Even though Christmas was just this past weekend, for retailers, it’s time to think Valentine’s Day. It’ll be here before you know it and people will start shopping for gifts in the next few weeks. To make the most of Valentine’s Day sales, I’m organizing a Valentine’s Day co-op.

If you’re new around here, this is how co-ops work:
1. Designers wishing to participate pay a membership fee to belong to the co-op 2. The co-op dues are used to buy ad space that directs traffic to IShopIndie.com 3. That ads bring the customers, who see your lovely products featured on I Shop Indie 4. The customers find what they want, click and are sent to your online shop to make a purchase Let’s face it, the holidays can be an awesome cash-fest when you sell online and January sales can be a real let-down. Marketing for Valentine’s Day is an easy way to keep the money coming in.

If you join the Valentine’s Day co-op you’ll get:

• TEN products on any category page of  ishopindie.com website.
• One product featured right on the home page.
• TWO bonus items can be listed on the “sale” page.
• Your products will appear on our IShopIndie.com until March 31st!
• Your promotions, sales, coupon codes, etc. promoted to our monthly mailing lists, we have over 3,500 opt-in subcribers! You will be able to promote on our lists for our January, February and March issues!
• Your news, promotions, sales, etc. promoted on I Shop Indie’s Twitter and Facebook accounts until March 31, 2011!
• Real-time access to your click-through data 24/7! You’ll always know exactly how many clicks your products are getting and you can add, edit or delete listings any time through our easy account manager tool. You can remove items with low click-through or promote items with high click-through right on the home page.

When/Where will I Shop Indie Advertise?
From January 10 though mid-February you’ll see ads for I Shop Indie’s Valentine’s day website on several high-traffic sites including Design Sponge, Design is Mine, and A Softer World.

How much does membership cost?
Membership is $65.00

Seeing a slowdown in sales for your creative business? Have you been considering an ad buy to drum up sales? While advertising can certainly be a valuable component in your marketing mix, there are certain rules to advertising that you must keep in mind before you start your ad buys.

1. Targeting matters
Where you advertise really matters. If you don’t know exactly who your target demographic is, you aren’t ready to start advertising. How can you decide where to advertise if you don’t know who you’re trying to reach? Imagine you sell tiaras and tutus for toddlers, if someone gave you FREE ad space in widely read publications like Maxim Magazine and Sports Illustrated, your response rate would probably be pretty weak, if any at all. Those products need to be marketed to moms with little girls, not men who care about football, drinking and scoring with the ladies.

I’ve certainly seen less extreme examples of this mistake, for example people who sell finished handmade goods advertising on sites mainly trafficked by other crafters. Those types of sites are good for selling supplies, but when it comes to selling finished products, there are better options.

2. All the advertising in the world won’t fix more serious problems with your business
You cannot advertise your way out of other problems in your business. If your product photos suck, your advertising is a waste of money. If your website isn’t optimized for easy use and conversions, your advertising is a waste of money. Make sure every other component of your business is rock solid before you invest in advertising. Have good products, have good branding, have good photos, have a good website, have an idea of who your target customers are. If you just pour money into your problems via advertising without fixing these more serious problems, you’re throwing your money away.

3. Advertising isn’t a quick fix
A lot of inexperienced small business owners think “I will run an ad on my favorite blog, their readers will click my ad, love my products, buy tons of stuff and I’ll be rich” Yeah, right.

People often don’t respond to an ad the first time they see it. They may not even click the ad, let alone buy from the business advertising. The idea with advertising is to get your brand and products in front of your target market. If you can create brand awareness through repeated exposure to your marketing, all those little nudges might eventually result in a sale. Expecting a single ad placement to bring a flood of sales isn’t realistic. A well-targeted and well-designed ad will probably bring some immediate sales, but to see a real boost in sales you need a multi-faceted marketing plan that reaches your target demographic repeatedly and consistently.

