Besides Google, Overture - who are good PPC's?

[rightliner]

Hi Everybody,

I'm fairly new at this game, making modest income. I'm looking for decent: low cost: pay-per-click search engines. I'm not going to the Google's and Overture's yet, and Enhance Interactive isn't working for my campaign. Can anybody make any suggestions for good pay-per-click search engines? Perferably ones, that don't review my listings? I don't need much traffic, just looking for 10-30 click-thrus a day on a popular internet search theme...

thanks,

Pat

[greenleaves]

I have used 180solutions PPV (pay per VIEW) advertising. They convert pretty well (I had conversions of 0.5-1%, not bad for PPV).

They do have some nasty software (for the cutomer end) but at the advertising level it worked for me.

Also when doing "companyname scam" search, remember there are 3 parts of an advertising business, and just because they hurt one side does not mean they hurt everybody. The three parts would be: end users, affiliates and advertisers. If they screw one side, that does not equal all sides.

[luckychucky]

I have used 180solutions PPV (pay per VIEW)...They do have some nasty software (for the cutomer end)

Yeah, that was my problem with 180Solutions. They looked pretty good and I wanted to give them a try. But I'm on a Mac, and their site won't work cross-platform: it seems their site coders are kinda lame.

[Eathan]

180 Solutions are not the sort I'd feel comfortable doing business with.

1. Their software is snuck onto client machines through drive-by installs and the like. Users don't know what they're getting, or even that they're getting something.

2. 180's software hijacks commissions that would've gone to hard working affiliates. A user clicks an affiliate link, another window opens over the current window with a new affiliate link, and 180 gets credit.

3. Advertisers end up paying for traffic they would've received anyway. Visitors already heading to your site are picked up by 180 and relabeled as coming from them.

Conversions might not suck, but if it's traffic you would've received anyway, I don't see the point in supporting the parasites...

[internetheaven]

Here, here. I wouldn't pay a mobster for some jewellery even if they assured me it was legit. If they can do one thing "dodgy" then who's to say you're not next?

180 solutions has never been an option for me even if 180 of you started threads on how marvellous they are. Money is one thing, not feeling like you've contributed to the poor quality society we live in is another.

Overture gets my vote, Adwords is just too expensive for my market. I don't know who is paying $50 a click to crowd me out but if they're selling the same as me I don't know how they're making a profit!

[greenleaves]

3. Advertisers end up paying for traffic they would've received anyway. Visitors already heading to your site are picked up by 180 and relabeled as coming from them.

I don't understand how that can happen. I use a unique tracking link and a cookie is placed on each clients computer so that I know who is comming in, and who is a unique visitor.

You are right, I do not feel too comfortable dealing with them, but as long as there is ROI in it for me, I will continue to use them.

[Eathan]

Take a look at [benedelman.org...] for a pretty good breakdown of what and how.

[wayne]

I wouldn't use 180solutions if you're promoting an
affiliate program through them. A lot of affiliates
are starting to get their accounts cancelled with
their affiliate program if they are found to be
using 180solutions (Metrics Direct).

[edited by: seth_wilde at 7:24 pm (utc) on Sep. 14, 2004]

[bostonseo]

I tried 180 Solutions/Metrics Direct. It was some kinda of 'pop-up' thing that performed terribly for me. I knew it would be a client wanted me to test it for them.

[Location3]

Give the following a try as well:

Pageseeker
Roar.com
Superpages.com
Lycos

[bostonseo]

I would give Lycos a try, but volume is very low in my industry which is a huge industry. So don't expect a ton of traffic.

[Eathan]

I think Lycos is using Find What for their PPC.

[Eathan]

Interesting article on click fraud... [marketingcynic.com...]

[greenleaves]

That guy is totally paranoid. Half of the things mentioned are either completely wrong, or blown out of propotion.

I get 10% conversion on many of PPC campaings. I know there is some fraud, but if 1 out of 10 people that click my ad buy, that means there couldn't be one tenth the amount of fraud this guy sais there is. IMHO, the guy who wrote that didn't know how to set a profitable PPC campaingn so he decided no one could...

He should wear a tin hat, I've heard that helps reduce being targeted by click-fraud ;).

[TheGuyAboveYou]

From my experience Looksmart. is a HUGE waste of money. I took some campaigns that generated close to 100 sales per day and transfered them to Looksmart.
After lunch I came back and my 1k I put in was gone and had 1 sale? First of all there is no way I could have gotten that many REAL clicks in 4 hours and if it was real traffic I would spend 5k a day no problem and retire immediatley. Plus their backend is horrible.

On the internet you don't have to worry about offering good service. The amount of newbies is infinite. Why do you think these people that sale 10,000 hits for a buck are still around. Definatley not repeat customers.

[Eathan]

greenleaves, click fraud is as rampant as parasiteware, if not more so. It hits all of us, and hits us square in the bottom line.

A recent personal example:

One day, traffic on one keyword out of 180 on just one of the PPCs jumped 2500%, while all the rest remained the same. The fact that it was our lowest ranked word on the engine, and not a common search term made a spike like that unlikely. On checking the logs, only one of the clicks for the word actually had a referring URL (says email to me).

