Ad Creation Tips

Ghastly · Post by **Ghastly** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 12:37 pm

Since selling advertising on my site I've noticed something interesting that people should take note of if they want to advertise their comics on any website online.

The more you say about your webcomic the better your advertisement does. With the exception of one webcomic, Hejhox, every ad that's been used on my site has used graphics and text to give a real feel for what the webcomic was about. Hejhox ran a nice looking advertisement but all it was was a picture of the main characters and the title of the comic. Hejhox started it's adrun at 483 on the pageview ranking and ended it at 316 on the ranking, That was a jump of 167 ranks, which was at the time the highest jump of any comic that has advertised. But I was really expecting it to make a much higher jump especially since it was already such a low pageview comic.

The two current comics advertising on my site are Zombie High and Sawdust. Zombie High is using a very nicely crafted ad and three days into their ad cycle they've jumped from being ranked 812th on the pageview list to 154th (thus giving them the record for biggest pageview jumps from an ad, 658 ranks in only three days too (although keep in mind that apart from Hejhox every other comic to advertise has started their adcycle already ranked within the top 300). Sawdust has had a pretty good jump too having jumped from 193rd position to 83rd position. The higher you're ranked in the pageview list the more traffic it takes to move you up the list so Sawdusts ad, while only moving 110 ranks in two days, is definetly very successful.

So although far from scientific the results certainly would seem to indicate that the more information you're able to convey about your comic the your advertisement the more successful your advertisement will be.

Toxic's original ad he was going to run on my site was a simple, non-animated advertisement that didn't really say much about the comic. I told him what I suspected was the cause of Hejhox' disappointing ad results which prompted him to change his advertisement. I don't think that the old advertisement would have been as successfull as his new redesigned one. Of course we'll never know for certain.

In any case if the site you're advertising on allows animated .gifs then use the animation more for telling a story about your comic than for displaying a flashy logo. It would seem you get better results that way.

Toxic · Post by **Toxic** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 3:14 pm

Yay! Record!

Though I'm surprised I was 812 at the beginning of this month, given I held steady at around 450 last month. Even then, it's still a record.

Van Douchebag · Post by **Van Douchebag** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 3:30 pm

...well, yeah. That or boobies, Ghastly.
I mean, I'm 10 time more likely to click on the ass of that chick from Krakow than I am to click on Toxie's nipple.

Toxic · Post by **Toxic** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 3:59 pm

Van Douchebag wrote:...well, yeah. That or boobies, Ghastly.
I mean, I'm 10 time more likely to click on the ass of that chick from Krakow than I am to click on Toxie's nipple.

Good. My comic isn't a tits for hits comic, so I'm not trying to attract readers who only want boobs.

Executor_Arthas · Post by **Executor_Arthas** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:04 pm

TOXIC AVENGER! wrote: Good. My comic isn't a tits for hits comic, so I'm not trying to attract readers who only want boobs.

... When you advertise with Ghastley, that's like advertising on Sexy Losers, and not expecting a hoarde of horney pre-teens going to your site, or advertising on Penny Arcade, and expecting that people there hate wang jokes.

LAGtheNoggin · Post by **LAGtheNoggin** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:13 pm

Also, Ghastly, the same can be said for people's avatars, the better the avatar the higher the chance people will check your link. Of course, there's no where near the same amount of visists involved as a banner, but it still helps.

I'm probably stealing a few hits from Mr.Bob's handi-work avatar there - Hurrah!

TOXIC AVENGER! wrote:Good. My comic isn't a tits for hits comic

Mine will be! ^.^

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:40 pm

Executor_Arthas wrote:
TOXIC AVENGER! wrote: Good. My comic isn't a tits for hits comic, so I'm not trying to attract readers who only want boobs.
... When you advertise with Ghastley, that's like advertising on Sexy Losers, and not expecting a hoarde of horney pre-teens going to your site, or advertising on Penny Arcade, and expecting that people there hate wang jokes.

If you're assuming that Ghastly's comic is read by horny pre-teens, eh-eh... Better run, here comes Ghastly with a whip.