People that didn’t buy the first time they saw your ad might buy the second time they see it. They might bookmark your site and buy months later. They might connect with you on Facebook and not place an order until you announce a promotional offer months after they saw your ad initially. I see this behavior from my own customers all the time.  Only 30% of the sales on my ecommerce website are from first time visitors! This means most of my customers are people who’ve been hanging around a while before they buy. Their decision to buy may not have been based on a single ad, but rather a series of marketing activities.

4. Math doesn’t lie
Don’t buy ad space until you do your math. Advertising decisions should be objective, not gut-based decisions. Know what your average conversion rate is like. Know what your typical click-through rate is on your ad placements. Know how many impressions your ad is going to get. Use all of this information to calculate what your probable return on investment will be.

If you don’t know how to use this information to make those calculations, my free ROI calculator can help. If you don’t know what your site’s average conversion rate is or what your average click-through rate is with other ads, Google Analytics can get you this information. (I’ve written a detailed ebook on how to use Google Analytics to glean a ton of valuable information about your business.)

While advertising won’t necessarily get you a ton of sales right away, it’s important to have an idea of what results you can expect. For example, you might be considering an ad that only costs $20.00 because it seems so cheap, but if the ad only delivers 10,000 impressions and you get a 1% click-through and 1% conversion, you would be paying $20.00 per sale. If that’s really far off from your targeted cost per sale, this might not be the ad buy for you.

When I try to project ROI for an ad placement, I aim for an ideal cost per sale, and if the projections are close enough to my ideal, I might take a chance. If the projections are nowhere near what I need them to be, I am probably not buying that ad space.

A popular question I hear is “How can I get more traffic to my website?” This is the wrong question. The question you want to ask is “How can I drive qualified targeted traffic to my website?” Targeted traffic is traffic that’s most likely to convert. These are the people who are most likely to give you money. You don’t need tons of visitors if you’re getting the right visitors.

To give you an example, imagine you sell cat collars. Would you rather advertise in a biker newsletter with 300,000 subscribers for $100 or Feline Wellness Magazine, with a readership of 80,000 for $300.00? On the face of it, you might think biker newsletter, more people and less money. The better option is the cat magazine though. It’s more targeted so you’re more likely to actually sell product.

While the example I’ve given is a pretty easy one to understand, my point is to get you to think critically about where and how you market. You can have 1,000 fans on Facebook, but if you sell jewelry on Etsy and so do your 1,000 Facebook fans, your chances of selling to those people are pretty slim. You can buy an ad on a site that’s read by thousands of Etsy sellers for $10, but unless you sell supplies or educational materials for Etsy sellers, there are probably better places for you to advertise.

It’s nice to feel liked. It’s nice to see traffic coming to your site and get praise from friends on Twitter. All those warm fuzzies can fuel your confidence, but they won’t pay the bills. Marketing a business properly is too much of an expensive venture, both in terms of time and cost, so you want to choose the marketing activities that are going to make you the most money.

Not sure if your marketing activities are making you money? Check out my new book on Google Analytics.

Even if you’re single and hating it, there could still be an upside for you when it comes to Valentine’s Day: CASH! Every year people spend big bucks on gifts for their sweeties. Some people even buy Valentine’s day treats for their parents, children or platonic friends. To make the most of your V-Day sales, you have to start preparing now. Here are a few things for your to do list:

1. Red Hot Ad Campaigns
It makes sense to spend a little more on advertising when you know people are in a shopping mood. If you’ve been thinking about running an ad on your favorite blog or giving Adwords a try, now is a good time to give that a go.

If you’re on a tight budget, I Shop Indie’s Valentine’s Day ad co-op is a great way to reap the benefits of over $600 worth of advertising for only $65.00. (Unilke most other ads, the co-op comes with email marketing and social media marketing!)

When you’re designing ads, think about promoting your products as Valentine’s Day items. Feature products that come in red or evoke a flirty or romantic mood. You might even want to have your ads link to a special landing page featuring Valentine’s Day themes items.

