Better ROI with Blog Advertising

I was doing a PowerPoint presentation yesterday on why advertising on blogs is better than in any other online media when I thought it would be really great if I have the figures to show and back up my claims/theories. Then I realized, I was given some Google Analytics data by a recent advertiser. And here’s what I got…

Without divulging too much information, I compared the performance of the ads on my blog to four (4) other sites which I know carried the same advertising. Coincidentally, the other sites were news sites, a forum and a portal so we have a nice mix of online media to compare.

Of the top 5 referring sites, my blog was the 3rd highest referrer with 19.33% of the total traffic contributed by all five. The first two were the news sites that sent in 39.05% and 23.88%, the forum site sent only 11.56% and the portal 6.19%.

Traffic Referral

To think that one of the news sites had (at least) 192 times more number of monthly pageviews than this blog, placing 3rd in terms of referrals ain’t bad at all. Too bad, I couldn’t get any click-thru-rates.

What surprised me more were the results of the other metrics:

New Visitors

Site A – 80.5% new visitors
Site B – 69.5% new visitors
Site C – 64.5% new visitors
Site D – 78.0% new visitors
YugaTech – 45% new visitors

Depending on how you look at it, either this blog doesn’t refer more unique visitors or visitors keep clicking on the ads more than once (which is good right?).

Page Views per Visit

Site A – 2.17 pageviews
Site B – 2.06 pageviews
Site C – 1.78 pageviews
Site D – 2.64 pageviews
YugaTech – 6.12 pageviews

Average Time on Site

Site A – 2.24 minutes
Site B – 2:38 minutes
Site C – 1:35 minutes
Site D – 3:07 minutes
YugaTech – 10:17 minutes

It only means one thing — the blog drives more quality traffic because they actually use the referred site more. The figures above shows us 3 to 5 times more site usage by visitors coming from the blog.

Bounce Rates

Site A – 60%
Site B – 60%
Site C – 75%
Site D – 56%
YugaTech – 34%

Bounce rates indicate the percentage of people leaving the referred site right away. So the lower the bounce rates, the better since it means visitors are sticking to the site. Here’s two words to describe that — targeted traffic.

I do not know how much advertising money was spent on all the 5 sites (including this blog) but from the limited data I gathered, this blog only got around 2% of the total ad spendings (I’m pretty sure it’s lower).

If we just go by the raw number of visitors, spending 2% of your ad budget to get 19% of the traffic (and high quality traffic at that) is a great ROI.

The hard numbers above will show you that blog advertising has a much higher Return of Investment (ROI). So next time you’re thinking of doing online advertising, do consider blogs in your budget. =)

Abe Olandres

Abe is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of YugaTech with over 20 years of experience in the technology industry. He is one of the pioneers of blogging in the country and considered by many as the Father of Tech Blogging in the Philippines. He is also a technology consultant, a tech columnist with several national publications, resource speaker and mentor/advisor to several start-up companies.

https://www.yugatech.com

26 Comments

Ardham Kelly says:

13 years ago

Thank you so much for this interesting article! I’ve always wanted to try monetizing my blog. This will help me.

Kelly
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timeframemedia says:

14 years ago

Timeframe Media Philippines is actually owned by RJ Samson. They hid this fact from URC because the boss from URC knows about RJ Samson’s dirty deeds. He then used Angela Occiano as a front.
Universal Rubina Corporation has been tricked constantly by this ma called Popoy Marquez who is actually RJ Samson from Ateneo. Here is their website: http://timeframemedia.com/main/index.html do not let them fool you.
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Location Ile Rousse says:

14 years ago

Merci. Cela est trÃ¨s interressant!!!

Thanks
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ching says:

15 years ago

Yes, blogging is a great way to reach target markets. We have a great opportunity for Filipinos to earn their university degree in just 12 weeks.
Go to http://www.NCUdegree.com an receive a 90% scholarship today. You can earn an accredited university degree in just 12 weeks. Northwestern Christian University recently awarded President Arroyo a Ph.D. in Humanities (Hon.) at Malacanyan ceremony.
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Anthony Bautista says:

15 years ago

Do know any school or establishments that offer SEO basic training?
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kurt g says:

15 years ago

thanks for the good tips for a newbie blogger.
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Tourist Spots in the Philippines says:

16 years ago

Yah, some guys here are right. kelangan talga targeted keyword and niche…
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location vacances ile rousse says:

16 years ago

I just want to congratulate you!
- Reply
location calvi says:

16 years ago

thanks! very interessing
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Millionaire Acts says:

16 years ago

I agree that’s why most blogs are now doing search engine optimization. They just don’t write random articles but they constantly look for the right keywords to optimize.
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Nekspux says:

16 years ago

Very interesting!
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Sah says:

16 years ago

I’m actually a regular on this site, particularly because of smart bro!!! this is the first time i made a comment on any of your posts.. anyway, i just want to congratulate you!
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FilipinoNation.com says:

16 years ago

How can we place ads on your site?

Here’s the site we like to promote:
http://www.FilipinoNation.com
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ChrisMo says:

17 years ago

@BrianB, I think audio ads are aggressively promoting this new ad method, But how could they pay a “per page hearing”, especially that my volume is always on mute…
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BrianB says:

17 years ago

Abe, with tabbed browsing, minutes on site is a useless metrics. Especially when many of your readers make comments and are in the habit to wait for replies. Number of page views may be a better measurement.

I wonder whether small time businesses with a target audience won’t benefit more from bog advertising. For example boutiques or computer repair shops.

And Abe, what do you think about audio ads that pay per page view?
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jedi says:

17 years ago

oh, i forgot, the bounce rates for the ad campaigns that i mentioned is 29%
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jedi says:

17 years ago

I think it depends on the website and the ad campaign itself. Advertisers should know that it is more cost effective to advertise on a website with targeted traffic rather then buying a volume of ad impressions from an untargeted site. Like for a gadget related product, it is better to get 1000 referral visitors from a tech blog or website compared to 10000 visitors from a non targeted portal, news site or forums.

like in our case, websites that we are promoting using ad banners and links are receiving 9 pageviews per visit, 75% average new visitors and 10 minutes average time spent. Mainly because the banners or ad campaigns are related to automotive, banners that are not that very much related to automotive are not getting that much of attention.

Sadly, advertisers and majority of ad agencies are still concentrating their ad campaigns on large but non targeted sites and i truly believe that if they will try to look around and advertise on multiple but targeted blogs, websites or forums, it will surely give better results for them.

One reason why adwords became very successful because advertisers are atleast assured that their ads will appear on targeted content or sites.

But it is still cheaper to go directly to those websites :) ( and avoid the middlemen hehe)

my 2 cents
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ChrisMo says:

17 years ago

Hmmm… Good results for yuga. I was checking your ad rates 2 days ago, and I think it’s pretty important to show targeted ads.
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Kiven says:

17 years ago

amen brother abe hehe
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Ferdz says:

17 years ago

Ahhh! So that’s how it is. Never understood some of those statistic things. Thanks for explaining well. :D
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Dexter : Techathand.net says:

17 years ago

@ That a good information that may increase blog advertising..

Great..
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