Seriously, there's a line to where something has a point. Krakow's panty shot is taken from the comic, and although Krakow isn't exactly boobie fest, it still goes with a comic. But me putting something like that in a banner, well that would be downright st00pid, from as clean comic as mine. Although I've seen other doing it. Which doesn't mean it's not st00pid.

Van Douchebag · Post by **Van Douchebag** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 5:43 pm

Yeah, but that's like justifying doing an ad with a Samara ass shot just because I like to do ass shots in my comic.
We should just appreciate it for what is it - santily clad chicks posing scandelously.

Bekka · Post by **Bekka** » Mon Sep 06, 2004 11:31 pm

The problem with Hejox's ad is that it didn't even LOOK like an ad. It looked like a nice drawing with an odd name. I wonder if it even registered with distracted readers that it was actually an ad.
It's the same with his/her newsbox ad, you see this really cute creature and think, uh, cute, but there's nothing else that makes you want to click, and a cute squirrel, or whatever that is, isn't enough in itself. I've clicked on much uglier banners because they made me curious. So, at the end of the day, it's not a matter of boobs - I have two of my very own so I don't give a shit about clicking on boob ads. It's a matter of making people curious to see what your comic's all about.

I think that an ad should also be somehow linked to the place where it appears. I don't think that the main attraction for Ghastly's readers is boobs, but rather it's humour. If I had to advertise my fantasy comic there, I'd probably make an ad of a Beholder who wants to raise money for plastic surgery so he can implant dicks on his tentacles and move to the glamorous world of tentacle rape, instead of sitting in a damp cave killing nerds all day long. Or maybe a dungeon (as in bondage dungeon) with a group of roleplaying people (the cleric, the mage, the hobbit etc.) who walk by talking nerd talk about looking for traps, searching for treasure etc, totally oblivious to all the whipping and dildo waving going on around them. That way I'd advertise the comic as a fantasy comic about nerdy people, but I'd also have some kind of connection with the site where the ad appears.

Phact0rri · Post by **Phact0rri** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 1:05 am

another point is you should know where to stop. some comics are very complex and getting two minutes of stuff you don't really care about will make someone not click as well. so I think its good to have base information and let people know what the comic about... but to much information will drive some away just as well.

Joel Fagin · Post by **Joel Fagin** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 1:29 am

You simply need a teaser. Some text, preferably short and with some punch to it, that tells you something about the comic but also engages your interest and curiosity. Movie taglines are a good source of examples.* Take the Truman Show's "On the air. Unaware." Tells you a little about the movie and hints at a huge scope for humour and fun. It sounds similar to candid camera, after all.

I make up taglines for all my stories. I think they're fun.

- Joel Fagin

* As long as you don't look at James Cameron's. I mean, honestly, "This time it's war"? Tch.

JPSloan · Post by **JPSloan** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 5:05 am

One of my great weaknesses is that I suck at making banners and adboxes. I really don't "get" marketing, so I tried my best to apply my powers of deductive reasoning.

On my adbox currently running on GGC, I figured I'd spend a deal of attention drawing a single art frame, then animate in a couple frame of text. I took my time drawing that shot of Nikki and Jim, trying to convey in one simple wordless posture the pith of the mood in Sawdust. Then with the text, I hit some of the "buzz" words (pun unintentional but worth not deleting) like "dismemberment" and "torrid sex".

I might ad that one of Ghastly's readers came out of the blue and sent me an impressionable piece of fanart and (more importantly) input as to what he thought of the strip.

Ghastly · Post by **Ghastly** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 5:41 am

TOXIC AVENGER! wrote:Yay! Record!

Though I'm surprised I was 812 at the beginning of this month, given I held steady at around 450 last month. Even then, it's still a record.

At the beginning of the month the stats are actually in a bit of disarray. It takes a little while for things to stablize and sort themselves out, so you likely were really in the 400s but the stats didn't yet reflect that. Had you bought your ad a week later your jump might not have been as dramatic but would still be a new record none the less. The benefit to you is it's going to be much harder for someone else to beat your record, but you will have to submit to a urine test.

McDuffies · Post by **McDuffies** » Tue Sep 07, 2004 11:56 am

I just thought of a new tagline for mcDuffies:
"No rats were harmed during the making of this sandwich"

Eh. Took me three years to come up with decent tagline.