When reported to the PPC, they told us their traffic is going up all the time, so this may be normal growth. A 2500% traffic jump, in one day, on a three word phrase ranked #32 is not normal traffic growth. Maybe it wasn't a CTR mailing, but the lack of referring URLs hints that way. In any case, smells fishy to me.

Obviously, one word on only one engine didn't hurt our conversions accross the board, but this sort of thing happens constantly. $5 here, $10 there and $100 another week on one of our other sites... I'd guess it ads up a lot faster than lost commissions to the parasites.

[greenleaves]

First off, Eathan, 180solutions is PPV, not click.

Now, I am not saying that there is no click fraud, I know it exists. But the guy who wrote the article blows the whole issue WAY out of proportion. Examples of what I am saying:

I really don't know why people bother with PPC engines

I do know why, because I get over 10 times ROI, thats why.

The guy wasn't even talking about traffic spikes on PPV, he was talking about

There was a lot of it, but there were no specific usage spikes pointing to click fraud and nothing I could complain about

He also makes points that he backs with nonsence like

Because the PPC engine affiliates found out that relying on natural traffic wasn't making much money, they turned to PTRs (Paid-to-Reads) to pay people for searching through their affiliate links [marketingcynic.com...] link proves NOTHING.

He also includes partial truths, like

This affects all search engines out there, including Google

But he doesn't mention the fact that each PPC (and PPV) offer different fraud protection. This in combination with the partners each engine has, makes the quality of the traffic of each engine.

Then there are parts which are flat out wrong:

Most of the smaller search engines have no advertisers of their own.

That's where your PPC advertising budget is going. Straight into someone elses pocket - with no chance of your making a sale.

Again I am not saying that it doesn't exist. However, acording to the figures on the article you posted, there is $60,000,000 worth of click fraud per year. In an industry of over $1,000,000,000, this is less than a 6%. Even if the numbers on their site are right (which I doubt) the whole issue is simply exagerated. There always will be fraud, in any industry, and there always will be protection against fraud. As fraudsters get better, fraud protection gets better. It is just the way the world goes. The main thing each advertiser is going to look at is ROI. As long as the ads produce a ROI, there will always be fraud and protection.

[Eathan]

First off, Eathan, 180solutions is PPV, not click.

Sorry for the confusion. This was in reference to click fraud specifically, not 180. 180 is a whole different type of thief.

The thread started with a question about PPC, so I thought the link would be an interesting read for some.

Now, I am not saying that there is no click fraud, I know it exists. But the guy who wrote the article blows the whole issue WAY out of proportion.

Examples of what I am saying:
I really don't know why people bother with PPC engines

I do know why, because I get over 10 times ROI, thats why.

He may go overboard, but it is an interesting article, and the problem is a lot more prevalent than most of us realize. The fact that entire forums exist dedicated to these PTR programs is indicative that it's bigger than we might think.

The guy wasn't even talking about traffic spikes on PPV, he was talking about
There was a lot of it, but there were no specific usage spikes pointing to click fraud and nothing I could complain about

I was the one talking about a traffic spike that was very likely from a PTR campaign, purchased by a smaller PPC engine, running a FindWhat feed. When it's one word at a time, you're not likely to see any overall spikes.

He also makes points that he backs with nonsence like
Because the PPC engine affiliates found out that relying on natural traffic wasn't making much money, they turned to PTRs (Paid-to-Reads) to pay people for searching through their affiliate links [marketingcynic.com...]

That link proves NOTHING.

The link may prove nothing, but take what's being said and apply it to smaller PPC engines. Take [coolwebsearch.com,...] for example. They offer affiliates 50% of a click for each search. I believe they use a FindWhat feed, which is also used by Lycos and several others. Their affiliates could easily be PTR programs.

So, if you buy a click on Lycos, you're actually buying from FindWhat who feeds out to CoolWebSearch and others, who then run affiliate programs that cater to PTR programs that pay people up to $.01 per click to visit their sites and run searches.

I don't know about you, but if I'm paying $1.50 a click, I certainly want something more than some PTR user earning a penny for my $1.50. You can dislike his writing style, wild accusations or whatever, but click fraud from PTR programs is very real.

He also includes partial truths, like
This affects all search engines out there, including Google

But he doesn't mention the fact that each PPC (and PPV) offer different fraud protection. This in combination with the partners each engine has, makes the quality of the traffic of each engine.

Google and overture do pretty well at fraud prevention, but Looksmart, Findwhat and many others don't. Even so, it still happens. People on those forums complain about their PTR program getting dumped after two months with Google (after receiving two checks). Once dumped, how hard it is for them to slap up a new search engine and open a new account?

Then there are parts which are flat out wrong:
Most of the smaller search engines have no advertisers of their own.

Taken with a grain of salt, that could just as easily be read as "...most of the smaller search engines". I'd say that's true, as most of these engines seem to be domain squatters and the like running feeds from other PPCs.

That's where your PPC advertising budget is going. Straight into someone elses pocket - with no chance of your making a sale.

