Thank you for your interest in advertising with HomeSchoolReviews.com! We are the largest homeschool curriculum review site on the internet and we want to help homeschoolers know about your product or service!
Who will see my ads?
Specifically, people come to our site because they want to see what other homeschooling families think about various curricula. Whether they do this through the reviews or the forums they come with the intent of purchasing. Advertising with us puts your product directly in their path.
In more general terms, homeschooling families are normally two-parent, single-income families. Since many homeschooling parents are of a traditional persuasion, it is normally the mother who stays at home to educate the children. A quick trip to our forums will bear this fact out. On average the median income for homeschooling families is higher than other families.
To summarize, the most likely user of HomeSchoolReviews.com is probably a stay-at-home mother from a nuclear family with better than average means.
What kind of exposure will my company receive?
The average monthly page views for last 6 months (as of Oct 1 2005) are over 310,000. The peak season runs from May through September but we achieve fairly consistent traffic throughout the year. We have 4 ad slots and your ad will run randomly in any of the slots. The top spot is not more valuable than the bottom because people reading reviews or forums must scroll down to get the information they need. By winter of 2005 we will also offer Flash ads which are highly interactive and provide a very effective medium to communicate your product’s benefits with animation or even video.
We get tons of Google traffic. It is in fact, the largest single source of traffic for our site. Most people arrive here by searching on a particular product name or on search terms like “curriculum reviews”. Chances are the customers you want to reach with your Google or Yahoo ads will end up at HomeSchoolReviews.com anyway.
How much will this cost?
We know that the most popular method of advertising on the internet is through Google and Yahoo. We have monitored the pricing of these companies and set our pricing far below what they are charging. There are two methods of advertising with us:
Sidebar Ads (right hand side of page)
Cost Per Click (CPC):
In this method you only pay when someone actually clicks your ad. CPC allows for a very high number of ads to be displayed and you only pay for the ads that people actually click on. This type of ad would stay active until you meet the number of clicks you paid for.
Cost Per Mil (CPM):
In this method you pay per 1000 impressions (views) of your ad. For instance, if you purchase 10,000 ads then your ad would run randomly until those 10,000 ads are displayed. If you are worried about the ad running too fast (i.e. all in one day) you can request that we limit the number of views per day to stretch your ad campaign out.
Site Sponsorship (for publishers)
This program is designed to allow publishers an economical way to advertise across a variety of products. For a flat fee per year, you will have hyperlinks on all review pages of your products. The image, title, and a "more information" link will all go to your chosen website. In addition, you will receive a year-round Sidebar ad in the right hand ad area with unlimited impressions and clicks.
Which one should I pick?
It all depends. The best idea is to start off with the minimum purchase and then after the ad has run look at the statistics. Do some simple math to find out if you would be off switching to the other method. If you have a very high click-through-rate (CTR) it is best to do CPM ads. If your CTR is lower, you may be better served by purchasing the CPC ads. You could also purchase an initial run of both types of ads and see which one gets you more for your money. If you are a publisher it is normally much less expensive in the course of a year to do a Site Sponsorship.
How do I know how effective my ads are?
Our ad server software is feature packed and allows each of our advertisers to know exactly how many impressions they have had as well as how many clicks in a given time frame. In addition we will automatically notify you before your ads run out so that you can purchase more if you wish.
You will receive a username and password so that you can log in at any time and check the progress of your ad campaign.
Site Sponsorships will have these statistics available for their Sidebar ad but will need to rely on their own web server statistics for the review links.
If you are ready to start advertising with us, the first step is to fill out this form. We will then contact you and get your account set up.
