Proposed advertising campaign on BOINCstats received some strong support through Foundation vote, but unfortunately Willy (BOINCstats webmaster) hasn't replied to my e-mails about this latest advertising deal. It's possible he isn't interested in such deals anymore, not many webmasters agree to them anyway - they stick to Google AdWords (or whichever ad engine they use) and everything else is an inconvenience. Willy has helped us a lot so far, we've done three successful advertising campaigns with him, but apparently it's time to move on and focus on AdWords as well.

               

Our AdWords account is of course fully operational for almost a year now and we are spending 5 USD daily on it. I propose to increase the daily budget to 10 USD and I have started a new Foundation vote on this. Let me explain you how this money will be spent:

a) 1-2 USD per day on crypto-related websites (such as coinmarketcap, eobot, coinwarz, cryptoage, allcoinsnews, bitcoinwisdom, cryptomining-blog, themerkle etc etc). Average cost-per-click is 4 cents, so it's quite affordable. We could spend much more on this (10-15 USD for sure) since all those websites are receiving a lot of traffic, but there are other priorities too.

b) 3-4 USD on BOINC related websites. There are unfortunately only four of them now (on AdWords): boincstats, stats.free-dc.org, GPUGRID, folding.extremeoverclocking.com (this is actually a website for Folding@home, but that's similar enough, they click our ads too). These websites are receiving less traffic, so it's difficult to spend more than 4 USD (per day) on them. Very important for us, so I set our bids high: we are paying 20 cents per click. Could be less of course, but then our ads don't get displayed so often.

c) 4-5 USD on BOINC related Google searches. This is also very important. Whenever someone types BOINC into Google, our ad gets displayed. With this increased budget, we will be able to cover other BOINC-related searches as well, like World Community Grid, SETI@home, GPUGRID, PrimeGrid etc. We are also paying 20 cents per click here and we could also spend a lot more, since we are getting a lot of clicks and 5 USD isn't nearly enough to display our ad on every BOINC-related search. This is the most premium type of advertising offered from Google and it can't be blocked by AdBlocker.

Q&A

Q: 10 USD per day! That's 3650 USD per year! Aren't we spending too much? Won't we drain the Foundation too soon?

A: At current (low) prices, 3650 USD is approximately 658k GRC. There's about 30 million GRC in the Foundation now, yearly interest is 450k GRC. So, two-thirds of this proposed expenditure could be covered just through interest on Foundation funds.

Q: So we should be spending more?

A: In the long run, most likely yes. As mentioned before, two of three campaigns will be budget-restricted even with 10 USD per day.

Q: How is this financed then?

A: For the time being, our AdWords account is connected to my credit card. Google charges me 150 USD at the end of each month. Rob is refunding me from the Foundation every 3 or 4 months. I am hoarding my GRC so there is no selling pressure because of this.

Q: I don't like your ads and the price of Gridcoin is not increasing despite our advertising efforts. Can we get somebody else to do this?

A: Of course. If there are any marketing gurus among us, just PM me and if the community agrees, I'll handle you the login details and you can take over at any time.

Q: Why are we spending so much on AdWords? Shouldn't we focus our efforts on recruiting more developers, increasing demand for our services and other things?

A: Unfortunately, developers, demand and other things seldom appear out of thin air. With advertising, we have increased chances of recruiting some people who might help us with this.

Q: What about free advertising? Aren't we getting decent attention here on Steemit and elsewhere?

A: We are indeed getting a lot of positive attention here, even some whales upvote our content from time to time. But unfortunately, an average BOINC user doesn't know about Steemit, nor about our Reddit group, nor about our Cryptocointalk forum. BOINC and crypto worlds are still far apart and we are having a hard time getting our message through. As long as this is the case, I am afraid we will have to spend some money on AdWords. Our ads on BOINC-related Google searches are probably the quickest and most reliable way to display our message to BOINC users who have never heard of crypto. Unfortunately, it's also quite an expensive way

Q: How can we entrust you with so much money? Who else has control over this?

A: Rob and CM also have the login details for our AdWords account. If anyone else wishes to take a look, drop me a PM.

Q: How much do we have to spend on AdWords to recruit one new user?

A: This is very difficult to say, since we can't track such conversions. I have spent a lot of time trying to guesstimate this and the best I can say is: probably about 1-2 USD per user.

Q: OK, you convinced me. How can I support this?

A: Thank you for your support. In your Gridcoin wallet, go to Advanced->Foundation. Right click on "new campaign google adwords". Click Vote. Your wallet must be fully unlocked to vote (not just 'for staking only').

Thank you for your attention. For more details about Gridcoin advertising efforts, you can check our previous article on it. 

Gridcoin ads, images and banners displayed through AdWords are available here.