2. It’s All About Merchandising
Make tweaks to your website so that Valentine’s Day products are easy to find. Think about featuring V-Day themed items on your home page. Create gift guides with suggested products for guys, girls and even singles and kids.

3. Start Promoting
If you sell online, you’ll want to promote products early so customers have time to place orders and receive products by mail before February 14. Come up with a schedule to promote your Valentine’s Day products and offers via your newsletter, Facebook, Twitter, blog, etc.

You may be able to boost sales by offering a special deal like a coupon code or a promotional price on a V-Day related product. Even an event like a contest is a great way to drum up traffic and interest and hopefully convert a few sales.

4. Get Some Press
Pitching your products for inclusion in gift guides and magazine articles is a great way to attract new customers and boost V-Day sales. Although it is too late to pitch monthly print press, there’s still time to contact weekly and daily print outlets. You also have time to pitch your products to online outlets like blogs.

Even though Christmas was just this past weekend, for retailers, it’s time to think Valentine’s Day. It’ll be here before you know it and people will start shopping for gifts in the next few weeks. To make the most of Valentine’s Day sales, I’ve put together a little Valentine’s Day co-op.

If you’re new around here, this is how co-ops work:
1. Designers wishing to participate pay a membership fee to belong to the co-op
2. The co-op dues are used to buy ad space that directs traffic to Ishopindie.com’s special edition Valentine’s Day website
3. That ads bring the customers, who see your lovely products featured on I Shop Indie
4. The customers find what they want, click and are sent to your online shop to make a purchase

Let’s face it, the holidays can be an awesome cash-fest when you sell online and January sales can be a real let-down. Marketing for Valentine’s Day is an easy way to keep the money coming in.

If you join the Valentine’s Day co-op you’ll get:

• TEN products on any category page of our special edition Valentine’s Day ishopindie.com website.
• One product featured right on the home page.
• TWO bonus items can be listed on the “sale” page.
• Your products will appear on our Valentine’s day website for a full year!
• Your promotions, sales, coupon codes, etc. promoted to our monthly mailing lists, we have over 3,500 opt-in subcribers! You will be able to promote on our lists for our January, February and March issues!
• Your news, promotions, sales, etc. promoted on I Shop Indie’s Twitter and Facebook accounts until March 31, 2011!
• Real-time access to your click-through data 24/7! You’ll always know exactly how many clicks your products are getting and you can add, edit or delete listings any time through our easy account manager tool. You can remove items with low click-through or promote items with high click-through right on the home page.

When/Where will I Shop Indie Advertise?
From January 10 though mid-February you’ll see ads for I Shop Indie’s Valentine’s day website on several high-traffic sites including Design Sponge, Kind Over Matter and A Softer World.

How much does membership cost?
Membership is $65.00.

For a lot of creative entrepreneurs trying to sell online, Adwords is the big scary monster in the closet. It seems complicated, risky, and expensive. This isn’t all entirely true. Adwords can be the best friend of the small ecommerce business owner, you just have to understand how it works. Today’s post is hopefully encouragement to get out there and learn more about Adwords.

Myth #1: Adwords is too complicated to learn
Okay, I’m going to level with you, Adwords ain’t easy! If it were, you’d all be using it. That said, it’s not rocket science either. Adwords is a really sophisticated tool and that makes it complicated to master, but not impossible. There are professionals who do nothing but Adwords marketing for clients, and if you really hate the idea of learning Adwords, this is an option. Just understand that it’s not your only option. There’s a huge wealth of free information about Adwords all over the internet and if you don’t have the money to invest in hiring a pro, you may want to invest your time instead. With some patience and reading, you can learn everything you need to know to get started with Adwords.

