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Well, I was very confused, didn't like their admin tool (confused me because of information overkill), didn't understand where and how exactly they are, and where I should best start (and plenty of other things).
Now I receive spamming from Overture each couple of weeks (although I opted out, and as publisher of a 300,000 reader Newsletter I should know how to do that).
I would still LOVE to use Overture. I wanted to use it the same way as my Adwords and create some _simple_ campaigns and let it go. Every few weeks or so I would login to see the results and correct if needed.
Do I miss something or is it really something I should forget with Overture as it seems to me?
Nature of our business is selling blue widgets to all over the world, so I actually do not want to create separate ads all the time for all different regions and countries, I just want to create it at one place (like in Adwords) and “let it go”, as said. I’d of course use my keywords/experience from Adwords.
Please excuse me if the tone of this email doesn’t sound pro Overture, I’ve really not had a good experience and they’ve not even taken my ads I am running on Google for months (rejected). And at the end they didn’t want to give me a refund of my GBP 60 when I told them that it’s of no use to me if they don’t show my ads… ;-)
We have been dealing with them since the very beginning however we are pausing more and more keywords and moving the budget to AdWords. Maybe if they get their act together one day we'll start reactivating them.
Certainly, we find Overture UK easier to work with than Google in some regards, as we can send them spreadsheets and understanding their editor guidelines we reduce the listings rejected and when they do get rejected we immediately try to work out why and thus a workaround,
That said, the system does seem to be showing signs of strain. Hopefully only temporary as they move from London to Ireland. If terminal I have a seriously compromised business model :(
Dixon.
I have seen all types of discussions on the pros and cons re Overture, Google, and other PPCs over the past two years here. The bottom line is that both Google and OV are valuable, and far more valuable than any other PPCS. Some argument as to which is the least expensive, some argument, as to whether despite expense, which provides the most sales. Most opinion inclines to Google AdWords being the most expensive per keyword, but also providing the greatest conversion ratio; Overture less expensive per keyword, but providing more traffic and also more sales (not the same as a better conversion ratio).
I don't know which is correct, but I have studied the opinions of some pretty knowledgeable people on this subject, for some time on this site and think Google does have the best conversion ratio.
And that is now the consensus I use after reading about this subject for two years here. My own experience is : Overture can really run your $$ up very fast if you bid into their top 3 positions (for my area of business) without an always corresponding return on buyers; With Google you can set a daily limit, and manage your ad budget a little better, and most Google searchers, from my experience, turn into buyers.
Overture is useful to appear on Yahoo and MSN if you are not already listed there. But otherwise, they seem to have a lot of 3rd - 4th tier partners that can send you a lot of traffic, but not too much in conversions. But OV does send more traffic, and therefore in total $$ often costs more than Google, and therefore, sends more buyers. But the conversion ratio is not as good.
What does that mean? Hey, a buyer is a buyer, the more sales the better, as long as the sales do not cost more than the profit.
1) The ability to choose markets. In "Antirack's" case he could have simply eliminated IP's from Russia and ended the problem.
2) The ability to have 300+ negative keywords for a broad term that has a double meaning.
3) Our continuing faith that Google is just a touch more honourable and honest than Overture. This posistion has weakened a little with all the problems over on the AdWords forums where I have been a major squeaking wheel however I am keeping my faith that these problems will be worked out.
4) Our ability to reach worldwide selectable markets with Google at a low cost - mostly 5˘ per click. The same coverage in Over DE and Over UK is now costing us 15 - 20˘ per click. Our traffic is also steadily declining on Over DE. Impressions have gone from 3823 from Aug. 1 - Aug. 23 to 693 from Oct. 1 - Oct. 23. This is obviously as a result of Over losing one of their partners to Google.
Currently Over receives 1/3 of our limited budget and I'd love an excuse to lower it even more. Unfortunately with what's happenning at AdWords I don't want to burn any bridges until we know what's happenning.
In Overture, it's just a bid price, there is no formula, so it's whoever changed their bid last is number one.
Google takes a bit more time to get to number one, tweaking ads, keywords, etc, initially. In the long run, Overture eats up more time as you constantly need to adjust bids.
Success comes at a price. Overture are paying the price for wanting to deliver a better service.
In Google, once your ad is optimized and campaign running well, you don't need to check on it constantly to know your ad is number one.
Therein lies the #1 biggest item that most advertisers on Google can't get right, to optimize ads in the first place, and to think that it's a lock and load is so wrong. Any advertiser that has been bidding phrase and exact if they stopped looking at ads will see a big change to their positioning currently.
In Overture, it's just a bid price, there is no formula
We must use a different Overture, strategy is everything.
Every story has two sides to it, pleasing to see a more objective view from Webstart.
