Online Adverts – 5 Questions to Ask Before Paying

If you’re a small business owner and want to increase your company’s profile online then banner advertising on websites is one way of doing this.

It pays to take a considered approach to banner advertising though and below you’ll find 5 useful questions to ask before you part with your money.

• Can you give me more information?

A lot of website owners will only tell you how many visitors their site gets every month, but you need to know more than that.

How long do people stay on the site for? Where in the world do their visitors come from? It’s no good advertising your UK bridal shop on a website that gets 99% of its visits from America for example.

Ask as many questions as you feel necessary to get the information you want. Remember it’s your money you’re going to spend so make sure you’re happy it’s going to be a worthwhile expense.

• Do you have any advertising case studies or testimonials?

When asking for case studies and testimonials you’re looking for hard facts. If you see some testimonials along the lines of “our advertising on xyz website was great and brought us more business” then be wary.

A good case study should display real figures such as “we generated £3,500 of sales through our advert which only cost us £250.”

• Can I have a discount?

You should never pay the first price you’re given when looking to advertise online. If a website has some empty advertising space they’ll be keen to fill it which puts you in the driving seat.

Always ask for a discount but be careful not to commit yourself to a long period of advertising in exchange for money off. If you’ve not advertised on a particular website before you should be looking at a period of no longer than one month initially so you can assess how it’s working.

• Why should I advertise with you?

Even if you’ve more or less made up your mind you’re going to advertise, it never hurts to ask this question. If all the information is online, try to get a phone number and call someone up and ask for reasons why you should advertise on their website.

The answer they provide will give you an insight into how seriously they take their website and how professional they are.

• Can you send me a copy of your advertising terms & conditions?

If you’re booking your advert space online make sure you take time to fully read the terms & conditions. If you can’t find these on the website then don’t part with your cash until you’ve been emailed or posted a copy.

It’s a boring task reading through terms & conditions but it could save you a lot of money. For example let’s say you’ve been offered one month’s free advertising and asked to give your credit card or PayPal account details.

The small print might say something along the lines of “you must write to cancel your agreement within 30 days otherwise you will be charged £30 per month for 12 months of online advertising.”

Make sure you know exactly what you’re getting into when you advertise online because mistakes can prove to be expensive.

If you liked this article you may also want to read my top 10 Google Analytics tips to help you assess your online advertising response.

This entry was posted on Thursday, December 23rd, 2010 at 8:00 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.