Looksmart Small Business Listing - Worth It?

Now that its been running a while, what's your experience?

[Go60Guy]

I signed up for a Looksmart Small Business listing for a newly launched website. I'm wondering what experience has been gathered so far in terms of its effectiveness. How are click thrus going? Is most traffic from MSN? Is anyone seeing a positive ROI with the 15 cent PPC?

I know many people decided not to pop for this, but, for those who did, please give us an update.

[ade_uk]

i'm still in it relucatantly - didnt dare lose the MSN traffic...

i think their reported stats are inaccurate, and they use their 'link' to you in several other engines - i cant remember the exact score on this - try searching the forums as it has been mentioned, so basically were paying for more clicks than expected...

also i have noticed in my case, that if i increase the monthly budget above their recommended budget, all of a sudden its used up - and my web logs are not seeing these visits...

i've emailed them with my concerns many a time but always get a "copy and pasted" email exactly the same each time just copied from their website...

all in all a ropey operation i think, especially since i joined the original pay deal a week before they changed to this PPC system...

hopefully they'll dissapear soon!

[skibum]

Some of our large clients use it for a variety of sites. No small businesses do. As mentioned it seems the higher you set your budget allocation, the more clicks you get. Say the allocated account balance ran out 3 days before the end of the billing cycle so another $75.00 is added to the account. During the next cycle that $75.00 allocation is tapped much earlier than 3 days before the end of the monthly billing cycle. It could just be that there is a surge in traffic for those particular terms or other listings are dropping out.

With L$, I'm always suspicious.

[bigjohnt]

As angry as I am about the way
LS implemented the changeover, several of my "micro-niche" clients are very pleased with the results.

I have found the MSN traffic to be highly relevant, but we've been fortunate to get good listing copy, and very tightly targeted keywords. (That part is not to LS's credit, but mine :) )

[carylf]

We've had pretty good results with LS results and MSN. The way MSN has it setup, these listings typically appear above the the page listings from Inktomi.

Customer support has been pretty good as well. We made some changes to a listing and then their editors decided to make some bizarre changes. :( We complained loudly (via email) and it was corrected quickly. :)

As long as MSN keeps them, we'll stay.

[profitpuppy]

Just thought I would describe my Looksmart experience. Signed up for Looksmart for $199 (after the cpc had already started). Didn't get listed. Re-submitted and waited. Waited a bit longer. Sent them an email, and 10 days later got a reply that my application must be waiting for approval. 3 months and 6 emails later they realized that they had 'lost my application' and so I suddenly got listed. Of course had to wait one week or more in some cases for each reply to my emails.

So I got listed. Yipee! Didn't get one click. So it was a total waste. Then requested a refund of $150 (the $49 is non refundable). Still waiting for a refund. Apparently you have to wait at least 3 months for a refund. Send an email a few days ago asking for confirmation that my refund is in the 3 month queue, but haven't received a response yet.

I spend over $800 per week on google and overture cost per click advertising. It is a real pitty ... because I would really like to get access to the listings in MSN that Looksmart provide, but don't think I could ever go back to using them.

[Torben Lundsgaard]

I the like the basics of the concept. $0.15 for a click is a very good price.

However, I'm having a hard time documenting the traffic to my clients. I can't give them access to my account and LS won't allow /?ref=looksmart i the URL (tried that twice). For most of my clients the limit is set at 100 clicks per month because I can't document the traffic. If LS would just give me some way of documenting the traffic I would be happy to remove all limits. They could make a small fortune by helping me but I just can't get through to them.

[Go60Guy]

Well my listing was approved. I'll report back as to how things go.