Best Places to advertise

Hey gang. I need some help with planning the advertising the Central PA Reptile Expo for the 2009 season. I plan on seriously upping my online advertising, and need to know the best places to start throwing up banner ads and posting on forums to get the most out of my time and money.

This first show (next Saturday), I made sure the show was on the calendars of KS, Fauna, Reptile Geeks, Reptiles Magazine, Reptastic, Bearded-Dragons.org, Alex Hue Forums, and a few others I can't remember, as well as posting in all of their forums regarding the show, and bumping repeatedly as time got closer. I also made sure KS had it on their show listing that comes up on the front page, and all of the 09 shows are listed there as well and have been for a few weeks.

My main question is - where do I run the banner ads? What sites (besides KS and Fauna, to me those are givens) would give me the most advertising bang for my buck? I don't care what type of forum it is (general, lizards, snakes, etc), but I need to know where the traffic is. My "home" is basically here (Fauna) and Reptastic (I am a mod there), and not being a snake person, I am not sure of the best snake forums out there that get traffic. We are also advertising in Reptiles Magazine in print starting in the January issue, and are on their show list for all dates, as well as getting an online classified, so that end is covered. Honestly, their banner ad pricing is a bit too much for me to consider just yet ($500 a month for 50,000 impressions per month).

So, where do you all get the most clicks on your banner ads? What sites do you visit the most and actually pay attention to the ads running? What forums do you visit and check out their calendars and events sections? Any other advertising help you might have would be great! Thanks for the help in advance!

Kelly Kordek

PS - The banner ads I have were designed by Steph (Triple Moons), and I think that simply because of how incredible they are, they will attract attention. Thanks Steph!!

ball-pythons.net and redtailboa.net get a lot of traffic. I dont about their advertising rates, but you could register and create a post, which will get you more views, and possibly more people in the show.
Good luck,
Nick

What I would suggest is use a website like Alexa to determine what websites are actually getting traffic. It won't be detailed statistics, but you can at least learn if your money would be better off spent somewhere else.

Kingsnake and Fauna beat out Reptiles Magazine (ReptileChannel.com), btw.

Originally Posted by TripleMoonsExotic

What I would suggest is use a website like Alexa to determine what websites are actually getting traffic. It won't be detailed statistics, but you can at least learn if your money would be better off spent somewhere else.

Kingsnake and Fauna beat out Reptiles Magazine (ReptileChannel.com), btw.

I used to check the stats in Alexa, but when I found out that they were only determining hits from PCs that were using their own toolbar installed, I lost interest in them. I didn't feel it was a very good tool for determining REAL traffic.

As for another site to consider for advertising, perhaps CornSnakes.com would be worthwhile. It's getting quite a bit of traffic, and quite a few members are in the northeast USA.

Good luck with the show!

That's interesting. I didn't know that. Alexa has always been the most recommended comparison website. I'll see if I can find any other comparison web sites. I know I had one bookmarked on my laptop, but the laptop died.

Thanks for the suggestions guys! I am already running banner ads now here for the October show (albeit a little late in the game), and fully plan on running them for 2009, and KS is a no-brainer, no matter how inflated their prices might be. The ReptileChannel prices are just way out of my league, and I doubt they will ever BE in my league, but I am running text ads for January's show, and probably will move up to print ads for March. Again, no brainers there I guess.

I GUESS I can check out who this guy is that runs Cornsnakes.com is and see if he is worthy of my business as well, but who knows

I will have to check out the other sites as well. I just want to know where people are that go to shows, as I want the most exposure as possible being a new show. I can't complain so far though, I have almost sold out of the first show (only about 10 tables out of 70 left), but the 2009 shows are going to be MUCH bigger in our new venue.

I think the show is going to be a success, and with as much as I have left to do for the October show next week (GOD is it really that close???), I am already looking ahead to 2009 with a TON of energy. And with these great banners I have from Steph, that will help the advertising a LOT!

Kelly

Originally Posted by GottaLuvHerps

I GUESS I can check out who this guy is that runs Cornsnakes.com is and see if he is worthy of my business as well, but who knows

Wasn't sure if you were being silly or not...But Rich owns Cornsnakes.com too. Advertising for it is under FaunaAds, just like for here.



As for the stat thing...I found one of them I was thinking of...

Marketleap
• Link Popularity Check
• Search Engine Saturation
• Keyword Verification

Also, if you use Google Analytics on your website, you can use it to accurately track whether you are getting a certain amount of traffic from a given website. So you could run a test for a month and see if you're getting in the web traffic before you commit to long term advertising with a particular website.

Originally Posted by TripleMoonsExotic

Wasn't sure if you were being silly or not...But Rich owns Cornsnakes.com too. Advertising for it is under FaunaAds, just like for here.

Yup, totally being silly. But I still need to figure out if Rich is worth my advertising dollars...I'm just not sure I like him or not yet

Also, if you use Google Analytics on your website, you can use it to accurately track whether you are getting a certain amount of traffic from a given website. So you could run a test for a month and see if you're getting in the web traffic before you commit to long term advertising with a particular website.

I do have Analytics installed, good idea. Kind of a duh thing, but with everything else going on I totally forgot about that. It's one of those days...LOL

Kelly

You could always ask people on their way in where they heard about the show...

Originally Posted by hhmoore

You could always ask people on their way in where they heard about the show...

I do plan on having a survey type of thing for the vendors to fill out for feedback on their end, but I will make sure that the people running the admission table will be asking, good idea. I am also thinking of putting up a survey online for the customers to fill out to get feedback as well after the show.

See, this is why I need you guys to help me think. My brain is so fried I can't come up with the simplest things!