Ways to advertise a Flippa auction

As I have a Flippa auction currently running, I’ve been thinking of ways to creatively advertise a listing. I have done a few auctions on Flippa and I’ve tried a bunch of different advertising methods with varying success. Here are some I’ve thought of that you might be able to try, depending on your situation.

There are of course, the most common ways, such as the Flippa upgrades.

Front page: Gets you onto the front page of Flippa. Your auction moves down the list as other people buy this upgrade. $50

Tweet: Flippa tweets a link to your auction $80

I was planning on using a front page upgrade if my auction was going well by this point (less than 24 hours left) but it doesn’t seem to be attracting much attention so I might leave that out for another auction.

There are a few other creative ways to advertise your auction, some costing and some not.

 Adwords

At first I didn’t think this would be an appropriate way to advertise a Flippa auction, but then I decided that if people are searching for “website for sale” I might as well put an add up beside it. I also had about $90 spare dollars in my adwords account so I thought I’d give it a go.

So far I’ve generated about 14 clicks from the campaign and havn’t received any new bids since I started it so not sure if anything will come of it.

 Word of mouth

I personally don’t know many domainers or web marketers in real life… I might have to try a Meet Up group or something to surround myself with people who have similar ideas! But none the less, word of mouth can be a good way to advertise your auction. When the info comes from someone a person knows, it has automatic credibility so they are more likely to check it out.

 Forums

I recently joined the Warrior Forum and noticed that they have a service where you can pay to have a banner put in your signature. I think that’s a great idea, with a forum that gets alot of traffic, especially if it’s in your target market, can be quite valuable in generating leads. Maybe once I have hung around the Warrior Forum for a while I will purchase that and put a banner in my signature advertising my sites and domains.

Even if you don’t want to pay, most forums let you put a link in your signature so you can link to your Flippa auction. You can also ask for reviews for the site and let people know it is also for sale.

 Advertising to relevant businesses 

I don’t think printing pamphlets and putting them in peoples mail boxes would help sell your website- it’s too broad.

But if your website is in a specific industry and you think that there are businesses out there who would see your site as an asset, you can contact them via email or even by normal mail with a letter, letting them know that the site is up for auction.

Some people might find that annoying, but I personally don’t mind it. I’ve had people email me with domains they have that are similar too or better than ones I have on my list, asking if i’d like to buy them. Even though I often can’t get the name, I still appreciate getting the offer.

Ideally, you want a combination of the above. If you are planning to sell a site in the future that you think might go for a significant amount of money, it might be worth saving a little big for an “advertising budget” so you can get some traffic to your auction when the time comes. You can easily drop a couple of hundred dollars on Flippa upgrades- which may well be worth it and rocket the end price your site goes for- but you have to make sure your website is worth it, or else you risk spending more money on upgrade than your site actually ends up going for.