Is buying ad space on tube sites worth it?
 

Do they result in a decent amount of conversions?

What sites, tubes or otherwise, do you think will bring the most conversions?

Tumblr and other free sites aren't doing jack for me.

Depends on what you are promoting. Many of our customers do quite well on tubes.

You may want to look at other traffic sources as well.

Feel free to hit me up to chat about traffic.

depends. what do you steal?

Depending on your type of business. And depends on the amount of FAKE traffic you are receiving.
Bots don't convert to sales..

There are maybe 10 GOOD media buyers left in the world (talking about single web masters who buy over 100k a month in ad buys and make a living doing it) ballpark.

Its not easy. In my experience, the guys who have done well search high and low and find spots that are small, that may only do 3,5,7 sales a day or less, but are ROI positive on flat rate buys. Obviously it takes a lot of testing. a LOT OF TESTING. you may buy and loose $$$ on every 5-10 spots to find 1 profitable one. And they have kept those small spots and duplicated the process x50 over the years.

Buying spots on the big tubes and being profitable is next to impossible to do on a large scale anymore. Unless its your OWN offers you are running and can back the return into a long period.

Short answer. Yes, CAN be worth it. but not easy by ANY means. And you need to have a SERIOUS bankroll to offset all the loosing buys you will have and need to keep the profitable ones up for months to break even on the losers.

QFT and spot on.

I would recommend a budget of 20K to START and go in knowing you will lose almost every penny of that 20K. BUT (theoretically) you will have learned a lot, hopefully what you need to know, and can then turn it around and become profitable. BUT (a lot of buts) you have to think long term, like six months+ before you start seeing a positive ROI. If you don't have the balls or backing to play the game for that long (and that deep) then don't even bother.

Best of luck tho. LOL

Its probably the LAST thing Id recommend anyone do who hasn't been doing it successfully for YEARS, lol. But unfortunately, there is no barrier of entry. Everyone who's been around other parts of the business thinks, I'll just buy some TJ traffic, test a few landers and BOOM, I can make a living.

Even the BIG media buyers (spending 200k+ a month) often work on VERY, VERY thin margins vs a few yrs ago.

Plan on (this is AFTER the 6 months of loosing PN talks about) making 10-20% profit on whatever you're spending. Thats is you end up being one of the best in the world at it, which is obviously unlikely. No trying to be a downer, but just hate when ad reps and programs pop in and make it seem like its going to be all peaches and cream for you.

I'm with you there man. I would NOT recommend trying it.

Having said that, it really does depend on what you are selling and if you are good with mathematical equations. But like you said, it's a rough game because the margins are so slim (and unstable). So I don't do any myself (but I did, the most I spent was 5K for a monthly spot with Redtube, pre-Mind Geek). Besides to me, if you boil it down to pure numbers/mathematical equation (as many do) then what fun is that?

Gimme the tits 'n ass please. :D

Our network is full of tube traffic and real-time bidding makes it even more interesting. So at least you can see how these type of traaffic works for you without the one-source commitment. Try ClickPapa if you haven't yet. Hit me up for details!

Good reply. About the only thing worth reading on the gfy front page today.

Yes you can. But everything has been said here already. It will be hard. It will take time. It will take money.
for a prodict like ours, here the Key figures you need to reach in order to be profitable on tubes :

eCPM : $0.10-$0.20
CTR: 0.25%+
Installs rate : 4%

Like everyone has said. You can do well. You do need to know exactly what you are doing and you do need to be prepared to burn some dollars until you find the right spots/price points.

Excellent response! Mirrors my numbers pretty closely; about 1 in 10 buys is profitable - takes A LOT of trial and error, and knowing metrics down COLD.

I only disagree with your "10 guys left in the world". There's a LOT more than that...