I'm not trying to pick a fight, or defend someone else's article, but I know I've personally bought a ton of fraudulent clicks over the years, and it bugs the h*ll out of me.

Again I am not saying that it doesn't exist. However, acording to the figures on the article you posted, there is $60,000,000 worth of click fraud per year. In an industry of over $1,000,000,000, this is less than a 6%. Even if the numbers on their site are right (which I doubt) the whole issue is simply exagerated.

I don't know what the real numbers are, but I can guarantee they're huge. Some of my AdSense clicks pay me $3 a click and I've had a few in the $teens.

If I was a greedy bastich, like these PTR organizers, I could see how paying 3000 people $.01 each to click my ads could be attractive, even if I had to set up accounts every other month. There's a whole industry built around that very model.

I'm not saying this article is word-for-word gold, but it is interesting and does illustrate a pretty nasty trend in PPC.

[dvduval]

Just a week ago there was an article on WebProNews about how business.com was banned from Google for using 302 redirects. I looked about a week ago and they were PageRank zero. Now they are back to PageRank 8. That sure was fast. I wish I had the power to pull strings that fast.

[greenleaves]

I wasn't trying to pick a fitht either, just felt like pointing out the mistakes in the article. Anyway, the article is going in a good direction, so I can see that it is interesting. I guess the guy called himself a cynic for a reason. :)

[Eathan]

Yeah, sorry if I came on a little strong there. Click fraud is just one of those things that really gets under my skin.

Most of the words I bid on are in more competitive categories, so fraud tends to be more common and more expensive. Just drives me nuts... :)

[H2Oman23]

I like:

1) goClick
2) FindWhat
3) Findology
4) 7Search

Have you guys used Findology? I'm getting a pretty good return for pretty cheap. Let me know if you guys have any feedback with them.

[BillyS]

I like, in this order:

Adwords
Overture
GoClick

Bad experiences with (in no particular order)

FindWhat
Lycos (FindWhat...)
Ah Ha / Enhance
Kanoodle

[asianguy]

You can tell if the PPC Engines are not doing great because most bids very low. That means they dont have many advertisers and nobody wants to touch them for various reasons. Fraud click is one example.

[wellzy]

Enhance is Ah-Ha and they are horrible.

Overture does great and I am just starting out with the others

[EnhanceRep]

Hello,

I am an Enhance Interactive employee and wanted to respond to this thread.

First, I apologize if your experience with Enhance Interactive has not resulted in a positive ROI. Since different PPC engines use different distribution and reach different types of customers, results may vary depending on the product an advertiser is selling. Enhance Interactive works well for many thousands of advertisers; for some - including, apparently, many vocal participants on this discussion forum :) - it does not.

Second, I acknowledge that click fraud is an issue we in the PPC search space must address. Enhance Interactive - like Google, Overture, and other leading PPC engines - has a special technology team dedicated to identifying and removing offending affiliate sites. We also have installed a rigorous pre-qualification period before releasing new distribution sites into our network. Still, some bad traffic slips through the net. When it does, we have a solid record for addressing advertiser concerns that are communicated directly to our customer service or dedicated regional account reps. I encourage you to contact your Enhance representative ([e-mail]) to resolve any issues.

Finding quality traffic on alternative PPC engines can be challenging, as has been duly noted here and in other forums. We are always searching for ways to make our traffic work better for our customers. I am optimistic that you’ll see improvement as we learn and grow.

Best regards,

Enhance Interactive

[bostonseo]

"Enhance Interactive - like Google, Overture, and other leading PPC engines..."

Referring to yourself as a leading PPC engine along with Google and Overture is laughable.

[luckychucky]

EnhanceRep:
Thanks for your participation, and such a nice statement of good intentions. The road to Hell is paved with them. (sorry, just had to get that litle quip in there...but seriously--) thanks for meaning well and articulating the intention to improve.

The main issue so many users apparently have with Enhance is:

Lotsa Clicks but Very Low Conversions.

That's the one you need to solve. It's pretty factual and statistical, in black and white, good intentions or no. It's not really an opinions issue; such stats don't lie. You need to provide better-converting traffic. If you do, I for one would be more than eager to use your services again.

[CygnusX1]

I Liked:

1. Overture
2. AdWords
3. 7search

[greenfrog]

Some PPC's in our industry can go for over $20 per click, so it can get expensive very fast. We have to be very cautious about where we compete and the quality of traffic. Overture has provided the best results, by far. Next is adwords, but the broadmatch frequently provides totally irrelevant results.

Now for the worst.....Findwhat. They have so much spam/fraud clicks it is unbelievable. We have so many one-click wonders that come via Findwhat search partners. Lately we've seen an increase in fraud-clicks from brazil, that curiously only hit our site for one page....hmmmm?

Avoid Findwhat!

[eyeinthesky]

So far, I only had success with Adwords & OV. Goclick is cheaper but very little traffic.

Findwhat is a pain. Got whacked by many clicks on high bids as their interface is not so "intuitive". Suspected fake clicks too.

Be careful not to bid high on 2nd grade PPC as there are tons of fraudulent clicks!

I've read somewhere that Brainfox is good but have not tried. Anyone tried this one?