Sprinks prices up

In for a penny - soon in for a pound

[nell]

CHANGE IN MINIMUM BID POLICY

Effective on September 17, all new keyword listings must meet a $0.05
minimum keyword bid (i.e. "dogs") and a $0.20 minimum content bid (i.e.
"dogs.about.com"). Bids already in the system under these thresholds
will remain as entered until advertiser chooses to alter the amount, at
which point they must be at or above the threshold.

[tigger]

I would have personally thought that their only strong point was the cheap bids you could pick up, but now that they're on par with Goto surely this will shoot them in the foot.

As for traffic, I'm UK based and I've never seen a single referral from them.

[adamxcl]

I felt like I was getting ripped off by Sprinks on even the cheap bids and let my account run out. This is supposed to help their business? At least Goto waited until they were a big shot and had some clout as being number one. Not a good move for Sprinks.

[bigjohnt]

..fantastic news for Findwhat. Let's hope they handle it correctly...

[skipper]

>..fantastic news for Findwhat. Let's hope they handle it correctly...

Amen. I wrote Sprinks back when I got their advisory and told them I thought, as another post said, "they are shooting themselves in the foot."

[sean]

It is a shame the big print did not giveth a better account management system while the fine print taketh away the bargain bids.

[Mike_Mackin]

< sean > you are so right < / sean >

imho

[ggrot]

I'm not sure they are shooting themselves in the foot financially. My opinion of goto.com's move for a 5c minumum was that they were not increasing profits, but rather cutting costs. Most of the listings which cost under that amount are not high traffic phrases, and at 1c/bid, they had to stay there for quite a while before goto made the money back to cover the cost of the reviewer. I would only guess sprinks is doing the exact same thing, and in fact are improving their financial position.

[skipper]

>they were not increasing profits, but rather cutting costs.

Interesting point, and perhaps valid. You have to wonder how Sprinks or any other PPC can deliver results on Dogpile, etc and so many other mega search SEs when Sprinks itself is being paid $.01 or $.02 for some terms.

Well, no one does stuff for free. And a business has to make a profit to stay in business. But I would have hoped before Sprinks did this they would have improved their account management system because it does stink.

And, you really have to wonder, how much room is there in that PPC "World" for profitable companies? They all compete to get onto mamma.com and dogpile.com and others of like nature. At some point, the PPCs, it seems to me, will be reduced to the top 3 or 4 we now have.

[rdkelsey]

# They all compete to get onto mamma.com and dogpile.com and others of like nature. At some point, the PPCs, it seems to me, will be reduced to the top 3 or 4 we now have. #

The mammas and dogpiles have contracts they have to fulfill with the gotos and findwhats ... it's my bet that when they do, they will launch their own PPC, which will definitely hurt the gotos and findwhats ...

--rdkelsey

[ggrot]

>> The mammas and dogpiles have contracts they have to fulfill with the gotos and findwhats ... it's my bet that when they do, they will launch their own PPC, which will definitely hurt the gotos and findwhats ...

Good point, I'm surprised all the major goto.com feeders don't just up and start their own PPC system. Granted, in the short term, the prices at goto.com would be better profits, but in the long term - www.ppc.aol.com might be a smart move for AOL.