UK Overture v UK Espotting

[lloyd]

I am interested in which of the two (Overture or Espotting) is the best for conversion rate. Not in terms of traffic generated but in terms of sale.

I have two ecommerce sites and would like to know which PPCCo is the best for ROI.

[Serio]

Best to test for yourself - too many variables. IMHO

[tosspot17]

As Serio said, it all depends on your industry - different strokes for different folks ;)

Unfortunatey the only way to test is to run a campaign and check your ROI yourself, but as there are no set up fees, it won't cost any more to split your budget between the two.

[Michael Anthony]

Overture beats Espotting for me because the Espotting system doesn't automatically reduce your bids if the guy below you drops out, whereas Overture does.

This factor alone has meant that my Espotting leads are about 20% more expensive than from Overture.

This said, they both work very well, as does Google Adwords.

I would recommend trying all three with a small budget as suggested above.

[DaveN]

another way to look at this is your keyword set, check out the partner sites, see how they rank in the free listing in the other search engines.

Overture should get you front-page on a lot search engines via sponsored links but, espotting's portal partners are appearing in the free google listings more and more.

DaveN

[TinkyWinky]

I've used for a few different sectors and ROI is definitely better on Overture.

Initial outlay is higher, but as I get more sales/conversions in the long run

However, I don't cover all sectors so you'll have to make your own minds up after testing!

TW

[Qui Gon Jinn]

It really is horses for courses.

In our circumstance, Espotting out performs Overture significantly when looking at bottom line ROI.

If it's just reporting tools that you're after then Overture UK would be best.

But it got to the point where we have dropped Overture and just use Espotting & Adwords. You may want to look at Mirago or even Webfinder, the volume of traffic is not so large, but your layment and ROI may be better.

With Overture UK however they are a lot stricter with affiliate sites and do not allow an affiliate link directly to the merchant if your going down the search arbitrage route.

[nicebloke]

Does anyone think that Google might start to weed out Espotting affiliate sites from their serps?

[DaveN]

why would they

DaveN

[nicebloke]

By this I mean sites that display Espotting results.

Why?

Well for a start somebody could go to that site and click on an Adsense result instead. But that's by the by.

They are supposed to have clean, unbiased results, but when many of their top results in some areas are just Espotting sites, that surely cannot be clean results?

Just seems a bit strange to me for Google to be driving so much traffic to another PPC engine's results.

[lloyd]

Thanks everyone for your comments.

I have tried out all the major ones now. Google, Overture and Espotting.

In terms of traffic, I will get back to you. But in terms of sales, espotting is so far the best.

[PCInk]

ESpotting have recently lost their biggest partners, including their largest: Yahoo!

Note that their website does not promote where their results are displayed so prominantly.

[hfactor]

Hey Guys,
I'm new to this thread, and very interested in the traffic that I've been generating with eSpotting. Since the end of October when apparently eSpotting and Yahoo parted ways, I’ve noticed a decrease in traffic, but I believe this is seasonal. I contacted eSpotting and asked about traffic, and the following is what I received:

The Espotting network comprises of over 1000 affiliates and powers over 1 billion queries a month. I am unable to give you a complete list of these affiliates but I have included a few from each sector for your information. Please note that some affiliates are pure search, others are directory listings and for others we provide results in a popup form.

Generic Search: Netscape, Lycos Directory, UK Plus.

Travel websites: Travel Supermarket, Discover Holidays, Holidays Uncovered, Lastminute.com

Shopping: Shopping.net, Doo Yoo, Price Runner, Shopper UK

Papers: The Sun, Trinity Mirror

ISP: Breathe, Supanet, Totalise, IC24, Madasafish.

Finance: Money Supermarket, Hemscott, Moneyfacts, Clearly Business, Norwich Union Direct.

Cars: Auto Express, Virgin Cars

Magazines: Maxim, PC Pro, Mac User, Computer Shopper, Computer Buyer.

Mobile: O2, Smart Engine.

Does anyone have a comment on their sources of traffic?

Thanks,

Brian