Spotlight : Espotting

Pay Per Click UK based search engine

[Brett_Tabke]

Name	Espotting
Url	espotting.com
Model	Pay Per Click Search Engine with Categorical Directory
Process	Results sold in online auction format
Minimum Bid	0.05 pence
Unsold Results	Inktomi
Base Location	London England
Address	The Old Truman Brewery 91, Brick Lane London E1 6QL
Phone	[phone]
Fax	[phone]
Email	[e-mail]
Press	Press Page
Founded	As Espotting Media Feb 1999(?) Launched in September 2000
Founders	David Anthony Ishag & Seb Bishop
Traffic	500m+ searches a month
Major Partners	Yahoo! UK, Lycos, Ask Jeeves, BT Looksmart, Hotbot, UKPlus, SearchEngine.com, Partners
Network Infastructure	Exodus
Language Services	iLanguage
Employees	60
Reach	72% of UK Audience
Unique	Allows inclusion of graphic company logo next to results.
Account Min	50 pounds
Propoganda	Demo
Advertisers FAQ	Faq
Keyword Tool (UK)	Keyword Suggestions
Current Bids	Bid Page
Keyword Submission	Submission Spreadsheet
Major Domains	UK - www.espotting.com, France - www.espotting.fr, Germany - www.espotting.de, Spain - es.espotting.com, Italy- it.espotting.com.
About	"Espotting is established in the UK, Germany and France and as a result of exclusive affiliate deals with Europe's major portals and search engines, such as Yahoo! Europe, the Lycos Network, AltaVista and Ask Jeeves, we are the market leaders in all three territories. Through its affiliate network, Espotting reaches over 70% of Internet users in the UK and France and over 50% of Internet users in Germany. Espotting will be launching in Spain and Italy later on this year."-(about)
Related	WebmasterWorld Espotting Related Discussions

What are your experiences in using Espotting? What is the advertisers interface like?

[shuffler]

I've used espotting and overture in fairly equal amounts. The espotting interface is a bit clumsy - meaning that when the money runs out I tend to be a bit slow at topping it up - it doesn't remember CC details, which although maybe this is better for security reasons, is a bit of a pain. Bids are generally lower than on Overture, meaning more click for the £

They don't seem to email you when new phrases are listed , although I may be wrong. Overall Overture has the edge IMO, although it makes sense to go for both.

[rencke]

>What are your experiences in using Espotting?

Espotting UK provides me with about 10% of the volume of either Overture or Google Adwords Select for comparable campaigns. The cost is about 10% higher than Overture and 50% higher than Google.

>What is the advertisers interface like?

A lot less advanced than either Overture or Google. The reports are decidedly below par.

[Mike_Mackin]

4/01 as in APRIL of 2001

Thank you for choosing to list your site in the UK and Europe with Espotting, we have received your registration from our US partners Kanoodle.com. The introductory offer under which you registered requires a
minimum deposit of £25.00, this is matched with a further £25.00 by Espotting making your account balance £50.00

Unfortunately, we are unable to process the American Express card you have submitted as we are not enabled to accept it.

We use the Am Exp card for all biz related to www sites for accounting reason and this was a pain.

Current balance £12.85

[backus]

I think, as a new user of Espotting, I must say they have one or two errors, or teething problems, however their reactions to them has pleased me. It's as if they realise they are not in 1st place so they are trying to make up for it in customer service. I'm glad I chose Espotting over Overture as I've heard some reall horror stories. Up to recently, Espotting wasn't paying off, but with the recent Ask Jeeves addition, it's starting to work for me now.

[Napoleon]

The comments above hit the mark well. However, a different problem I have had is in multi-word search terms. For example:

The term 'Brett and Webmasterworld' would be abbreviated to 'Brett Webmasterworld'. The term 'Brett will visit London' becomes 'Brett visit London'. And so on.

This actually is a real pain for a whole stack of reasons. Sure, the searcher's input may well be abbreviated as well, but it is a recipe for certain confusion.

Another example of where this leads... some chopped words actually have two meanings: 'will' also means a legal document and not just future tense. Example: for a bid on 'Writing a Will' you have to bid on 'Writing'!

Why they can't just reflect the actual search terms I don't know. I guess it must come down to a technical issue, but with their extra revenue you would would think they would address this.

[Mike_Mackin]

>trying to make up for it in customer service.

CS = THE BEST IN THE PPC WORLD - That's a fact!

[kapow]

I just started using Espotting.
FOR:
- Cheaper bids (currently).
- Yahoo listing
- Great bid updating tool (can see top 5 bids for all terms at once and update them).

AGAINST:
- No search term popularity tool.

They just told me on the phone that they are launching a very updated site next week with new features. They wouldn't tell me any more.

[heini]

Meet Seb Bishop, founder of Espotting in a transcript from another chat [chat.abondance.com] performed by www.canalchat.com.

It's french, try Google's tool for a decent translation.

Interesting tidbits:
Asked why espotting does not offer a tool like Overture he says they have the tool but their partners do not want this to go public.

