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What $50 of advertising buys
The same $50 on every channel, run through the benchmarks this site cites everywhere. Assumes a 2% conversion rate and $50 per sale — change them in the calculator.
| Channel | Clicks | Sales | Cost per sale | Enough to learn from? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Google Ads (search) | 9 | 0.2 | $278 | Below the $300 this channel needs. Below roughly $300 the campaign never leaves its learning phase, so the number you measure is not the number you would get at scale. |
Meta (Facebook / Instagram) | 45 | 0.9 | $56 | Below the $200 this channel needs. Interest targeting is broad rather than intent-driven, so a click here means less than the same click from a search result. |
Display / programmatic Nielsen Norman Group on banner blindness · 2007, re-confirmed since | 3 | 0.1 | $833 | Below the $200 this channel needs. A 0.05% click-through rate means most of the budget buys impressions nobody registers, and a share of them are never rendered at all. |
Newsletter sponsorship | 0 | 0.0 | — | Below the $100 this channel needs. Sold per send, so you cannot buy a small test — the smallest purchase is one whole placement. |
A twelve-hour slot on this board | — | — | — | Ours, so weigh it accordingly. The board is young and small, and the honest limitation is reach rather than price. |
How it works
$50 does not buy enough clicks on any paid channel here to measure a 2% conversion rate. It can still buy a placement you judge by the quality of the visitors, not the numbers.
Clicks come from each channel's typical price; impressions-based channels use their published click-through rate. Flat-fee channels buy whole placements, so a budget below one placement buys nothing.