This might be a little too “inside baseball” for many, but bear with me.
One Book Shelf owns both Drive-Thru RPG and RPG Now – the two primary sources of RPG e-product. As a publisher, one gets a certain number of “Publisher Promotion Points” based (I believe) on one’s sales. One can spend PPP on various services, one of which is the Feature Product Message which is a kind of in-site advertisement.
I ran a message for Starship Commandos on its release. It has cycled through all its impressions on both the front page/homepage and the category page. The click-through rates were very interesting.
The Drive-Thru RPG homepage click-through percentage was 68.28%, while the same on RPG Now was 0.32%. That’s a pretty stark difference and I have no idea what it means, but it surely means something. Here’s the thing: category pages were also starkly different from the DTRPG homepage. The category page at DTRPG had a 0.24% click-through while the same at RPG Now had one of 0.08%.
Again, I have no idea how to interpret this, but that click-through at DTRPG is insane. I don’t know how many sales come from which source, however no matter where the sales are coming from the turnover is a bit sad – of the 1,719 clicks I’ve only sold 23.
So, am I doing one thing right and another thing wrong? Some kind of gremlin in the reporting system? Complete anomaly that means nothing?
I haven’t a clue . . . which is part of my problem as I try to sell stuff. I’m about as good at marketing as I am at water polo (hint: I don’t play water polo).
Starship Commandos at Drive-Thru RPG (where it’s most popular!)