Myth #2: Adwords is too expensive
This is just dead wrong. Adwords costs whatever you want it to cost. When you create a campaign in Adwords you set the budget and you control your bids. There are two settings that allow you control what you pay:

1. Daily Budget
This is the max amount of money you are willing to spend in a day. You can set this to $5.00 or even $1.00. Once you set it, you will not go over this expenditure in a 24 hour period.

2. Cost Per Click (CPC)
This is the max amount of money you are willing to pay for a click. Adwords is a cost-per-click system which means you only pay when someone clicks your ads. (This is cool because when people don’t click they still see your brand name, so you are getting FREE branding!)

When you set up a new campaign you’ll be able to say how much you want to pay per click. You can say you want to pay 5 cents or 5 dollars, it’s totally up to you. Now here’s what you need to understand about Adwords and CPC:

• It’s auction based, so a higher bid gets a better placement and is more likely to get a click. For competitive terms like “jewelry”, clicks are going to be expensive.

• Competitive terms aren’t necessarily important. “Jewelry” is a really broad term so you may not even want to bid on it.  Bidding on more specific terms like “vintage silver jewelry” or “emerald pendant” is probably preferable. First because there’s less competition for those terms and second because they’re more specific and thus more likely to convert. A person looking for “jewelry” who clicks your ad might want fine jewelry and you may be selling novelty jewelry, that means no conversion for you.

• It’s not all about the bid. Google only makes money when people click. So if your ad is getting a 1% click-through rate with a bid of 20 cents and my ad is getting a .0001% click-through rate with a bid of $1.00 guess whose ad Google is going to display. This means you need to craft an ad that is going to get clicks and create a landing page that is relevant to your campaign. Google also uses landing pages to determine quality score, before you even start running your ad. (Quality score is Google’s estimate of how well your ad will perform, based in part on how relevant your landing page is to your ad.) A higher quality score will get you a lower CPC, at least initially. Ad performance over time will affect the rate you end up paying over time.

Myth #3 I can’t target the right people
Adwords is actually awesome for targeting the right people. You can target by gender, location, age and specific content. Which brings me to myth #4…

Myth #4: Adwords only works with text-based ads
Adwords actually allows you to run banner ads. Now this can get you into trouble so listen up! Adwords has a system called the Content Network. The content network allows you to display ads on any website on the internet that displays ads from Google’s network. My advice is to use this network ONLY to run ads on sites you have checked out. This means when you set up your content network ads with banners, you’ll want to choose your own placements and only your own placements. Google will make suggestions and you can check them out to see if they are good, but don’t let Google run wild and just pick placements for you. It will pick some real duds and eat up your budget with nothing to show for it.

Speaking of the content network, when you’re running a keyword based campaign (rather than placement targeted campaign), you want to turn off the Google Content network and only allow Adwords to display ads on Google search results. If you don’t do this your ads are going to appear on junk sites and you’re going to get some junk traffic.

Myth #5: No one clicks those ads
I have seen a few people say “I never click on those Adwords ads, so I see no reason to run them. No one will click.” If that were a true statement, Adwords wouldn’t exist. The CPC industry is worth billions of dollars. ‘Nuff said? Even if you are right about this, that’s okay, because it means no one will click and you’ll pay nothing.

A couple of final points to ponder:

1. If you’re going to invest in marketing, do you really want to put that time, money and energy into someone else’s business? No? Then you’re going to need your own website. If you’re directing people to your Etsy or Artfire shop you’re essentially marketing for Etsy or Artfire, their brand name is far more visible than your brand name. Your competitors shops are right there on the same site too! There’s every chance a customer could click your ad, click the Etsy logo and then go shop in another vendor’s store. Yuck! Also, these sites also don’t let you create landing pages, and that means your quality scores on Adwords are going to suck and you’re going to get stuck with a higher CPC.

2. This is pure conjecture, but in my experience Adwords may have a little to do with SEO. I personally have noticed that when I am running Adwords, I get a lot more organic traffic from search results that I am not paying for. I have talked to other marketers who have expressed this same sentiment. We don’t have proof that this is true, but it’s a theory based on my own observations and those of other marketers.

