Advertising for a group on VK: how much does it cost and how to use it

Pavel Durov launched his own social network for students and graduates of Russian universities at the end of 2006. At that time, the Odnoklassniki website had existed for more than six months and had more than one and a half million users. The time was coming for a big confrontation between social networks. Eight years later, Durov sold his stake in the company for a little more than five hundred million dollars. Agree, fantastic money. But now the VKontakte service is valued much more expensive. How much does the most popular Russian social network cost? Let's figure it out.

Analysis of advertising platforms

You probably noticed that the social network VKontakte has a very large list of platforms. However, before you start searching for communities, create an accurate portrait of your own consumer.

Determine what needs

unite your target audience and how your product satisfies them. Various forums and surveys can help you find this information.

Identify interests

. Knowing what your group is interested in, you can determine the topic and the further direction of its development.

Characterize your audience by demographics

. The main parameters are gender and age. If the distribution of your product is tied to a specific location, then you can also use geography. Depending on these parameters, you can select sites with the required audience.

Having an accurate understanding of your consumer, you can proceed to the next step: collect a list of communities that may be of interest to your potential customers.

As you noticed, communities differ in topics. These can be groups with topics: cooking, beauty, healthy lifestyle and sports, literature and many others.

But it’s not enough to find a public page that suits your topic. First you need to analyze it according to such indicators as:

• target audience (does it fit the audience of your community?)
• content (you should like the content and design of the group)
• number of subscribers

We will consider the remaining indicators for analyzing communities further.

How much does VKontek advertising cost?

The write-off of funds for promoting the service is as follows:

• For ad impressions.
• Payment for transitions.

In the first case, the price for 1000 impressions is from 0.7 Russian rubles, and in the second - from 2 rubles per click on a link, but an advertising campaign for some groups of goods (services) should begin with the recommended prices indicated in the column on the right.

The minimum cost per thousand impressions of an ad in the left column of the menu can start from 1.2 rubles

Another important point in promoting VKontakte is the analysis of your own advertising. It is important to learn how to select the optimal prices for publishing advertisements (for each group of goods and services) in the region, group and time interval you need. In different areas and geographical locations, the differences can be significant.

Taking these factors into account, it is advisable to start paying for the service with minimum prices or close to them, and then gradually increase them to find a balance between user activity and the cost of advertising itself.

The minimum cost per click on an advertisement depends on the topic and settings.

Official VKontakte exchange

You can place advertisements in communities using the official VKontakte exchange. It is the most reliable method of advertising. Another advantage is that in this case fraud is impossible, since all actions are carefully monitored. In order not to mislead users, there is always an “Advertising” mark next to the post.

However, a minus that can scare away budding entrepreneurs with a small budget is the high cost of advertising.

Groups that were created at least a month ago and also have a daily subscriber reach of more than 7,500 people have the right to participate in the exchange.

How to connect the community to the exchange? In the user’s personal profile at the bottom left you will see links “Blog”, “Developers”, “Advertising”. By clicking on the “Advertising” link, you will be taken to the advertising account, where you can connect the community to the exchange.

How to work in the stock exchange:

1. Top up your budget
2. Create an ad
3. Select the platforms where you want to advertise
4. Submit a request to post
5. Study and analyze placement statistics

Remember that VKontakte will charge a high commission. Sometimes its value exceeds 40%. But if a significant indicator for you is the guarantee of the reliability of the community, then this method will certainly suit you.

Advertising in the VK group: posting rules

There are two ways to place advertising posts. It is up to you to choose one of them.

Via administrator

A fairly cheap method that is suitable for anyone who selects a public page using third-party services and wants to post material on certain platforms, rather than choosing from those offered by social networks.

To do this, you need to perform a number of actions:

• Contact the administration and tell the representative your proposal. If the admin's contact information is not provided, write a message in the prompt located on the wall.
• Agree on the cost, time and conditions for advertising. By purchasing a set of placements, you will be able to get a discount.
• If there are vacancies only during periods of reduced activity, inquire about the possibility of reducing the price.
• All that remains is to send the finished post for verification of compliance with the rules. The possibility that adjustments may need to be made cannot be ruled out. Therefore, you should not delay sending it, so as not to hastily re-register it later right before posting.

