DISQUS

Mashable - The Social Media Guide: 2007/11/21/stumbleupon-selling-targeted-traffic-for-50-cpm/

  • micha · 2 years ago
    That usability issue confused me when I set up a Stumble Upon advertising account as well. I've tested Stumble Advertising for several clients and still have not found a good formula for success. From my experience using Stumble it is usually apparent which sites are paid and which are being shown due to similar user interests.
  • Chris Baskind · 2 years ago
    This isn't new, and it certainly isn't secret.

    I don't have a commercial relationship with StumbleUpon. I'm just a blogger and a regular SU user (my screen name is moreminimal).

    > No one else I quizzed about it seemed to have heard about it either, so it very well could be new, or just a well kept secret.

    It's nota secret from Google, and you could have found this SU page with that handy little search box on the corner of your browser:

    http://www.stumbleupon.com/ads/

    It should answer most of the questions you raise here -- particularly that of disclosure. paid stumbles display a special symbol on the toolbar:

    http://www.stumbleupon.com/promote_faq.html#dif...

    Most stumblers know this. If the site is crap, it gets a thumbs down. If not, I generally treat a sponsored site like any other.

    > I can tell you that the pricing on the traffic is very steep, especially when compared with pop-under traffic (which is what this type of monetization is closest to).

    Have you priced AdWords recently? SU is a bargain. As you point out, it's quality traffic.

    I'm looking at one of my site's metrics right now. The bounce rate from Digg traffic is about 75%. From SU, it's 32%. This is because the traffic is so qualified: Stumblers are actually looking for what you offer, and tend to explore a good-looking site once they arrive.

    I value Stumblers as much as my direct traffic. A nickel per would be quite reasonable, though I've never needed to actually buy stumbles.

    About the only thing SU doesn't seem to do for me is push RSS subscriptions. I think this is because Stumblers prefer to spend their discretionary browsing time in discovery mode, rather than on Google Reader.

    In any case, I don't think paid SU traffic represents any imminent threat to the quality of the StumbleUpon user experience.
  • Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins · 2 years ago
    I saw the page, but I've not seen the service written up nor announced from eBay.

    Well kept secret = stealth launch.

    I've used StumbleUpon for months now, and never been introduced with a help or tips screen indicating when a page is being shown to me as advertising, unless it is for StumbleUpon feature-sets I've not yet utilized.

    Additionally, in the gamut of targeted page-hits you can purchase from various vendors, $.05 is *very steep* in comparison with the rest of the business. This isn't CPC traffic, either. CPC is an active movement to a page, where the visitor knows they're going into paid placement territory. In the case of StumbleUpon, it is foisted upon you.

    Two very different situations.
  • TDave · 2 years ago
    @Mark
    I just emailed a guy that had responded to my post about this. He has been using the service for awhile now to promote his site. He shared some of his stats with me and said he paid $10 and got 3000 pageviews from SU. After someone "likes" your page it sorta goes viral and there's no charge for a pageview when that happens naturally. So, it doesn't really work out to $50 cpm.

    @Chris
    It may not be new, and it may not be a secret, but SU sure hasn't done anything to promote it.

    I have never noticed anything while using SU showing me a page was "paid for" either.

    Trai Davenport
  • TDave · 2 years ago
    The guy who shared his stats with me only paid $3.33 cpm. Not bad for that kind of targeted traffic.
  • Julian Bond · 2 years ago
    I would love to have an RSS feed of very tightly targeted Ads aimed at me. And with a simple (love, skip, ban) feedback mechanism to let me help refine the targeting. Stumble is one of the companies that could do this. But this isn't it.
  • ccna · 2 years ago
    guys don't was money those ads, you can have alternative way with less money spent
  • Tushar Dhoot · 2 years ago
    Its stupid turkeys like you that take 1 year to figure out something thats been there forever. What next? You just realized you have a nose?
  • Zac · 2 years ago
    I have to say that I've been using stumble ads for ages...and am kinda surprised that this would be treated as news.

    Chris Baskind's comments are absolutely right.
  • Will · 2 years ago
    For gods sake how many times are you going to write about stubleshit!
  • oyun · 1 year ago
    Its a funny tool to use .... but i have heard that it doesn't work in Avant browser...
    Is it true????
  • Jack · 1 year ago
    I Can provide good quality pop and banner traffic on CPM contact me jack@xpressadmedia.com