Is it beneficial to advertise on referral sites?

We just created several referral sites for some clients.  These same clients also do paid advertising and significant Organic marketing.

Without a doubt the bounce rate on referral sites is nearly one third of what it is on paid sites.

The bottom line is that it usually pays to be listed on targeted referral sites.  When given the opportunity, see if you can commit to referral sites, which must be paid for, on a limited basis.  Every site has there own personality and their own audience which will behave differently.

We posted two similar referral sites.  Oddly, the .com and the .net are not ranked the same on the various websites.  Google consistently posts the .com above the .net . Yahoo was posting the .net higher and it has since fallen below the .com (both on the first page search results). The .com has a better landing page, with a little more valuable content.

.net gets 1/3 more traffic and has a 33.3% bounce rate.

.com has a 16.67%  bounce rate.

Will follow up with additional data on referral site advertising, as time permits.