Once you venture into the world of Pay Per Click advertising, you'll soon discover that the marketplace is sharply divided between tier 1 Search Engines (Google and Overture), and everyone else. While it's difficult to imagine a comprehensive, successful Pay Per Click Advertising campaign that doesn't include the major players, companies that limit themselves to Google and Overture may be missing out on profitable traffic.
Defining Tier 1 And Tier 2 Search Engines:
Two things separate Google and Overture from the rest of the Pay Per Click Search Engines. The big players deliver more traffic, and the quality of the clicks is often better. Simply put, if you advertise on Google and Overture your ad will be seen by more people, and these people are more likely going to buy from you. This is why its difficult to ignore the big players when crafting your Pay Per Click Advertising strategy. However, if you're willing to put in the effort, you'll often discover it's the smaller, lesser known, Search Engines that ultimately deliver the most profitable traffic to your site.
The Downside Of Being Big:
Ironically, the same factors that make Google and Overture essential to any Pay Per Click Advertising campaign are also the reasons it's becoming increasingly difficult for small and medium size companies to generate profitable traffic from the top tier Search Engines.
Nearly every company doing Pay Per Click Advertising is using Google and Overture, meaning you're competing against virtually every company remotely connected with your industry for your keywords. As competition for your keywords increases your prices rise, and your profits fall. Both Google and Overture have hundreds of thousands of advertisers, causing keywords in some competitive industries to sell for over $10.00 per click! As this trend continues small and medium size companies will be forced to explore alternative sources of traffic if they hope to maintain their profit margins on their Pay Per Click Advertising campaigns.
The other downside of working with the big Search Engines is they tend to focus their customer support resources on their big customers. This can make it difficult for smaller companies to get help optimizing their campaigns, generating lists of keywords or creating compelling ad copy.
Thankfully, there are several smaller Search Engines who can fill the void by delivering high quality Search traffic at an affordable price.
The Best Of The Rest:
Once you expand your horizons beyond Google and Overture, and begin running tests on some smaller Search Engines, you'll find wide discrepancies in traffic quality and volume, software functionality and customer support. When deciding which smaller Search Engines to work with we recommend focusing on traffic quality as the key criteria. If your clicks convert into customers, it's easier to put up with the challenges that come with working with the smaller Search Engines.
Lycos AdBuyer consistently delivers high quality traffic, but you may have difficulty generating the volume you need for some of your keywords. Their customer support is top notch, but their software isn't as user friendly as Google or Overture's. We recommend Lycos as a good source of incremental Search traffic at competitive rates.
FindWhat.Com does a better job generating traffic volume (they are the third largest Pay Per Click Search Engine), and their overall traffic quality is decent. They do a good job supporting their customers, but their software lacks some key features to help users easily manage their campaigns, and track the ROI for each ad and keyword. We highly recommend testing FindWhat. They are the largest of the second tier players, and can be an important contributor to the success of your Pay Per Click Advertising strategy.
Enhance Interactive and Search123 are two other smaller Search Engines we recommend based on a combination of traffic volume and quality. Both are still building their networks, and continually improving their software. You can still find good bargains for your keywords on these Search Engines as they are still relatively unknown.
Summary:
In todays vast World Wide Web your potential customers could be searching for your products on hundreds of different sites. In a perfect world you would serve up an ad whenever, and wherever somebody was looking for what you sell. Using a combination of Google, Overture, and as many smaller Search Engines as you can test, you will increase the chances that your ad will be there when your prospects are ready to buy.
Smaller Search Engines generally offer cheaper cost per clicks, and better customer support than Google and Overture. As with many aspects of Pay Per Click Advertising, the only way to tell if these smaller Engines will work for you is to give them a test. A small investment in your time and money may ultimately uncover a great new source of profitable traffic, and improve the overall metrics of your Pay Per Click Advertising campaigns.
February 23, 2005
Expert in all aspects of online advertising with a particular emphasis in Pay Per Click Advertising. Over seven years of experience directing advertising sales efforts at a top 10 Media Metrix property, and the creator of http://www.pay-per-click-advertising-guide.com
taxi from O'Hare Bismarck .. Lockport Chicago limo O’HareBecause of increasing competition that has led to higher advertising... Read More
If you are using pay per click advertising, I don't... Read More
If you have multiple sites or multiple directories in your... Read More
Click fraud is an unfortunate byproduct of the pay per... Read More
Advertising on the Internet has always been a bit of... Read More
There's tons of money to be made from the Google... Read More
Well I have several sites, some of them I apply... Read More
Make $$$$ with Google Adsense! Top Paying Keywords! $100 per... Read More
Imagine if you could advertise ONLY to people who have... Read More
"Todd" was keen to compete in one of the most... Read More
Where are your ads being displayed?The Untold Secret Of Pay... Read More
Setting up a pay-per-click campaign is simple, right? Practically all... Read More
Google Inc. is suing a Houston-based company for allegedly clicking... Read More
So You Want Big Profits From Your AdWords PPC Advertising?... Read More
In Google AdWords, the advertisers' links show up when someone... Read More
Make Your Ads DifferentYour completed AdWords ads are going to... Read More
When you purchase visitors or "clicks" from a search engine,... Read More
Google Adsense is a hot topic in the Internet Marketing... Read More
As anyone who uses Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising in... Read More
1: The ideal Google AdSense page should have great content... Read More
Hi, my name is Darryl Power and I have been... Read More
Google's Adsense is one of the most powerful weapons in... Read More
Before Google's AdWords, Overture was the preeminent pay-per- click program.... Read More
At first glance, Pay Per Click advertising seems to be... Read More
What was once such a good thing is now a... Read More
Granger Lincoln Stretch limo rentals ..PTRE stands for Paid To Read Email programs. Online companies... Read More
There is no doubting the success of Google's Adsense program.... Read More
The biggest stumbling block for most home business owners is... Read More
Over the years I have had many accounts with Adwords,... Read More
If you want to make money online with a work... Read More
How?Dead easy.I implemented this tactic myself yesterday on one of... Read More
When you purchase visitors or "clicks" from a search engine,... Read More
What is Average Customer Lifetime Value?Traditional business philosophy is that... Read More
There are no guarantees in life, so I don't guarantee... Read More
No matter how hard you work to optimize your page,... Read More
Faced with a mediocre or worse performing paid search campaign... Read More
Many people decide to spend a lot of money putting... Read More
The other day I was talking to one of my... Read More
At first glance, Pay Per Click advertising seems to be... Read More
Make $$$$ with Google Adsense! Top Paying Keywords! $100 per... Read More
These are simply advertisements related, in theory and often practice,... Read More
In 2003 I was accepted by Google into their AdSense... Read More
Determining keywords is a critical step in web design. If... Read More
They are calling him the million dollar man. Jason Calacanis... Read More
Google's AdSense program is one of the best, if not... Read More
AdSense may be one of the fastest and easiest ways... Read More
In order for your online business to succeed you must... Read More
Pay-per-click search engine advertising has generated ample interest in the... Read More
Google is probably one of the single most important revolutions... Read More
Success with Google Adwords isn't quite as easy as some... Read More
Pay-Per-Click Advertising |