Thursday
Oct292009
Advertisers Should Hate Digg and Hacker News
Thursday, October 29, 2009 at 9:47AM
I am making a bold claim here, but I will say it anyway.
Bloggers that feature advertisements on their blog should hate the big bouts of traffic they get from social sites such as Digg, Hacker, Reddit and others.
Why?
Because they drive absolutely no hits to the advertiser. How do I know this?
Well lets start with TechGeist, a tech blog I used to write for. We got featured on the front page of Digg once, front page of Hacker three times and Reddit two times. Each of these times we had nearly 0 clicks on ads based on traffic from these sites, and these are sites that can generate nearly 40,000+ hits easily in 24 hours.
Further demonstrations of this is my latest post on Android getting on the front page of Hacker News. As you can see to the right, I sponsor Cliqset (disclaimer: I do so for free, I like them) and over the past two days my Android post has garnered over 500 hits to my site.
You know how many click-thrus the ad got based on the plug-in I am using and a script I am using through Google Analytics? Four.
Four lousy clicks. How pitiful.
You know how many clicks that advertisement gets on an average traffic day of around 50+ hits? I can easily get 10+ clicks a day and since my blog is so much smaller than TechGeist, (not that TG was huge or anything) it is even easier to see how useless these huge bouts of traffic are for advertisers.
This should really irritate advertisers of big blogs.
Why?
Because most of them are paying for spots based off of traffic and most of these big blogs are featured on sites such as Digg often. This means all those numbers you bloggers are flashing, depending on referrals, don't mean a damn thing. Sooner or later advertisers are going to take a look at referrals based off of public data (or better yet, refuse to advertise on a given site unless the information is given) and then play the bargain game, if they choose to play the game at all.
Any other bloggers experienced the same thing? Better question is, are you willing to admit that your blog that runs advertisements has experienced this?
I want to know.
Bloggers that feature advertisements on their blog should hate the big bouts of traffic they get from social sites such as Digg, Hacker, Reddit and others.
Why?
Because they drive absolutely no hits to the advertiser. How do I know this?
Well lets start with TechGeist, a tech blog I used to write for. We got featured on the front page of Digg once, front page of Hacker three times and Reddit two times. Each of these times we had nearly 0 clicks on ads based on traffic from these sites, and these are sites that can generate nearly 40,000+ hits easily in 24 hours.
Further demonstrations of this is my latest post on Android getting on the front page of Hacker News. As you can see to the right, I sponsor Cliqset (disclaimer: I do so for free, I like them) and over the past two days my Android post has garnered over 500 hits to my site.
You know how many click-thrus the ad got based on the plug-in I am using and a script I am using through Google Analytics? Four.
Four lousy clicks. How pitiful.
You know how many clicks that advertisement gets on an average traffic day of around 50+ hits? I can easily get 10+ clicks a day and since my blog is so much smaller than TechGeist, (not that TG was huge or anything) it is even easier to see how useless these huge bouts of traffic are for advertisers.
This should really irritate advertisers of big blogs.
Why?
Because most of them are paying for spots based off of traffic and most of these big blogs are featured on sites such as Digg often. This means all those numbers you bloggers are flashing, depending on referrals, don't mean a damn thing. Sooner or later advertisers are going to take a look at referrals based off of public data (or better yet, refuse to advertise on a given site unless the information is given) and then play the bargain game, if they choose to play the game at all.
Any other bloggers experienced the same thing? Better question is, are you willing to admit that your blog that runs advertisements has experienced this?
I want to know.
Reader Comments (7)
Hey Holden,
Good information. Yeah, I've been playing around with trying to get on digg and reddit the last couple of days trying to see what the thrill of getting thousands of hits would be like, and of course I got no where. So I'm glad I read this. Save's me the stress of trying to write for that crowd.
Getting clicks can be tough. One of my most popular posts that gets 50 hits a day I can't monetize because the ads that Adsense serves up are totally irrelevant.
Another of my popular posts is about Rackspace Cloud Sites. Of course there the ads are more relevant, but the weird thing is, Adsense will serve a beautiful Rackspace ad on other pages but on this page it serves up a competitors ad. Strange. I guess it has to do with ad inventory. Tech stuff a lot, regular stuff not so much. Maybe this will change in the future.
I do remember in the past when I ran a successful adwords campaign for my retail store, I bought a book about how to do it, and the guy said, Never advertise on Content networks, so I never did, on on Google, so maybe it'll take some time for quality advertisers to show up.
The Digg and Reddit crowd, well, I get the feeling its all about sensationalism and that they probably make a point not to click on ads, even if they were interested.
So I'm gonna save myself the stress and be myself again. Your post here helps me make that decision. Thanks.
my experience has been quite similar, with social bookmarking sites like digg you have a very broad audience and there is not much ability to get targeted traffic unlike pay per click such as google adwords or facebook advertising where you can be very specific about the keywords or demographics, the way i think of it is a person who uses digg is generally just interested in keeping up with the latest news and info where as someone who has a real burning desire / need will use google search to find a solution and then click on a google ad in order to find that solution, basically the conclusion that i've come to is social media / social bookmarking is good for building a community / tribe - a long term strategy where as pay per click is good for generating short term sales
Hey Stephen,
great to see you round still man :)
Glad I could help you make your decision with this post :) Digg and Reddit are full of useless hits.
But I will admit.
It feels damn good seeing 800+ people on your site in real-time with Clicky
DJ, I have never heard it from that perspective.
Interesting point of view man :)
i'm glad you finally upgraded to disqus ;-)
Suddenly 24 hours after posting, I'm getting hundreds of hits from Reddit. It is fun to watch, but I've made $.01. One problem I see: it's a funny article about something in China, which the headline clearly states, and I'm getting served ads for "Cloud Back-up & Recovery" Internet Marketing Degree & Blogging for Money. Errrrrrrrrrrr!
Hey Stephen,
Glad to see you are still around and glad to see this post helped you out :)
I use to be obsessive about getting on Digg as well, now I am no longer. I
would rather get 50+ hits a day for my advertisers then the crap that I get
from Digg and Reddit.
But, I will admit, seeing those traffic numbers through Clicky stats in
real-time feels friggin *amazing.*