Web Advertising 101(ish)

So you want to sell a product online. What is the formula for getting your product out there enough for people to buy it? Where do you begin....should you place ads? How many impressions equals a click? How many clicks equal a sale? What is an impression again? Is this really an effective way to sell a product?

I have a lot of questions and, where we have so little to spend, I have a lot of hesitation in spending money on traditional advertising. Unfortunately, the wisdom of the marketing world all points to "get the word out there" and traditional advertising is one--not the only one--of the paths to doing this. Just like placing an ad in a newspaper the way people used to do, you can buy space on a web page to place an ad for your product online.

Luckily, our internet service provider (the company through which we host our SoDunked! web site) offers a few promotional deals as a perk of doing business with them and the deals include $50 of advertising at Facebook and a few other similar offers to advertise on MySpace and Google. This seems great, but then you start reading the sign-up form and see the recommended amount to pay per click (approximately $1.30-1.80) and you find out that $50 does not go very far. And, a click does not necessarily equal a sale.

In the next post, we will fill you in on our adventures with clicks and impressions and what we think it all means. And, don't forget to spread the word and play with the SoDunked! app.