3. If you don’t track your conversions stop what you’re doing right now and set up conversion tracking! Your marketing plan shouldn’t just be a guessing game. You need to track your conversions so you can tell which Adwords campaigns are working and which ones are duds. Google Analytics has made conversion tracking super easy and totally free of charge. If you don’t know how to do it, sit tight, I will be posting a tutorial tomorrow.

So far this week we’ve talked about what remarketing is and how you can leverage email for remarketing campaigns. Today I want to delve into using banner ads as part of your remarketing efforts.

First, a little background on how this works:

• You place a snippet of code on the pages of your website that you want to track (i.e. shopping cart or product pages). This code is used to set cookies on your visitors’ computers.
• The cookies will be used to create a pool of internet users who’ve taken a certain action (added items to your cart and not made a purchase, viewed product pages — it can really be anything you want.)
• Programs like Google Adwords can then serve your ads to that pool of internet users as they hop around the internet. Your ads will appear to them as they read blogs, visit message boards, etc.

The theory is that this audience is more likely to make a purchase if they click your ads since they’ve already been to your site and know your products, brand and price points.

What you need to make use of this type of marketing:

• Access to your website’s source code
  Etsy users will not be able to market this way, so if you want to get into remarketing, you’re going to need your own website.

• Some degree of comfort with the technical side of online marketing.
  Truthfully, this is something you’re going to need if you want to sell online effectively. If you hate this stuff, you’ll probably want to hire an expert that’s experienced with online marketing.  Setting up a remarketing campaign means getting into your site’s source code and examining your site’s traffic reports to make smart decisions about how to set up your campaigns.

• A statistically significant amount of website traffic.
  If you only get a few hundred visitors each month, you won’t really have a large enough pool to re-market to. Sites that are successful with remarketing campaigns like this typically average over 1,000 visitors per day. The more the better. The reason for this is that the more people there are visiting your site, the more people there are to display remarketing ads to. Imagine you only got 1,000 visits/month, your remarketing program might only manage to display your ads to a few hundred of those people. Even if you got 1% click-through, which is pretty high, you’d only get a few clicks. That wouldn’t be a statistically large enough number to rack up conversions.

How to set up this type of remarketing:
There are a lot of programs out there that do remarketing, programs like FetchBank and Advertise.com are huge, but don’t really cater to smaller businesses. There are 2 programs that are suitable for smaller businesses that I want to tell you about today:

Google Adwords
Google Adwords is nice because it’s a self-service platform that ANYONE is allowed to use. I could write a tutorial on how to set this up but Search Engine Land already did a really nice job with this so I’ll just direct you to their well-written tutorial. Google’s reach is pretty significant so your site visitors are very likely to see your ads. Another perk is that pricing works just like any other Adwords campaign. That means you set the budget you want to set and the cost per click you’re willing to bid. (Keep in mind the cost per click is auction based so a higher bid is more likely to get your ads on display).

The biggest challenge with using Adwords is that it requires some tech savvy and it doesn’t offer much tech support. The tutorial I linked above should help, but if talk about user segmenting and lifetime visitor value makes you break out in a cold sweat, this tutorial may not be enough hand-holding. If that’s the case, work with a professional to get set up.

Adroll
I just set up my own Adroll account recently and don’t have enough data to say whether it’s something I’ll be sticking with, but I will say their user support is TOP NOTCH! Their user interface isn’t terribly difficult to understand and their support guys are extremely helpful and patient. If you want hand-holding, give Adroll a shot.

You will need at least 500 users in your user pool before you can begin using Adroll, so again, you’ll need a significant amount of traffic to make this work. That said, if your site traffic is where it needs to be and you want great tech support, this is the way to dip your toe in the remarketing pool. They even offer a free trial for new customers.

