Forum Moderators: skibum
When a user clicks a search-related ad on Yahoo, for example, Overture keeps 14 cents and sends 21 cents to Yahoo. Pete Howard, vice-president for marketing at Staples.com, says the return on search-engine marketing "outpaces everything in print or online."
Its popular Google.com Web site draws 39 million unique visitors a month, the fourth-highest on the Net.
Wonder where they got that from?
Search advertising is also cheap. At an average of 35 cents a click, paid search undercuts the $1-per-lead average for Yellow Pages ads.
A very interesting number , i thought commercial searches would only account for like 10% of total searches ...
>>> The wild card is cash-flush Microsoft Corp. (MSFT ), whose MSN online service looms as a potential acquirer of Overture, or even Google
So the rumour is becoming strong and strong , huh?
OV said they don't have plans on competing with their partners..LOL Oh you mean not within the next few months. They may not make ov.com a SE, but buying AltaVista is doing just that. I suppose they see it as well. I think everyone is using OV to test the market and then when the contract is up, say bye bye..
The only thing I dont like about reports like this is, those avg. numbers. Is it really $.35 a click?
This is disturbing for me, since i webmaster for a not-for profit organization. We have a ton of useful "authoritative" content, and we do well in google, etc. - mostly for this reason.
Im not sure i would be happy seeing some For profit website with "canned content" getting my traffic just because they have money. I dont want to feel like im missing out because i cant pay a search engine off to list me in their results.
There is a flip side to my feelings - i do want search engines to make money. Where is the happy medium? Does it become a bidding war between me and mr. canned-content? Maybe i am suggesting flat rate's for inclusion as a premium of some sorts...
- aeomac
There has to be a balance between providing a useful service and also allowing SEs to profit.
Companies have to get it out of their head that more advertising is better. Google will make more of a profit than overture. They don't have to share most of their revenue with anyone.
I think google does it best - ads on the side and two at the top. I don't see anything wrong with PPC - as long as it is clearly labeled.
100% correct, Google is the only place at present where the following are happy:
1, Webmaster being listed in SERPS.
2, Premium Advertisers such as myself for the 10% > 20% CTR.
3, Adwords clients getting avery good ROI.
Shame the others have to show us 30 sponsored listings etc etc.
Shak
(Google got it right, so PLEASE do NOT change this formula)
Perhaps it's because people would not pay so much just to be seen on Yahoo. Check out the cost per click on overture and compare it to Findwhat.
Ok, maybe that's not fair, but Overture adds some value by amalgamating many suppliers and offering high traffic volume.
I'll be the first to admit that most of it is from Yahoo and MSN, but it makes life easier for me that I don't have to manage a different control panel for each engine.
P.S. Brett, I wonder how you can locate an article that is not yet published? (Look at the date at the top of the article... March 24 2003) ;)
...and thinks that forecasts may be overly optimistic.
I absolutely don`t agree with this journalist view. It`s not a mini-bubble at all. It`s rather the beginning of a very interesting an rapidly growing marketing niche. So, in my opinion, she`s wrong about her predictions.
BTW It`s no longer possible to acess the article rogerd
So which market do you want to target? The 10-20% at best or the other 80%+?.....I know which I want and I know the cost is miniscule in comparison.
Sponsored advertising is a step up from banner ads and pop-ups/unders.....and that is really all it is.
Most people are smart enough to know which sites are relevant and which are paying to be there. As is seen daily from MSN where I get considerable traffic (1,000+ visitors) on search terms that rank after the 3rd page of Overture and Looksmart results. I've tried Looksmart advertising and it still only captured 15% of the folks I got from being on page 3 of true results directly after the PPC sites.
On Google the Adwords program produced a CTR of 2% Vs 97% in true search results for the same terms.
PPC SE sponsorship is just the latest FAD in a long serious of attempts to lure prospects and vendors (luring many more vendors than prospects). The overall winner will always be the site that delivers the goods because it was built and optimized to do so.
CTR of 10% to 20%....now that might sound good to some....but I ask where the other 80% to 90% went? To the true search results has to be the logical conclusion.
I agree with what you are saying, but traditional listings are hard to come by sometimes :)
You get me a page 1 listing on Google.com for the keyword which was bringing in 10>20% CTR, via natural results, and I would be glad to give you $10,000 a month.
Shak
if 20% click on a premium ad, this does not mean that the remaining 80% click on the serps or the normal ads. IMO there is a good percentage that does not click on anything.
Webmasters are one group who do this when checking rankings.
Also, multiple searches for the same keywords may be conducted, leading to a lower percentage of click throughs to searches.
