became the first search advertising service on the Russian-language Internet.

Google AdWords- a contextual advertising system from Google, which appeared on the RuNet in 2002; Today it is Google's main advertising project and the main source of profit.

If you don’t yet have enough experience working with context, it makes sense to contact a digital agency, where professionals will competently plan and conduct an advertising campaign, which will allow you to quickly achieve the desired results and save your budget.

You can read about the main stages of launching a contextual campaign in the book “Internet Marketing in 55 Minutes.”

Get better results

• Carefully create a list of queries for which your ads will be shown. For contextual advertising, as well as for traffic promotion, advice regarding negative keywords is relevant.
• Take the time to create text for your ads. Avoid empty, uninformative expressions (like the screenshot below).

Tell us what the user needs in just a few words: where, what, how much. The ad will reach exactly the audience that is satisfied with your prices, assortment, and region. The likelihood of converting visitors into buyers will increase.

• Don’t forget to fill out the email form in Direct: then your ad will display the “Address and Phone” link, clicking on which will lead to a page with your company’s contact information.
• Define the landing page: for example, if the ad announces a promotion, then the user should go to the page with this information, and not to the main page or to the “Contacts” section.
• Set up time targeting. It will solve several problems:
  • if your audience is most active at a certain time, correctly configured advertising will be shown to targeted visitors.
  • you will be able to attract users when your company is able to quickly process a call or client request,
  • If your budget does not allow you to run a contextual campaign 24 hours a day, you can save money by stopping ad displays during peak competitive hours, when the cost per click increases sharply.
• Set up geographic targeting. Choose regions that are interesting for your business to display ads: this will attract people to your site looking for goods and services in the territory in which you are ready to provide them. For example, the company builds cottages only in Ryazan and the Ryazan region. Obviously, traffic will be more targeted if you show advertising to residents of this region.
• If you launched a campaign through Yandex.Direct and want to display advertisements in several regions, then you should create a separate campaign for each of them. The fact is that the service calculates the cost per click on average for all cities specified in the campaign: the more of them, the higher the cost per click.
• Remember about security: webmasters receive a percentage of the cost of each click, and it happens that unscrupulous referrals organize “clicking” of ads posted on thematic sites - the budget is wasted. You can either disable ad impressions on referral sites (at the time of setting up the campaign), or constantly filter out (using web analytics tools) resources that provide untargeted traffic.
• Using Yandex.Metrica or Google Analytics services, test and select the most effective keywords, headlines and texts, disable ads with a low CTR (below 0.5%) or ads that do not lead to conversions. In this way, you can increase the impact of a contextual campaign while reducing the costs of its implementation.

Traffic from display advertising

If the targeting is set up correctly, and the banner is professionally designed and clearly visible on the site, the advertising will be deposited in people’s subconscious. And if at the moment they have not clicked on the banner, then with a high degree of probability they will remember and choose a memorable company and its offer.

Who is it suitable for?

Companies that want:

• quickly and clearly convey information to users;
• quickly attract the audience at a certain moment (with pronounced seasonality of goods/services);
• increase company/brand awareness.

Advantages

• The advertising message is reinforced by visual and/or emotional perception. Images or animations attract attention, encouraging clicks.
• Get quick results. A properly designed banner campaign can dramatically increase website traffic in a short time. But at the same time, it is necessary to have already prepared resources: the site must be ready for a large and sudden influx of visitors.
• Complete statistics of all impressions and transitions. If at the campaign planning stage all banners were marked, then you can quickly identify ineffective sites and, by disabling the display of banners on them, transfer the budget to more successful ones.

Flaws

• An advertising campaign requires a substantial budget, since media advertising is typically paid for per 1,000 impressions, and most platforms have a lower threshold for the minimum number of impressions. In addition, there are costs associated with the production of the banner itself: creative and professional execution of a banner that will be remembered for a long time is not cheap.
• A strong advertising effect can be both a plus and a minus. At its core, media advertising is close to offline advertising (TV, print), to which many users have developed a negative reaction or indifference. This is where banner advertising loses to search engine promotion - when receiving search results, the user is confident that he found the information himself.

You can organize a media banner advertising campaign in 3 ways:

1. Directly: you choose advertising platforms yourself, negotiate with their owners, develop a banner and strategy (time, place, duration of display), and control the progress of the campaign. As a result, you get the necessary platforms, a fairly high cost of the campaign and the need for constant personal control over its implementation.
2. Through banner networks: you act through an advertising network, providing the administrator with promotional materials and campaign conditions. This method is much cheaper than the previous one, but you cannot count with 100% confidence on high-quality sites and the best places for your banners.
3. Through a digital agency: you entrust your advertising campaign to professionals who can create advertising banners, develop a strategy for their placement, reduce your costs by using optimal audience targeting and placing advertising on quality sites.

• web campaigns (media advertising on websites in various formats: banners, teasers, videos, etc.);
• mobile campaigns (media advertising for mobile versions of websites);
• placement in social media (media advertising on social networks);
• combination of advertising types, web and mobile channels.