A few final points on remarketing with banner ads:

• Like I mentioned in my article about email remarketing, this stuff can get creepy. People who visit your site once may find it odd when they’re suddenly seeing ads for your site every place they turn. You may want to set up a frequency limit so the same person is not bombarded with your ads 1000 times/day.

• It’s a good idea to set up different user segments so you can target the site visitors that are most likely to come back and place an order.  What I mean by this: people who added to cart are more likely to return and buy than people who left after only viewing your home page. People who joined your mailing list may be more likely to convert than people who simply viewed product pages. People who viewed product pages are better targets than people who only viewed the home page. You can set up different segments to differentiate people who took certain actions and display specific ads for those people (or even exclude them from seeing your ads).

• Test different ad designs. You want to put the most clickable ads in front of people, so experiment with different ad designs and ad copy to see what gets you the best click-through and conversion rates. You may want to even put a promotion code on your ads to lure back customers who abandoned their shopping carts.

This week I’m going to be talking about a really exciting topic: remarketing. In a nutshell, remarketing means marketing to people who’ve already been to your website.

Why would I want to do this?
Sometimes it takes more than one visit to get someone to make a purchase. Think about how many times you’ve stumbled onto a wesbite with cool things, thought to yourself “this is nice but I don’t need it right now” and then forgotten all about the site a few weeks later. People probably do this with your online shop all the time! Remarketing lets you remind these people that you’re there, so that when they’re ready to buy, they return to make a purchase. It increases your brand visibility and can lead to a large increase in your conversion rate, since you’re advertising to people who already know your brand.

I already do this!
Maybe you’re thinking, “well people can sign up for my newsletter if they like my stuff and then I’ll send them email every month until they buy something” or “if they really liked my products, they’d become a fan on Facebook and I could remarket to them that way.” These are both examples of remarketing, but there are many other options, including some very sophisticated ones. Today’s remarketing technology allows you to remarket to those people who don’t “like” your Facebook page or join your newsletter.

So how exactly does remarketing work?
First of all, you have to understand that remarketing can mean a lot of things. It can be done with banner ads, it can be done with email, it can be done with social media. Below are a few examples to get you thinking about how remarketing works:

1. Email Remarketing
Imagine Sarah is looking for earrings to give her bridesmaids and thank you gifts. She visits handmadebridaljewels.com and adds several pairs of earrings to her basket. She begins to check out but as the payment page loads, she gets a call from her florist, who informs her that she’ll have to pick new flowers because the flowers she chose are not going to be available for her wedding. Now in a panic, Sarah forgets all about the earrings and goes off to look for new flowers. Meanwhile, handmadebridaljewels.com hasn’t sold the 4 pairs of earrings Sarah left in her basket.

The story could end here, but if handmadebridaljewels.com has an email remarketing program they could email Sarah after 24 hours pass and remind her that she has items in her basket. The email reminds Sarah that she wanted those earrings and she goes back to complete her order.

2. Banner Ad Remarketing
Imagine you sell dresses and a customer adds a few to her cart. She realizes shipping is going to be more than she bargained for and leaves without making a purchase. If you have a banner ad remarketing program, you can serve ads to this customer while they’re reading their favorite blogs or chatting on their favorite message boards. Imagine you have an ad with a coupon code on it with free shipping for orders over $99. After she sees this ad for free shipping, she clicks to return to your site and completes her order.

A final word about remarketing:
If you’re on Etsy only, hopefully the articles I’m writing this week will give you another nudge to consider getting your own website. Sites like Etsy make it impossible to develop a sophsticated remarketing program. You don’t have access to source code or shopping cart data, so you can’t mine customer email addresses or set tracking cookies. Having access to source code and customer data is essential for this kind of marketing.

Coming up this week:
* How to set up an email remarketing campaign and pitfalls to consider
* How to set up a smart remarketing campaign with banner ads

Stay tuned!

