Ive just bought one and yes it was from Touch. Most of my business comes via the internet, which is not the perfect combination bearing in mind my knowledge of internet marketing is limited. My experience so far may interest you, hopefully to the extent that you can give me some words of wisdom. My web site was set up almost as an afterthought. I then stumbled across PPC and bingo, 3 months later 80% of my business came over the net. I seemed to be one of the first in my field to get into PPC and in those days (Makes it sound like years ago but actually only about a year ago), the average bid was around £1. Now the average is around £5 with the best keywords averaging on Overture at £10 and Google about £13. espotting is around £4 (I use over 100 keywords). In other words, despite my original conclusion that the dutch auction that is PPC was bound to accelerate to the extent that it was unsustainable, I have become reliant on it. I admit it, Ive been seduced like a wide eyed spotty teenager in a topless bar. It actual fact, even at £10 per click it is still well worth while if the clicks are genuine. Trouble is they arnt. Before click fraud came to the fore, our stats showed that we converted about 30% of clicks into business. Now, its about 5%. Perhaps our product/service is naff?, no thats not the problem as arrogant as that may sound. Having looked at the logs for the last three days, 80% of visits clicked on to the home page and straight off again. Click Fraud is a problem in itself which I have almost concluded I simply cant solve. I do intend to of course, but it will take time and therefore in the interim period Im more interested in finding other ways to get traffic. Banners are an obvious choice. Whilst it does not have the cash flow advantages of PPC where you only pay when they are on your site, it is nevertheless a fixed and projected cost, so budgeting is a bit easier. This is all assuming of course that it brings the traffic. Which brings me to Lycos. The comments re Lycos concern me, however a crude analysis on the last twelve months (We have had one lycos banner which we paid through the nose for in our even greener days, but thats another story), shows that roughly, and it is rough, the cost per client that has originated from the lycos banner is about 25% of what it would have cost me on PPC as an average across Overture/espotting/google. This is what encourages me to do more of the same. What I would like to know are really two things. Click fraud - what the hell do you do? In fact I have a few questions. I know from my logs what the visiting IP addresses are and people keep telling me to just compare them with my competitors (The armpits that are costing me money, dont mind a fair fight but I object to being kneed in the groin when Im supping my pint). But how do I find out what my competitors IP addresses are? Secondly, I have come across a site called <snip>, which sounds like what I need, but they dont reply to any e-mails. Anyone have any info on them? Click fraud aside, if I am to spend money on banners, skscrapers etc, where is the best place to go for ROI?
I could go on, but I think Ive already given the longest post. Would be very grateful for any advice...please?!
[edited by: NFFC at 9:38 pm (utc) on May 2, 2003]
[edit reason] URL removed [/edit]