Get better results

• When choosing a site for placement, you should study its quality. If you are launching a campaign yourself, you should request statistical data from the site owners:
  • number of visitors: place banners on resources with the highest traffic (large city, regional, news portals, popular thematic sites that match the interests of your potential clients);
  • average time spent by the user on the site per visit;
  • browsing depth (how many pages a user views per visit).
• You can find out one more important point on your own: the frequency of updating materials, the behavior of the audience on the site (average number of comments on posts, likes, shares on social networks). A serious criterion for evaluation can be considered the amount of search traffic on the site - it indicates the visibility of the resource in search engines in its field.
• By analyzing and comparing the parameters of several sites, you can choose the most suitable ones that will bring the desired traffic.
• The golden mean in the price/effectiveness ratio when placing a banner on a resource is places next to the main content (if the site you choose is really popular and readable). At the same time, the page should not be overloaded with other media advertising.
• If the goal of attracting traffic from banner advertising is to convert visitors into buyers, it would be wise to limit the frequency of displaying a banner to a unique user to 3-5 times to avoid excessive advertising effect (see “Disadvantages”). If advertising works primarily for the image, the frequency of impressions can be increased up to 7-10 times.
• Take a responsible approach to creating a banner:
  • it must be done professionally and creatively;
  • place calls to action in the advertising text, for example: “click”, “click”, “find out now”;
  • Make sure that when placing a banner on a website, the Alt attribute is specified for it - a description of the banner in the page code. This text will appear on the screen instead of the image if the user views the page with images disabled.
• Set up banner display targeting: this way only your target audience will see your advertisement.

Traffic from social networks

Social Media Marketing (SMM) is a wide range of marketing tools for interacting with the audience of social media (networks, forums). Attracting traffic to a website is just one of the tasks that can be solved with the help of a well-planned and executed SMM campaign.

Using social media, you can effectively:

• increase awareness of the company and its services among potential clients;
• build and maintain the reputation or image of the brand\company;
• increase the loyalty of potential customers to the company and products;
• quickly notify the audience about new products, promotions and other company events;
• create demand for new goods or services; ^ increase traffic to the brand community.

Who is it suitable for?

• Social media marketing is especially useful for large service companies (telecommunications, tourism, hotels or restaurants), whose potential customers are active users of social networks.
• Medium and small businesses - those for whom it is important to communicate with the audience, build their reputation, and provide customer support.

Advantages

• People will distribute high-quality, interesting, useful content through social networks independently, without the participation of the organizer (or with minimal effort).
• SMM is based on the value of public opinion - messages transmitted through social networks create more trust among potential consumers.
• You can have a targeted impact on your target audience, choosing only those platforms where this audience is most represented, and using the most appropriate methods of communication with it.

Flaws

• SMM is not a means of direct sales. It is aimed at increasing a loyal audience and retaining it in social communities. SMM is communication with users, a long-term process that requires certain resources and constant attention. If a company is not ready for long-term communication with its audience, social media marketing will be ineffective.

SMM includes many ways of working (we talked about them in the book “SMM Tutorial”). The most effective and popular methods for attracting traffic are:

• building brand communities: accumulation of target audiences in them and their subsequent “overflow” to the website;
• working with the blogosphere: posting advertising materials from popular bloggers, maintaining discussions, interest in posts in the comments;
• reputation management: communication with the audience, leveling negativity, prompt response and solving problems related to the services/products of your company, works not so much to attract traffic, but to retain visitors, promotes their return to the resource.



Get better results

• Contact the professionals - find out how to choose a competent SMM campaign implementer.
• Use experience: The West has long understood how powerful a weapon SMM can be, including for attracting traffic. We have selected for you the most striking examples of the work of foreign and Russian companies in social media.

NIKE has found its greatness

During the Summer Olympic Games in London (2012), Nike did an excellent job in social media, which allowed the brand to “butcher” competitors represented by the official sponsor of the games, Adidas. While not a sponsor of the Olympics, Nike launched an advertising campaign (including on social networks) under the slogan Find your greatness. Its heroes were non-professional athletes living in communities called London, but outside the UK, for example, in the USA or Nigeria.



Nike gained 166,718 new Facebook followers during that period, while Adidas added just 80,761, according to CheerMeter.

"Prometheus". Tweet louder!

In May 2012, 20th Century Fox decided to use viral advertising to promote Ridley Scott's film Prometheus.



The three-minute trailer for the film was shown simultaneously online, on Channel 4 and on social TV app Zeebox. Viewers were encouraged to tweet about the film using the hashtag #areyouseeingthis. During the next commercial break, Channel 4 aired a 40-second clip that included tweets from users who had used the hashtag. In a relatively short period of time, the surge in activity reached 4 thousand tweets with a potential reach of 15 million users.

Old Spice. Music for the masses

After watching a short video of Crews playing instruments with his muscles, users were asked to play their own tune using the keyboard.

