4 ms·

DuckDuckGo Sponsorship By The Numbers

72 points by jordanmessina 16y ago

NathanKP 16y ago
Not only did PosterBurner get good results from the sponsorship, but they also get to write an article about the results and bring in still more sales and PR. It sounds like an all-around benefit to me.
- w1ntermute 16y ago
  Yeah, and DDG's being advertised on their blog for free after making $1000 by being sponsored by them, that's a pretty good deal.
- vaksel 16y ago
  I dunno, but it doesn't sound like they got good results. Ignore the reddit and PRWeb based sales, since it's not really correlated with the DDG spend. And you only have 22 sales originated directly from DDG for a total of $550 in sales. So they lost half their money, and that's before we talk about their costs. And I'm sure they have a much better profit margin than most businesses.
  - Prospect 16y ago
    Hey vaksel, I can your point about the PRWeb sales, but the reddit ad pct that I attributed to DDG sponsorship was the percentage above average and we've been advertising on Reddit for a few months now. Also, that was also immediate sales. We have a very good percentage of customers that reorder, especially around the holidays, so the final number will be much higher, probably by a multiple of 3 or 4.
dotBen 16y ago
I'd be interested in sponsoring DuckDuckGo, but I'd want to make sure I got referrer information. Does anyone know if this is because DDG is using a redirect in between the link on their site and the advertiser's site, or is it just down to lack of set up on PosterBurner's end? The ability to track and analyze is critical for a $1000/week spend.
- slig 16y ago
  I don't get. We don't they use an special query string to identify the origin? Like the utm_ from Analytics.
- daok 16y ago
  Just use a special landing page like http://yoursite.com/duckduckgo http://yoursite.com/duckduckgo and you just redirect and get your own stats by seing who came to your site from this landing page...
- epi0Bauqu 16y ago
  I should have thought of this earlier. If you send it through a redirect url (or even better a special DDG landing page), it is certainly traceable.
- scotje 16y ago
  I believe DDG doesn't set a referrer for privacy reasons.
  - stanleydrew 16y ago
    I think the technical reason is that DDG defaults to search over HTTPS (for privacy reasons), and most browsers won't set the referer HTTP header when moving from HTTPS to HTTP.
- motters 16y ago
  Surely if users are tracked then this is no longer a privacy respecting search engine.
ig1 16y ago
$1000 for $1300 in sales seems high, is 75% ad spend normal for the industry ?
- IgorPartola 16y ago
  I imagine there's cumulative effect that will happen: the longer you are a sponsor the more customers that will attract. Also, these new customers might come back at a later date.
  - epi0Bauqu 16y ago
    The second sponsor (hostgator.com) has taken this approach. They're sponsoring for two months.
- Prospect 16y ago
  Hey ig1, We have a pretty high reorder rate so the cumulative effect of the sponsorship will probably be more than double the initial sales.
Keyframe 16y ago
We spent $1000 dollars to get $1300 So reddit advertising was free or am I missing something?
- sesqu 16y ago
  Reddit advertising ad been bought previously and independently, so yes, it was free in a sense. No additional cost was incurred, and the author made sure to point out that it might not have been a great deal if their situation had not included complementary advertising (or that's how I understood the blurb about strategy, anyway).
johnrob 16y ago
"DuckDuckGo does not include referrer information in their links. This means that when you click on a link at DuckDuckGo, the site you are going to does not know where you come from." Assuming they're refering to an ad, and not a search result, why not just link to http://www.mysite.com/?ref=ddg http://www.mysite.com/?ref=ddg ?
- masklinn 16y ago
  They probably didn't think of it initially, and then discovered the lack of referrer.
mike-cardwell 16y ago
You do see duckduckgo.com in the referer, just not the search term. Although, if the person searches via the https version of the website, you wont see the referer unless you're using https your self. And of course there is always the concept of a landing page, which other people have mentioned. It's easy to track clicks for a campaign like this.

72 points by jordanmessina 16y ago

Not only did PosterBurner get good results from the sponsorship, but they also get to write an article about the results and bring in still more sales and PR. It sounds like an all-around benefit to me.

w1ntermute 16y ago
Yeah, and DDG's being advertised on their blog for free after making $1000 by being sponsored by them, that's a pretty good deal.
vaksel 16y ago
I dunno, but it doesn't sound like they got good results. Ignore the reddit and PRWeb based sales, since it's not really correlated with the DDG spend. And you only have 22 sales originated directly from DDG for a total of $550 in sales. So they lost half their money, and that's before we talk about their costs. And I'm sure they have a much better profit margin than most businesses.
- Prospect 16y ago
  Hey vaksel, I can your point about the PRWeb sales, but the reddit ad pct that I attributed to DDG sponsorship was the percentage above average and we've been advertising on Reddit for a few months now. Also, that was also immediate sales. We have a very good percentage of customers that reorder, especially around the holidays, so the final number will be much higher, probably by a multiple of 3 or 4.

dotBen 16y ago

I'd be interested in sponsoring DuckDuckGo, but I'd want to make sure I got referrer information. Does anyone know if this is because DDG is using a redirect in between the link on their site and the advertiser's site, or is it just down to lack of set up on PosterBurner's end? The ability to track and analyze is critical for a $1000/week spend.

slig 16y ago
I don't get. We don't they use an special query string to identify the origin? Like the utm_ from Analytics.
daok 16y ago
Just use a special landing page like http://yoursite.com/duckduckgo http://yoursite.com/duckduckgo and you just redirect and get your own stats by seing who came to your site from this landing page...
epi0Bauqu 16y ago
I should have thought of this earlier. If you send it through a redirect url (or even better a special DDG landing page), it is certainly traceable.
scotje 16y ago
I believe DDG doesn't set a referrer for privacy reasons.
- stanleydrew 16y ago
  I think the technical reason is that DDG defaults to search over HTTPS (for privacy reasons), and most browsers won't set the referer HTTP header when moving from HTTPS to HTTP.
motters 16y ago
Surely if users are tracked then this is no longer a privacy respecting search engine.

ig1 16y ago

$1000 for $1300 in sales seems high, is 75% ad spend normal for the industry ?

IgorPartola 16y ago
I imagine there's cumulative effect that will happen: the longer you are a sponsor the more customers that will attract. Also, these new customers might come back at a later date.
- epi0Bauqu 16y ago
  The second sponsor (hostgator.com) has taken this approach. They're sponsoring for two months.
Prospect 16y ago
Hey ig1, We have a pretty high reorder rate so the cumulative effect of the sponsorship will probably be more than double the initial sales.

Keyframe 16y ago

We spent $1000 dollars to get $1300 So reddit advertising was free or am I missing something?

sesqu 16y ago
Reddit advertising ad been bought previously and independently, so yes, it was free in a sense. No additional cost was incurred, and the author made sure to point out that it might not have been a great deal if their situation had not included complementary advertising (or that's how I understood the blurb about strategy, anyway).

johnrob 16y ago

"DuckDuckGo does not include referrer information in their links. This means that when you click on a link at DuckDuckGo, the site you are going to does not know where you come from." Assuming they're refering to an ad, and not a search result, why not just link to http://www.mysite.com/?ref=ddg http://www.mysite.com/?ref=ddg ?

masklinn 16y ago
They probably didn't think of it initially, and then discovered the lack of referrer.

mike-cardwell 16y ago

You do see duckduckgo.com in the referer, just not the search term. Although, if the person searches via the https version of the website, you wont see the referer unless you're using https your self. And of course there is always the concept of a landing page, which other people have mentioned. It's easy to track clicks for a campaign like this.