How much do you pay for classifieds?

I was about to place a classified and thought to look at what it would take to be 'up there' with the big boys....250000 OMG!

Is that neccesary to pay that much? I don't understand how they can sell enough revealing, open zipper, come hiter, pants to cover that?

If I pay 1000 is it even worth it? What do you guys pay?

despite people saying again and again that paying for classifieds isnt worth it...i still do. I ask people who come to rent homes how they found us..and its always through the classified..and home rentals is a BIG BIG pond to be in!

Uusually i look at search terms and see what everyone else has paid and try to place mine amongst them...it used to be that like you mentioned, the BIG boys of my area were paying a LOT of lindens to be on page one, so i contented myself with page 2 or 3or 4 lol.

I tihnk classifieds work, you dont need to be on page ONE...when i look for clothes etc i scan pages of classifieds...im more swayed by a good photo and descriptive wording than its placement at the top...but then...im a patient sorta chick

I've always paid for a classified, but pay near the minimum of L$50-L$65 for it. I don't know how much it really helps, but for that small investment it doesn't have to generate much in the way of sales to pay for itself. My financial goals for my buinsess are and have always been quite modest though.

So paying 500 or 1000 maybe just as good. I know I've visited some of those at the top and they aren't all that interesting. I'm not sure how far in the red they are (or maybe the black?). I guess I'll try, I'm trying to be a good girl and use events correctly.

I pay L$500. I'm on the first page for most of the search terms I check. I think that has more to do with the wording than the actual price that I'm paying but it works. I keep telling myself that I'm paying too much, and I probably am, but I don't want to mess with a good thing. Eventually I'll break down and stark experimenting here and there. Maybe next week, or the one after that, or the one...

Faithless,

You're right that we are in a big pond with rental homes, but for ad placement, our industry does not pay much for classifieds. This makes sense, because we have a cap on the total income we can bring in, depending on how much land we hold. We're not like a store that basically has no limit to how much they can sell.

I pay over 6000L for my ad, and I'm generally one of the top listed, or 1st, depending on the term. If I were in the skin business, I'd be totally invisible with a 6000L ad. I'm still in expansion mode, so when (or if) my new place fills up, I'll drop the ad altogether, and re-run it as necessary. On 3 regions, 6000L doesn't eat too terribly into the bottom line, whereas someone renting out a smaller area could never justify that expense.

You're going to get a different answer depending on what industry you're in. I don't know about the clothing industry. Cunundrum, you really have to compare apples to apples for this, so the best thing you can do is pretend to be a customer, and shop your own business, and see what people are paying. (like you said you are doing). Good luck with your store!

I used to run several at various amounts, 500L, 800L, 200L, etc. But since the new search was implemented, I've found I had to do as the OP mentioned, and up the ante. I now run a 36k ad as well. And yes, it depends on the segment. That 36k gets me near the bottom of the first page, (top ad being over 200k). The surprising thing is, it actually does pay off, in terms of increased traffic and increased sales. I really can't imagine not having it now.

That's very interesting. I've been toying with the idea of upping my ad from 2501 to 11,000 just to see if it makes a difference. With what you've said, I might just do it to find out. I'm already #1 in the Places tab, #2 in All>Any category, and #3 in All>Classifieds, but it might be worth going right up the Classifieds tab too.

It depends upon your market. My land rentals work at around L$107.

Clothing, forget about it, the market is so saturated that you're not going to touch the sides, stick with something low just to add relevance or whatever but paying high is just wasted money.

50L to 500L
most often 50L

sometimes 501 or so, to bump just over the 500's

hmm maybe I should pay 503 (evil grin)

I pay anywhere from 1400-2000ish (currently, 1701) to stay on the first page of the classified tab for property rentals.

I am #1 for the keyword apartments in new search of all classifieds. New search all with all categories, however, is useless because I refuse to pay 30L per property to get every one of them listed. There is no point, as they don't have the traffic/inbound links to boost them up to the top, and neither do the rental centers. The traffic decreases as my available offerings decrease anyway!

well if ya wanna be page 1, check out the lowest classified and see what they're paying, and up 'em 1. (i don't want to encourage anyone to be cruel about it, but if that's where you wanna be, that's 'easy'...

good sales comes from good product though, and search terms or classified payments can't cover that. good luck and have fun!

This information is super double secret.

OK, I'll tell ya anyway...

I have five classifieds, ranging from L50 to L200. Because my products are niche and uncommon, I don't have to spend a lot of Lindens to get the ads seen.

Just doesn't seem cost effective to spend alot on ads for me right now. As it is I'd have to quadruple the amount of stores I have available (and rent them all out) just to cover my tier

:\ oh i know, yah reconsidering your OP... i dunno how some of them do it, other than they seem willing to waste a lotta RL mon into sl just to run those kindsa classifieds (they couldn't possibly making that kinda money back out of it, IMHO so don't let them lead you up a blind alley... there's other ways to build up your own market outside of classifieds.

(hehe and oh yah, a unique product is great ) but not the most essential really. be good at what you're into, be persistent and have fun!!

Trust me, they make it back. A 100K classified is a monthly expense of $1500 USD, and an annual expense of nearly $18,000 USD. The average person cannot sustain that kind of cost. They are making a profit. Note that those folks are in the tiny minority of the SL population, among the top 400 SLers, in terms of positive monthly Linden flow.

Also, classifieds are more important than ever before because New Search makes it much tougher for businesses to get eyeballs in the regular search results, whereas a high-priced classified is guaranteed placement on the first few results pages for given keywords. Previously only a minority of SLers even used classifieds search, but now that classifieds are embedded into almost every New Search results page, they're an important (perhaps essential, for new businesses) component of advertising.

:\ wow, guess that depends what kinda business they're in. i see ads occassionally for 2/3x that much!! (land baronning is the ultimate way, i guess.)

You don't see those ads in every category, but "shopping" is so rife with stuff... yes, they make it back, because while we may find that the stuff is not terribly interesting, it is more interesting for a brand new person who hasn't seen the wider range of clothes/skin/hair yet.

I was going to post that there's no way they are not making good profits from that kind a spend - every week, but others beat me to it. Even so, I decided to say it anyway

As Jeska has posted in the current version feedback forum that they are looking at classifieds I'd suggest that everyone takes care when placing classifieds because it looks like they're going to change again.

Thanks for that, Ciaran. It reads like Jeska is talking about classifieds as they appear in the new search, and not in the Classifieds tab. If classifieds work at all, and I'm sure they do, it'll be in the Classifieds tab where they work, imo.

I saw that. I wonder what brought that on... maybe a dip in classified advertising?

I think it depends upon your market Phil, there are people in this thread who have said that they've changed their classified policy since the new search arrived.

When the new search went live I stopped paying 5k a week for an ad and started paying $500 instead. My sales have actually gone up a bit. I have no idea how much benefit there is to being on the front page since there's no way in hell I'd ever spend that much for a classified even if I could afford it. The amount people are paying just continues to escalate to absurd levels. Next thing you know the top listing will show the price as something like "First born, Lakehouse in Vermont, One Kidney."

That's true. It's just a guess of mine.