24 Hours With John Chow

September 4, 2007 | General

As a winner of the Free John Chow Banner Ad Contest from eMonitized, I received one of John Chows 125×125 ad spots for a full 24 hours. This was an exciting opportunity for me because I haven’t really done any advertising for the site and it was a free way to get a taste of that infamous John Chow Effect everyone keeps talking about.

The Results of 24 Hours With John Chow

The Average Joe Blogger ad ran from September 2 to September 3 and received 266 unique visits. I don’t know what John Chow’s numbers were over that period, how the holiday weekend effected traffic, or how my ad compared to other ads, but I think I faired pretty well.

If we were to assume I paid the current asking price of $500/month, that would work out to roughly $16/day or $.06/click. I’m no expert on paid advertising, but that looks like a good deal to me for highly targeted traffic.

Other statistics that are also worth noting are that the 266 visitors, on average, spent 6 minutes and 57 seconds on the site, viewed 2.10 pages and had a bounce rate of 22.03%. All of those numbers reinforce that the traffic from John Chow is highly targeted and valuable.

Is John Chow Worth the Money?

When it comes to the value of advertising on John Chow dot Com, there are a number of opinions, on both sides of the fence, but based solely on this 24 hour taste, I would say it’s definitely worth they money. Where else are you going to get this kind of traffic for $.06/click? And imagine what you could do if you really optimized your site and tailored your ads, referrals or even special offers specifically for John Chow traffic.

An Average Joe Gets Some Free Advertising
Welcome John Chow Readers
Weekend Reading: August 25, 2007
Weekend Reading: August 4, 2007
BlogRush Appologizes for “Goof”, Releases Flavors and Promises BIG Changes and Tons of Targeted Traffic

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10 Responses to “24 Hours With John Chow”

Dean @ Technical Itch | September 4th, 2007 at 11:04 am

Those are good statistics. The bounce rate and average time spent on site are good. I think the type of material you blog about too can help once visitors have landed on your web site. People are always on the look out for the next pro blogger and like to see how sites like this will grow.
Steven Snell | September 4th, 2007 at 4:04 pm

Congratulations on winning the ad spot! Looks like your subscriber count is up today too.
Word Hugger | September 4th, 2007 at 6:24 pm

Some companies charge $0.06/visitor for untargetted traffic, so targetted traffic that spends 7 minutes on the site (and repeat traffic like myself =D ), would definetly be worth the ad purchase price. Thanks for the public statistics.
Nate (Average Joe Blogger) | September 4th, 2007 at 7:11 pm

Steven: Thanks. I noticed the RSS subscribers were up a bit as well. I can’t say for sure that they are all from the John Chow ad but one does coincide with the other.

Word Hugger: It really does seem hard beat that price. If someone were to do some pre-planning, they could easily capitalize on the traffic.
dcr | September 4th, 2007 at 7:40 pm

Interesting statistics. I’ve never had an ad on John Chow’s site, but I was a top commentator for about a week. I don’t remember what my stats were at the time (or even when the week was, so I can’t go back and check), but it seems to me they were far less than you’re getting from the ad.

But, one thing that needs to be looked at, especially before paying for a $500 ad, is the downward spiral as time goes by. When an ad first appears, it will get a traffic burst, and then it will tend to dwindle down. Of course, how much it dwindles will depend upon the frequency with which John Chow’s regular readers visit the site plus the number of new visitors he brings in each day.
Nate (Average Joe Blogger) | September 4th, 2007 at 8:02 pm

dcr: Good point. I don’t know what John Chow’s ad approval process is, but you might be able to change up the add every week or so to keep it from getting old.

John actually hot linked my ad so if I was truly evil, and I thought about it, I could have easily swapped it out with something else like a high paying referral or similar.
Chris Jacobson | September 4th, 2007 at 8:37 pm

Nice stats, but to be honest I would have expected your hits to be higher. Nonetheless, free advertising is always good, no matter how many new visitors you attract. Keep it up.
MikeMikey.com | September 5th, 2007 at 12:33 pm

You know what they say any publicity, is good publicity (especially when it’s free). Congrats on winning the ad spot!
healthynerd | September 5th, 2007 at 1:48 pm

Hey nate, could you write a simple article on migrating hosts, then use 1and1 going to DH as an example I’ve been wanting to transfer to dreamhost but I’m too worried of the downtime plus the schemes 1and1 might apply during the transition process. Thanks!
Nate (Average Joe Blogger) | September 6th, 2007 at 1:14 pm

healthynerd: This seems to be a popular question as of late.

I just posted an article entitled A Guide on Moving Your WordPress Blog to a New Host. It’s not specific to 1and1 and Dreamhost, but the same information still applies.

If you have more specific questions send me an email and I will do my best to answer them.