With this extraordinary approach, the brand managed to hook viewers: the number of views of the video on Vimeo alone exceeded 8 million.



Heinz. Get personalized beans!

FMCG brand Heinz often uses social platforms to create buzz around its products. Among such activities, the campaign in support of the new Five Beanz product - Your Name On a Bean (“Bean with your name”) stood out. Users were asked to launch the social app and take a test to find out which type of bean best suited their personality.

Every hour, five lucky people would receive a bean with their name on it. All users who invited 10 friends to take the test were given bags. In addition, community subscribers were offered coupons to try the product. The campaign lasted 2 weeks and brought tangible results:

• 22,143 people took part in testing;
• more than 10 thousand users shared the application with friends;
• the community increased by 30 thousand new subscribers.



Russian SMM technologies that correspond to the peculiarities of our market are still at the development stage. Domestic Social Media Marketing is adopting the experience of Western colleagues: the results are already there, although not so impressive.

TNK Pulsar. Have you refueled? Share with others!

Among domestic experiences, one can note the TNK campaign to promote the new TNK Pulsar brand. The secret of success is in the communication tool. Moderators and the most active characters in automobile forums - opinion leaders - were offered to refuel for free at TNK-BP stations, as well as carry out vehicle diagnostics and share reviews on the forums based on test results.



Based on the results of the action:

• the number of users willing to refuel only with TNK Pulsar gasoline increased from 26 to 70%,
• More than 1,200 forum participants became loyal to the brand (the plan was to attract 100 users).

"Lenta.ru". Informally about important things

The VKontakte page of the online news publication Lentami deserves special attention.

Sometimes it seems that this is a parody community or a hooligan prank of editors: news is presented informally, sometimes on the verge of a foul, each post is accompanied by meme pictures, a large amount of Internet slang is used, but all this makes the Lenta community attractive and incredibly popular among users.



The official page was launched on August 19, 2011. As a result, in just over two years of operation, the public gained 388,678 subscribers.

Now the Lenty.ru project is losing only to RIA Novosti (554,326 VKontakte subscribers). For comparison: Slon.ru currently has 183,950 subscribers, RBC has 133,741 people.

Determining the effectiveness of an advertising tool

We talked about the main, most effective ways to attract targeted traffic to the site. The highest results can be achieved by wisely combining these methods, analyzing their work, and abandoning ineffective ones.

Of course, questions arise: how effective is this or that tool in each specific case, how to evaluate them, how to find the optimal combination?

Web analytics data and one small formula, brilliant in its simplicity, will help you find the answers.

Efficiency = P 2 / B,

Where
P - result (traffic or targeted user actions),
B - spent budget,
Eff is an indicator of the conditional effectiveness of an advertising tool; the higher its value, the more effective the advertising tool/channel is: you get maximum results for minimal investments.

Important!

Since not all traffic is equally useful, you will get the most accurate assessment of the effectiveness of the channel by taking as the result (P) not the total number of visitors from a certain source, but the number of targeted actions - orders, downloads, views or registrations performed by users.

How it works

Dividing the budget (B) by the result (P), we get the average cost of 1 target action - the lower it is, the better.

B / P = Average 1 CD

If we take the inverse value - divide the result by the budget, we will find out how many targeted actions we will receive from visitors from channel N for 1 unit of investment. Accordingly, the higher this indicator, the better.

R/B = channel payback

Let’s say that with different numbers of applications and different budgets, the return on investment for several channels is the same. Then the one that generates more applications will be more profitable, that is, with the same payback, it works more efficiently.

P x P/B = P 2 / B = Efficiency

Example

Let’s say channel X brings in 10 applications with an investment of 200 rubles.

200/10 = 20 rub. - the cost of 1 application from the channel, then 10/200 = 0.05 - the payback indicator of the channel.

Channel Y brings in 15 applications with an investment of 300 rubles.

300/15 = 20 rub. - the cost of 1 application from the channel, then 15/300 = 0.05 - the payback indicator of the channel.

In both cases, for every ruble invested, we receive 0.05 applications.

However, the conditional efficiency indicator is not the same: 102/200=0.5 (channel X), and 152/300=0.75 (channel Y).

Consequently, channel Y is more profitable than channel X, since it works with greater efficiency.

If only two or three channels are involved, you, of course, can compare their effectiveness without the help of this formula. But what if there are 100 such channels? Or did you break one campaign into segments to track their impact?



Conclusion

As you can see, there is a wide variety of sources that can bring your target audience to your website. We hope that you will now be able to select the traffic channels that are most suitable for your purposes and use them effectively.

• Use different traffic sources in combination.
• Plan your advertising campaign carefully.
• Analyze the results: be sure to use web analytics services, compare the results, and draw conclusions.
• Improve your resource and customer service: advertising brings visitors - your website and managers must turn them into clients.
• Don’t be afraid to turn to professionals: this will save your time, effort and money.