On profitability: In England Espotting is profitable, implying they are not in France and Germany. The conversation dates from December anyhow, before Yahoo started using Espotting.

Plus: "Renault ne peut pas acheter Peugeot", Renault can not bid on Peugeot. That's different from what we heard elsewhere.

[Brett_Tabke]

One note about keyword tools that Jim Stob brought up out at in LA, was there is the question of who owns the search data of any search? If a search is performed on blue.com and the search is serviced by red.com, who owns those terms in the search? The search was performed on blue.com, so doesn't that data belong to them?

Same is true in the case of espotting. Doesn't the search data that was performed on the partners site, belong to the partners?

I think Overture gets away with it since it was an integral part of the process before they went affiliate city.

[jamsy]

Great Customer service when you phone them, but adding new campaigns and search terms are taking an inordinate amount of time to appear live.

they say 72 hours turnaround but this is actually about 120 at present.

I noticed this big difference when they went live with Yahoo and frankly think that they under estimated the volume of the work needed once Yahoo displayed their results.

Their search tool is remarkably slower to display then that of goverture.

Anyhow when you have a problem give them a ring and they give you 100% on the phone.

[kapow]

Does anyone know if any 'Bid Management' tools work on Espotting?

(the kind of tools that update bids very 5 minutes - for say the 3rd position).

I hope not, because it makes the process impossible for competitive terms.

[kapow]

OK - I've been with Espotting for a week now.

7 search terms (competitive terms on Overture).

1 Click :(

I signed up to appear on Yahoo-UK but no one is clicking my ads.

I am not using Espotting's Kanoodle service. Is this recommended?

[jamsy]

Haven't tried Kanoodle myself yet, would like to hear any thoughts on this as well

[engine]

Hi Jamsy,
>Kanoodle
I'd guess it depends upon your target audience. I see some referals from them, not much, but some.

[Borny]

Kapow:
"Does anyone know if any 'Bid Management' tools work on Espotting?"

I use Bidright for Bid Management on Overture and Espotting. It also works on Kanoodle and FindWhat.

Borny.

[Rumbas]

>bid management tools

Wait until tuesday when they launch their new site and you'll see their own new bid management tool. It's quite nice.
As fas as I know they're not thrilled about external bid management tools.

[webdiversity]

espotting have launched their new site. Some useful additions. Minimum to set up account now £99 with £89 going towards clicks, so barier to entry has been raised a little bit, but they now have their own proprietary bid management facility which is why they probably don't promote the use of any.

They will be implementing a keyword search tool but it wasn't working when I was there this morning.

You can also receive reminders if your account balance gets to £15 with an automatic top up facility.

I think they have also put a fair amount of effort into beefing up the affiliate scheme to try to grow their market share.

[arachnid]

>they now have their own proprietary bid management facility which is why they probably don't promote the use of any.

Has anybody seen the price they are changing for this?? Anything from 49 to 299 quid a month. :0

For my own little venture that it would cost me an extra 99 pounds per month. Is it just me or is this a little expensive??

[jamsy]

Seems to me quite expensive :(

[Kevin]

I read somewhere that espotting were going to offer a Search Suggestion Tool. I can't find it. Anyone know if it is true?

[unknownsoldier]

I have been using espotting for a while.

Fact they do send traffic!

Costing roughly 0.50 ukp per click generating about 1000 clicks per month.

This was for a financial institution under some a mixture of low, medium and high popularity search terms.

Looked after a recruitment site and we did slightly better with the number of clicks but did have a slightly larger budget. the traffic levels were noticed to drop by 1 - 2000 per month when the budget was taken away.

I have warmed to Espotting, over time, I have a good contact there and have visited the offices over in Brick Lane, East London, one of the founders was or is a model for those of you that care...

[4eyes]

The search suggestion tool was 'work in progress' when I tried it yesterday.

In fact there are a few parts of the new site are still a little unfinished - at least, I found a couple of broken links yesterday.

The site froze on a few occasions, probably all of us hitting it at the same time for a nosey around.

The new tools seem OK, but the cost of the auto-adjust feature is a little steep for my customers.

[unknownsoldier]

The new navigation for the advertisers interface is is alright but nothing special I found the old one ok.

I am betting that there search suggestion tool should be pretty good.

[jamsy]

I am a fan of espotting but feel it very poor of them to roll out an uncompleted website.

What was the big rush for?

[kapow]

After nearly 12 days I've only had 6 clicks!
On Overture I get over 200 for the same phrases.

I am only on Yahoo UK though (and a few others) - can anyone advise me on the improvement I can expect with upgrading my Espoting account to include Kanoodle?

[Kevin]

Where is the suggestion tool?

[Rumbas]

Suggestion tool is right here [espotting.com]
Sorry for missing your post for so long Kevin ;)

[Abrexa_UK]

In case anyone is interested, Espotting results are now also appearing on Abrexa UK, as a secondary feed on the right hand side.

[wolfy]

<Espotting results are now also appearing on Abrexa UK, as a secondary feed on the right hand side.>

Is it a relevant search engine? Do English people use it?
thanks for the info.