Through the VK exchange

This method will cost more than the previous one. Suitable for those who do not work with other resources.

To do this you will need:

• Create an ad and send it to moderators for review. After verification, it will appear in the “Active” section and become available for further manipulation. If it is included in “Rejected”, you must find out the reason and make the necessary modifications.
• Based on the indicated parameters, find suitable communities. The search criteria may be different: budget, number of accomplices, etc. At the same time, finding a specific public by name will not work. We'll have to limit ourselves to what the exchange offers.
• Send a request for display.

Unofficial advertising exchanges

If you are looking for a more budget-friendly option, try unofficial exchanges. They are also considered safe, and, unlike the VKontakte exchange, they offer a large selection of platforms.

Well-known exchanges are Sociate, Plibber,

however, the first one is the most popular. It can help you with advertising both on VKontakte and other social networks.

Using Sociate,

You will be able to select a platform for advertising yourself. Here the exchange plays the role of an intermediary between the advertiser and the owners of the selected sites. She controls the payment and release of posts at the specified time. It also offers detailed reports and responsive support.

Plibber

– is an analogue of Sociate and also provides a variety of choices of quality platforms for publishing your advertising.

The big advantage of this service is an accurate and detailed report on the effectiveness of placed advertising.

Assessing the effectiveness of advertising in VKontakte communities

For ease of analysis, create a table in Google Sheets or Excel with the following fields:

• group name and link to it;
• advertisement;
• placement price;
• date and time of publication;
• Contact Information;
• number of transitions;
• number of applications;
• ER;
• income.

Separately, the results of the RC should be recorded in order to monitor the effectiveness of the work being carried out.

All necessary information can be viewed in Yandex.Metrica. To highlight your own data from the general mass of content, it is worth adding UTM tags to your links.

When placing through the VK exchange in your personal account you can see:

• the total number of visitors who viewed the recording and their division by gender and age categories;
• the number of users who followed at least one link;
• how many people shared information, liked it or left a review;
• volume of applications from the group.

If you had to post through the Market Platform, you should study the statistics on the advertising campaign. You can open it by clicking the icon in the advertising company section.

In the case where the application was sent directly, but connecting the metrics is not possible, you must request the necessary information from the administrator.

Direct cooperation with community administrators

If you do not want to work with services, but are ready to negotiate with real people, then direct cooperation with community administrators is suitable for you.

The advantage here is that you will not be charged a commission, and you can bargain or agree to buy advertising in bulk.

Often the administrator is the owner of several communities, the total number of audiences of which can add up to impressive numbers. If you want to buy advertising in such public pages in bulk, this can significantly reduce your costs for promoting the group. It happens that the cost-effectiveness of package offers can reach up to 300% compared to exchanges.

However, this method of promotion also has its disadvantages. It falls on your shoulders:

• self-selection of community
• request community statistics and pricing
• payment
• sending an ad
• checking the publication of the post
• request for summary statistics

There are also disadvantages to such cooperation: you may be deceived. To protect yourself, find out what other people say about these administrators, look at reviews. Do not transfer large amounts at once. And also remember that community owners are ordinary people. Therefore, there are many factors due to which they may ignore your application or completely refuse to publish a post.

In addition, there are many large platforms that cooperate only with exchanges. In such a situation, it is better to independently calculate which method of publishing an advertising post will be beneficial to you.

Working with comments

It is not enough to simply make a beautiful advertisement on VK, since the posted advertisement must be constantly monitored.

After posting a post, different users will express their opinions under it. Naturally, their statements will not always be positive. You should work with negativity carefully. You need to try to move the topic into a neutral direction and, if possible, reduce the degree of tension. It is highly undesirable to ignore such reviews.

Informational comments should also be considered and responded to in a timely manner. People may ask questions: “where to buy”, “why is it profitable”, “what about delivery”, which must be answered.

But useless statements from third-party users that are not related to the content of the post should be safely ignored.

