highway51r - 12:01 pm on May 26, 2005 (gmt 0)

I'm going to make what I consider a Profound statement:

I think the 2nd tier Can be 'usefull' in the hands of a very very savy advertiser.

The problem, 2nd tier advertisers are having, Appears to me at least, is that they are Only Educated in Advertising. This, in my humble opinion, Will Not Sufice, on the 2nd tier. You NEED, to Also Educate yourselves, on the 2nd tiers' Clickers.

What I'm Driving at here is this:

Advertisers, Spend Years fine tuning their capabilities to Target a Market!
But when they hit the 2nd tier, they Don't Know Who their Market Is, hence, their results are dreadful.

If you target your good/service to the 2nd tier, you ARE, for Practical Purposes, Targetting the Paid-To-Read-Email biz.

You CAN Convert Them, but you First Need to Know, WHO it IS, that you are trying to Convert!

Once you Understand, what is taking place, and How it is happening, you THEN, are in a position, to Apply the skills, that You, as a professional advertiser, have allready honed, to the Market you are Paying to view your pages.

There are Two Approaches that ought work:
1- Kan the 2nd Tier entirely, and virtually By-Pass them, AND the even Larger 3rd tier, from whence comes the vast majority of their traffic, and Directly Target the ptr biz itself.
2- Continue spends at the 2nd tier, allowing your money to continue to filter Accross the 2nd tier, via its' cross-feeding, Down through the vast networks of the massive 3rd tier, Accross the 3rd tier, via its' network of cross-feeding, and Finally, Down to Their Only Traffic Source, the ptr biz, with their accompanying manual/auto surfs, and the occational safe-list blast.

There are Problems, Inherrent with Both Approaches:

In the first instance, Directly Targetting the ptr biz, There are few sites, that have large enough memberbases, to support a 'serious' advertiser.
-This Can, be overcome, by advertising with multiple sites, but that becomes burdonsome for the advertisers, and most of you won't trouble yourselves with it, as it becomes a time is money issue, making google/overture a more Overall attractive option.

In the Second Instance, Continuing to fund the 2nd tier, it is a Matter of Education, more than anything else.
Once you Understand, Where your money is going, with little or Nothing in the way of sales, And Why, you can Then Fine-Tune your Keywords to Match the Market you are Targetting.
*This, keyword work, becomes what amounts to the 'Anti-Targetting' of advertising, as Your Goal, if it is to be a successful campaign, Need Be one of gaining Less, Not More, Traffic.

***If you are getting anything More, than a Trickle of traffic, from a second tier campaign, you ARE getting it, from Abuse!
-Kan, your high traffic keywords. Use 3 word keyword combos, Minimum.
That will keep you, for the Most Part, OFF the Massive Numbers of 3rd tier portal pages Directories, which are Extremely Heavily Advertised, at ptr sites, where clickers click your budget into oblivion via Blind Directory Clicks, without even so much as noting what they are clicking.
It is the Greater Portion of the ptr clickers, that you are Trying to Avoid, and Filter them OUT, as you Target the Remainder, that are doing Genuine, and Legitimate Searches.

***Who, is your Target Market at the 2nd tier?
-They, for the most part, make up about 10% of the Entire ptr biz.
-They WILL, Convert.
-They Are, for the most part, peeps that have time on their hands, stay at homers mainly, but working class as well.
-They Tend to be peeps, that are into the 'shopping bargins' thingy. 'rewards for shopping' stuff.
-They Tend, to make purchaces Under 100 USD.
-They Also, are an Excellent 'lead' market, for 'opt-in' offer stuff. Enter your email addy thingys.
-They Respond, Very Very Well, to the 'Personal Approach' end of the advertising spectrum.
-Do Not, try and 'con' these peeps, they are Hardened to the Core, from the ptr biz... 'Hard-Sell', will be dismissed without a glance here. Hype, is their daily life, and they'll give you a chuckle for your time, and move on to the next chuckle, without blinking an eyelash.

good luck.
* To my critics:

*** Take the funds pouring into the ptr biz, From the 2nd Tier, Out of the ptr biz, and you have Virtually, for practical purposes, Erased the ptr biz, as it exists today. We're talking Thousands of USD's Per Month Here, Accross the nearly 1,000 programs in existance.

*** Take the ptr traffic from the 100 Heaviest Traffic Generating engines on the 3rd tier, and it's Toast.

*** Take the ptr traffic from the 2nd tier, and you're left with what goclick looked like some 5 to 7 months back, when they were all but Clean, of ptr traffic.
-I could Not find a Single Page, that I could find with goclick, at an engine running at a ptr site, for about a 3 week period.
-I Also, Could NOT generate a Single Hit, on a 20 buck deposit. rofmao, on the Last of it, I was Bidding on keywords, I had No Association With, just to see If I could Generate a Single Hit! I got 2, one for Viagra, and One for Hosting, as I recall, in about a one week span, had a Full Buck on Each!

Again, it's NOT, about Getting Hits! It's About Avoiding Hits...