Author: James Mulvey / Source: Hootsuite Social Media Management Everybody knows about Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter ads. But are ther
Everybody knows about Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter ads. But are there overlooked places online to buy inexpensive ads?
In 1905, a pharmacist by the name of Claud A. Hatcher worked late into the night on his new formula for a sweet, bubbly liquid. Soon, grocery stores around the world would be selling this new trendy cola. Hatcher came up with a name for his cola—and if you shouted Coca Cola, you would be wrong. He invented RC Cola, the much cheaper and far less famous version of Coca Cola.
In this article, I’ll present you the RC Cola of online advertising options. They might not have the brand power of Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube ads—but they’re a little cheaper and still get the job done.
Use these advertising options to boost your content, impress clients with a cheap media buy, and experiment with your paid media strategy.
My criteria for picking these advertising sites:
Hootsuite wasn’t paid to mention any of these advertising options. I selected these sites based on two criteria.
- They weren’t well-known. For example, everyone knows that Reddit offers cheap advertising. Or that Pinterest advertising works really well for certain products. Or that Snapchat geofilters are wonderfully inexpensive. I don’t go into those sites.
- They weren’t super obscure. You might recognize a few of the brands here. I didn’t want to go too niche. They needed to be broad enough to work for most businesses.
1. Rent someone’s land
With Syndicateads you can buy ad space, rent email lists, and gain social media promotion from industry publications such as Search Engine Journal, CodePen, and LaughingSquid, as well as social reading sites like Digg and Pocket.
How much will it cost?
Prices range from $350 to $4,500 for different campaigns.
Interested? You can browse their directory of sites. You’ll need to create a free account before you can view the list.
Here are a few examples of how far your money will go. I’ll move from most expensive to dirt cheap.
Pocket is a popular app where 18 million users share and save articles they find online. I personally love and use Pocket every day. For $3,750 you can buy placement on Pocket’s popular “Weekly Hits Newsletter”—reaching 1 million email addresses. You can increase your send (for more money, of course).
- Option 1: Send to 1 million for $3,750
- Option 2: Send to 1.5 million for $5,500
- Option 3: Send to 2 million for $6,950
- Option 4: Send to 3 million for $10,250
- Option 5: Send to 4 million for $13,500
According to Pocket, these paid promotions deliver a seven percent open rate, 21 percent click rate, 4.4 percent clickthrough rate, and “dramatic increase in engagement even if original content might not have significant organic traction.”
Brands like Squarespace, Hipchat, Asana, and Docusign have used Pocket’s campaigns. You can see examples on their website (you’ll need to create a free account to view).
Search Engine Journal
For $1,200 you can get a sponsored post on Search Engine Journal including prominent placement in their weekly newsletter sent to 31,000 subscribers. This includes social promotion to their 270,000 followers via Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook (with mentions of your social handles).
The LaughingSquid
The LaughingSquid is a popular blog with 2.6 million page views per month and a large presence on social media (600,000 Twitter followers and 589,000 Facebook…
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