Skip to Content
 

Boardgamegeek ad program

9 replies [Last post]
Sun, 11/16/2003 - 16:12
slam
slam's picture
Offline
Joined: 07/28/2008

boardgamegeek.com has started a low cost ad program that may be of interest to self publishers. The ads are text-based and are $10 for 10,000 impressions (users seeing your ad). I decided to give it a try, as it's certainly a reasonable price and a good audience.

For $10, your ad consists of a 35 character title with link (in my case, to my web site), and a 60 character subtitle. You can also opt for a more wordy type, but with a smaller font. That is the same price. 60 character title, 120 subtitle.

According to the stats for my ad at this point, 11,434 people have seen my ad, and 49 of them have gone from the ad to my site. I reupped to get 20,000 impressions, and will probably let that run out until I'm ready to release new games. So far, no sales are directly attributable to the ads, but I consider it worthwhile.

Top
Sun, 11/16/2003 - 17:15
#1
Yekrats
Offline
Joined: 08/11/2008
Re: Boardgamegeek ad program

slam wrote:
According to the stats for my ad at this point, 11,434 people have seen my ad, and 49 of them have gone from the ad to my site.

Those stats seem to be a little better than I got with my recent TextAd. Congrats. (Maybe I'm not a very good ad writer!?) :-)

-- Scott S.

Top
Sun, 11/16/2003 - 19:33
#2
FastLearner
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
Boardgamegeek ad program

Darke also ran one for the BGDF recently. Perhaps he'll post the final stats here.

Top
Mon, 11/17/2003 - 00:30
#3
phpbbadmin
Offline
Joined: 04/23/2013
My results

I purchased 10,000 impressions. I got 43 click throughs. Of the people I've asked, only one joined because of the ad (that I know of). I would have to conclude that although they are inexpensive, the ads are ineffective. My ad ran for less than 6 days... I usually spend about 10 minutes a day on the geek reading various articles/reviews. During that 6 days, I only saw my ad once. Due to the cyclic / pseudo random nature of how the ads are displayed, there is a good chance that a person who might be interested in your 'product' will never see it displayed. It's kind of like russian roulette advertising. Unless you pump a good deal more than the minimum $10 investment, I really don't think it's a good value.

-Darke

Top
Mon, 11/17/2003 - 06:38
#4
Caparica
Caparica's picture
Offline
Joined: 08/06/2008
Re: My results

Darkehorse wrote:
It's kind of like russian roulette advertising. Unless you pump a good deal more than the minimum $10 investment, I really don't think it's a good value.

-Darke

Advertising on the www IS russian roulette, it is not a feature of boardgamegeek. That's the reason it is so cheap. Even graphic banners or the damn pop-ups are not very efective.

Paulo Junior

Top
Mon, 11/17/2003 - 08:55
#5
hpox
Offline
Joined: 12/31/1969
Boardgamegeek ad program

Well then let's count us lucky Darkehorse didn't die...

Seriously, google is our best friend. Before the bgdf, searching for "board game design" on google would give rather useless links. Sites about design, sites about games, reviews and one-shot article about game design or sometimes board game design.

But look now, http://www.google.ca/search?q=board+game+design

Top
Mon, 11/17/2003 - 18:03
#6
slam
slam's picture
Offline
Joined: 07/28/2008
Boardgamegeek ad program

I have to take a longer view of things...

The people who visit my site will learn about the games, but probably not buy on the strength of my web site. But if they run into someone with the game at a gaming night somewhere, they might ask to play. If they hadn't seen the ad, they might not have the interest.

Advertising is like that. Heck, to get into stores I would have to plan to give away many copies of my games for free. Compared to that, advertising's a relative bargain.

Top
Mon, 11/17/2003 - 23:22
#7
Anonymous
Boardgamegeek ad program

hpox wrote:

But look now, http://www.google.ca/search?q=board+game+design

Woo-hoo!!! We're the first one on the list!

Top
Tue, 02/24/2004 - 19:08
#8
Anonymous
Boardgamegeek ad program

Hmm, I bought $10 worth and sold at least one game from clickthrough, possibly two. At $15 a game, the ad paid for itself.

But part of what you're paying for is exposure and brand recognition, and that is impossible to gauge.

So I actually considered the ads successful. I know when I'm on the 'Geek (which is far too often, I might add) I do notice the ads though I rarely clickthrough. So I consider them a darn cheap way to create market awareness, if not direct sales.

Your mileage may vary, of course

Top
Sun, 05/02/2004 - 17:11
#9
Anonymous
Boardgamegeek ad program

Well, as someone that uses BGG quite a bit here is the proccess in my responses to ads:

1. I almost always look at the ad if it directly promoting a game.

2. If there is a byline with a quick description that piques my interest I will look it up while I am on BGG. There are two reasons for this, one, because I'm already on a site that should give me the information that I need, and two I should get some sort of impartial review or at least a general impression of how the game is recieved.

3. At this point I've clicked away from the ad. Where publishers need to follow up is by putting thier weblink into the game listing at the bottom of the page. If I am interested I will click this link. There have been a few cases where I used the back button (fortunately the ad will not be random going back).

4. More times than not though, I will first open a link to funagain.com and see their price point and their user reviews, then I check boulder.com or fairplaygames.com to see if the game is cheaper.

5. For independent publishers, I usually only check out the price point on their website (linked from the page at BGG) and pictures that may not be on BGG. For the most part, because a publisher's website will be partial to their own games, I won't read anything. That said there are many games that I found some interest in that because BGG and/or one of the mentioned retailers have provided enough information I don't bother going to the website.

A good way to see if people are responding to your ads is by checking if people are adding your game on their "Want" or "Wish" lists. Even still this isn't an accurate determining factor. All I know is that I've been kind of interested in Starkey's "Mother Lode..." for a while now, and while I was vaguely interested at first, his presence on BGG and ads to remind me have encouraged me to pick it up (soon).

It is a subtle game, where you want to remind people, but you don't want to beat people over the head. This takes time, patience, and an obnoxious amount of overhead.

I can't speak for everyone on BGG, but this is my experience.

Good Luck to all,
Morgan

Top
Syndicate content


forum | by Dr. Radut