TheArndale

Interesting call from TheArndale.com

[Legin]

I just had the third or 4th call in the last couple of months from a thearndale.com who claim to be dealing with ITV's website advertising.

They are offering pay per click advertising on their site and apparently sites for the dixons group and homebase.

They seemed to be using the same annoying tactics as JSearch. Then I noticed that they used jsearch to power their search. The sales guy said that ITV had requested it and they actually had no connection with jsearch.

I didn't believe a word the guy said. Has anyone else heard from them and what are your views?

[IanTurner]

In all these situations unless you know that you will get a good return on investment from it then leave it well alone.

[Robber]

thearndale have been ruffling a few feathers amongst affiliate marketeers. I believe they offer a traffic sharing scheme for companies running affiliate merchants programs.

Basically, when someone visits the merchants site a pop up for thearndale appears showing a directory of other affiliate merchants. I think they market this under the guise of "free traffic" for merchants.

The trouble is, those affiliates promoting the merchant are getting hackled off with it and starting to boycott those merchants - why? - because they are effectively stealing visitors from the affiliate. Bear in mind many affiliates have shopping directories so they see thearndale as being direct competition.

[Bobby_Davro]

They are very closely linked to Jsearch; I believe that they are actually the same people to some extent (the owner's wife runs Jsearch, or something like that). There is another company also involved, called Ad Streaming, who appear to be running the actual PPC scheme for them. They are also based in the same offices I think. Secondhand knowledge though, I am afraid.

I know one company that purchased some traffic from them on a CPM basis, and got a near zero ROI. However, I imagine that the PPC will provide more accountability, although the minimum cost is 30p per click.

[Smiley]

I've also had them on the phone and as soon as them mentioned Jsearch the alarms bells rang. Things did not seem to hang together but the carrot of ITV's pull did make me think.

Like Ian said, I'll stick to things with a good return on the cost.

[ade_uk]

they're meant to be calling me back at 4pm so i'll be ready to get rid of them!

[vmaster]

Yeah, I wouldn't pay them a penny either - called us too! Essentially all pop ups or pop unders results in poor quality traffic in our experience.

[Media_Man]

I have a client that is using The Arndale as a way of driving traffic to his site and they have said that they find it great. I believe that The Arndale have changed the way they do things and seem to be doing very well

[George]

Phoned me too, but they would not work on a commission basis. PPC, CPM only.

This always makes me doubt the value of traffic if people are not prepared to do that.

So 1) Spending loads of money chasing business.
2) No confidence in their own traffic.

That does not persuade me to part with cash.

George

[Commercial Man]

I had these guys on the phone the other day. They said they've had 2.8 million hits in the last 5 weeks. The Alexa story speaks for itself. They have a very persuasive story. I took it upon myself to do some digging, and found out that the company was launched in Manchester 5 weeks ago. Aparently they have some deals in the offing with msn. They also run large teams of call centre staff to sell for them. Good luck to them I say!

[Marketing Guy]

Personally I find anyone company that resorts to cold calling website owners to fairly annoying.

Especially when they (somehow) manage to get through to my boss and convince him that popup ads are a great thing! :(

Hehe the sales staff in these places hate it when I come on the phone! :P

Occaisionally (when Im bored) I keep them talking for ages and sound pretty interested, then break the news that I do all the web marketing myself and we don't have a budget!

They tend not to call back after that. ;)

Scott

BTW - Media Man, Commercial Man - are you related? :) FYI (everyone else) Im not related to MM or CM! hehe! :)

[dazz]

Sorry but I have to say this!

AVOID advertising with THEARNDALE.COM, they stink, they obviously have fake alexa ranking by installing the toolbar and visiting there own site all the time.

Media_man and Commersial_man obviously work for them....2 posts each between them! im impressed.

Im sure they have a connection with JSEARCH.co.uk which are aload of crap also.

Do not be conned into giving them any money what so ever as you will receive NO traffic!

BTW unfortunately I got stung by Jsearch for £300 last year so I do know what im talking about.

my 2 cents

[Marketing Guy]

I would say you're right Dazz.

Media and Commercial man are both based in the same town (at least their profile email's domains are registered to businesses that are based in the same town and i found at least one JSearch site affiliated to the domains).

Besides that, they both registered on the same day and have only only posted one message, both of which happened to be in the same thread, and both happen to take the same side of an arguement that no-one else in the entire community shares.

Blatant (and fairly unintelligent and unimaginative) tag team spam IMHO (although it could possibly just be the same person trying his luck).

Scott

[dazz]

They have to be the worst tag-team in history! Commercial man and Media man

The Bushwackers spring to mind :)