StumbleUpon Advertising Review
I’m always looking for new avenues to get the word out about FlowBreeze, so recently I ran an experiment using StumbleUpon’s advertising program. If you’re not familiar with StumbleUpon, basically it’s just a random site re-director. StumbleUpon users are served up random pages based on their preferences and demographics. If they like a page, they can give it a thumbs up, tag it for their personal bookmarks, or write a review. On the other hand, if they don’t like a page, they can give it a thumbs down. The more thumbs up a page gets, the more frequently it is served.
Occasionally they are served sponsored pages, which is how the advertising program works. They charge $0.05 per visit with a 100 visit per day minimum. When you sign up for StumbleUpon advertising, you can specify the following (see image below):
- Target URL.
- Category. (I tried both the Software and Shareware categories)
- # Visits/day (100 minimum at $0.05 / visit = $5/day minimum).
- Demographics (male/female/both, age, country, state, and city)
My Stats:
- Visits: ~500
- Downloads: 0
- Purchases: 0
My Reviews:
- 3 thumbs up.
- 5 thumbs down.
- Telling comment made by one reviewer: “Boo proprietary software.”
Why I Did It:
1. Because I love StumbleUpon. Of all the social bookmarking sites, it’s the only one I truly use and dig (pun intended).
2. I have actually purchased items from pages I’ve Stumbled.
3. BreezeTree.com has been Stumbled in the past and vistors have converted.
Key Downsides:
- Targetting is too broad.
- Audience probably looking for freebies.
- Targetting is limited to one country or all countries. There is no subset for a single campaign.
- Ads start running at midnight, so targetting global visitors will eat up your visits before the U.S. wakes up for breakfast.
Who I Would Recommend It For:
- People with a lot of money to throw around.
- Sites trying to build a buzz.
- Sites that offer free or cool content.
- Site hoping to gain gain backlinks.
The Bottom Line:
My $25 would have been better spent lighting a $5 cigar with a $20 bill (or better yet, a $20 cigar with a $5 bill).
27. February 2008 at 9:55 am :
Thanks for the post… I was thinking about trying StumbleUpon to advertise my software as well. I haven’t done it yet, but I had a feeling the results would be as you shared — people want something for free.
There is an upside, however, if people up-vote your website… that in turn will cause more and more people to “Stumble” onto your website, and you won’t have to pay (I don’t think?). That is, of course, only if people do “up-vote” more than “down-vote”, and that’s unlikely if the website provides something that isn’t free.
I think the draw towards StumbleUpon is allowing a Stumbler to find something that will entertain them for a few minutes, and then allowing them to do it all over again.