Checklist for choosing the community from which you will buy advertising

For your convenience, we have made a checklist with which you can select a community for advertising.

Group theme

Always remember what interests your target audience. Based on this, select public pages either on similar topics or related ones. For example, you sell cosmetics for women. Of course, the very first thing that comes to mind is advertising in communities where, for example, they talk about beauty secrets, that is, the beauty industry. But, in addition to this, you can place advertisements in public pages where your target audience also lives. These could be groups about fashion, relationships, self-development, or public pages for mothers.

Content

Start studying the design of the group and posts. See what content is used in publications. Does it suit the style of your group, and will your post be consistent with its concept? Do you like the format of communication in the community and do you want to place your product on such a platform? If you are satisfied with everything, then move on to the next point.

Number of subscribers

Also pay attention to the number of community subscribers. Of course, it is better not to promote your product in communities with less than 100 thousand participants, however, the “the more the better” criterion will not work here either. Choose the middle, otherwise you will either have too little reach or a very blurry audience.

Advertising cost

Calculate the cost of publishing your post. It is calculated through the cost of one contact with the user. Formula: advertising costs/number of contacts with participants. A normal price is considered to be up to 1.5 rubles. for 1000 subscribers.

Audience statistics

Often, groups contain not only real subscribers, but also fake accounts and bots. To avoid wasting advertising, request statistics from the admin. If you publish advertising posts using the exchange, then you will have access to the numbers without any additional requests.

Pay attention not only to the interests of the target audience, but also to their age. We are interested in solvent buyers who have already reached 18 years of age. If most of the group are teenagers, then it is better to pay attention to other communities.

Coverage

This indicator shows how many VKontakte users see group publications and news. It does not matter whether they are its subscribers or not. Based on this data, you can draw conclusions about the sources, methods of promotion and quality of content. Full coverage should be more than 30% of all subscribers.

Attendance

You should also find out how many unique visitors come to the group. You can again request such numbers from the administrator. Unique visitors are those living participants who enter the group and watch the published content.

Engagement

This indicator is one of the most important when compiling characteristics of a group. It is calculated by summing up likes, reposts and comments for the entire month, after which the resulting amount is divided by the number of group members.

Read whether advertising on our blog pays off.

Features of writing a post

Having figured out how much it costs to advertise a site in a VK group and having found out all the nuances of publication, you need to correctly create an advertising entry.

• When composing an ad, it is important to take into account the preferences and needs of the target audience and explain exactly how the advertised products can solve users’ problems.
• Conduct an analysis of competitors' posts, if any. Find out which ones are the most popular. Based on the results of the research, create a creative proposal that stands out.
• The content of the public on which you are going to post requires special attention. By determining which topics are particularly popular, you can identify user interests. This will help create a more interesting post.
• To attract readers, you should take care of the presence of emoticons. The main thing is to observe the measure so as not to alienate visitors. Emoji should look natural and correspond in meaning to the content of the post.
• Excessively long links should be shortened. The ad will look neat and compact, and therefore will inspire more confidence.
• A picture that complements the text content should attract attention, and at the same time, it must be combined in meaning with the content.
• All that remains is to come up with an effective headline that will not only catch visitors, but also be useful (characterize the information being presented). Otherwise, no one will read the text.

What is better: payment for impressions or conversions?

Analyzing the methods of publishing advertisements on VKontakte, it is impossible to say for sure which payment: for clicks or for impressions is better for an individual.

• Paying for impressions implies a higher frequency of publication of targeted advertising, but at the same time it is not a guarantee that it will be effective.
• Transitions produce the best effect, but again it is not a fact that an interested user will make an order, while the funds for the transition will already be debited.

The best option is your own experience and analysis, but in order to use them wisely, initially identify the main group of clients and the necessary regional connection.

Don't forget - modern Internet technologies, including a wide variety of advertising methods, continue to develop. Gradually, everything related to services in the real world, one way or another, migrates to the Internet. Today, many people already understand that it’s more pleasant to sell your products, advertise your services, track your package without getting out of bed or your favorite chair, and the convenience of advertising services on VKontakte only contributes to this.