Regulars around here know that I’ve been putting together an advertising co-op for the holiday season. We’ve got 12 awesome shops committed so far which gives us a budget of $6,000.00!!!

Do you want your brand to reap the benefits of $6,000.00 worth of advertising?

How about email AND social media marketing for a full 12 months, with your message reaching thousands of people who love to shop indie and handmade?

Do you want your products seen by the MILLIONS of people who visit Dlisted, Cute Overload and Design Sponge every month?

I’m still taking sign ups for the co-op. The more members we get, the more ad space we can buy, and that means more exposure and more sales for everyone! I am trying to get all the members signed up by the end of the day so I can start designing ads based on members’ products.  Want in? Email me!

Navigating the world of online advertising is tricky; there are so many options and it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Two important distinctions to consider are SEM and placement targeted ads. Below is a breakdown of the benefits and drawbacks of these two ad types:

Search Engine Marketing (SEM)
Although many things fall under the header of “SEM”, I am referring specifically to the  ads that appear through search engines. The program you’re probably most familiar with is Google Adwords. The premise is that your ad appears when people are searching for what you sell. For example, you sell vegan cosmetics. I search for “vegan cosmetics”, your ad appears, I click, I go to your site and I buy.

Pros:

• These ads are typically paid for on a cost-per-click basis. You only pay when you get traffic. If no one clicks, you pay nothing.
• You are getting visitors that are looking for exactly what you sell. In theory, this should yield a good number of purchases if your site is optimized for conversions.
• You can control your costs easily, since you choose what you’re willing to pay per click and what your ad budget is for the day.

Cons:

• This advertising method isn’t for beginners. There’s some technical know-how that’s required. You need to understand phrase matching and broad matching, negative keywords and keyword research. You need to understand click fraud and how to spot it. There are professionals who do just CPC advertising for clients because there’s so much technical know-how involved. You can learn to do your own CPC ads, but be prepared to educate yourself.
• This advertising method doesn’t really provide branding benefits. Your target market probably isn’t seeing your brand name over and over every time they visit their favorite website.

Placement Targeted Ads/Banners:
These are ads that you usually see on your favorite blogs. They tend to be standard sizes like 160×600 pixels. The idea with these ads is that your target market gets frequent exposure to your brand, and this creates brand awareness, which in turn increases traffic and sales.

Pros:

• Your brand is being seen by your target market every day. Even if they do not click today and buy, they will be so aware of your brand that they may seek out your website when they have to buy a holiday gift, etc. These ads can also yield a large number of newsletter sign ups or social media followers, which means you can market to these people over and over now that they’ve expressed an interest in your brand.
• These ads can be less expensive that other CPC ads, if you happen to get a good deal and have an ad that’s generating  a high click-through rate. Sometimes you end up only paying a few cents per click, whereas SEM ads are usually over 10 cents/click.
• These ads are somewhat less complicated than SEM ads;  they do not require tons of technical know-how, although design skills are necessary.

Cons:

• Although some placement targeted ads are CPC (Google has a CPC program for placement targeted ads), they are more often paid on a CPM or flat rate basis; this means you pay whether you get clicks or not.
• Unlike SEM, you may be advertising to people when they aren’t in the market to buy stuff, which means no matter how great your ad/products are, you may not see tons of sales immediately. Some people will make impulses purchases, but a lot of people may take weeks or months to actually come make a purchase.
• You need great design skills — not everyone knows how to design nice looking ads, and if your ad design isn’t up to par, it may not get you any clicks.

So which type of advertising should you do? Personally, I do both, and wouldn’t say that one form is right or wrong.  It’s important to understand what to expect from both so you can plan accordingly.

Co-op advertising, through sites like ishopindie.com, has been a nice middle ground for me because they have the expense of placement targeted ads shared among several businesses, but the benefits of brand visibility and impulse purchases are still there. Since I am able to track all the conversions on my site over time, I can see all the traffic from co-op placements that converts right away, and the visitors who convert weeks or months later.