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Have a search on here, and see sites like ActDumb, to see why so many people won't go anywhere near them.
The real question you would have to ask yourself,is it worth a minimum of $15 to find out?
I would think so.After a $29 set up fee your only outlay is a minimum monthly spend of $15,an amount which can be raised if you are getting results and where you can set your monthly spend.
But for that small entry cost its worth the test and you can see for yourself with very little outlay how and if it works for you.
Hope that helps and let us know how you go?
Try to eliminate any possible search term combinations that may bring you lots of useless clicks. They will even throw in a word or two even though it is no where in your listing.... If done right, it could work, if not it will bite you in the behind :)
Trouble is, you can't dictate the description that LS decides to publish. I've had a great deal of trouble with this. For a site promoting a U.S. trip-routing service, I was receiving clicks from LookSmartUK and Australia. When I complained, demanding a refund (ha ha ha!), they agreed to change the description. However, it's not always what it's supposed to be.
My suggestion is to be very watchful, particularly of search terms. Look at your web stats over a 4-month range to see what terms people are using to come to your site, and then try those.
cheers...
Initially when I was trying to find out information about LS I got biased based on the negative reviews their PPC listings got.
Truth is, Looksmart provide the "web directory" results on MSN searches. Now these get preference over the Inktomi results that are usually buried for non trivial aka popular searches.
If you are not an affiliate and have your own business, then Looksmart is well woth your while. What would usually happen is that they would approach you with a deal thats different from the $0.15 CPC. Even at $0.25 CPC its a much better deal than Google in some cases especially if you have product pages in the 100's.
To make a CPC campaign work on LookSmart -
* Make sure you are on top of your game. Track your logs perfectly and make sure you are getting the right kind of traffic. Yes, they do goof up a bit but my interaction with them has been that they are commited to providing you with a good service and will respond asap.
* Your landing pages are really good. They must have the ability to convert. True with any CPC campaign in general.
MSN can and will drive a lot of traffic your way, try LookSmart out. After some major hiccups, it really did work out for us very well. All this negative press about them apart, they have the ability to make money for you, provided you do your homework right.
the poster
Every time I hit "submit" on the first sign-up page, it spun forever, then gave me a "Page Cannot Be Displayed" error.
Tried to sign-up again today, same thing in both NS and IE.
Of course, like many big Web companies, not a contact email address to be found (at least I haven't found it in the last few minutes) - my biggest pet peeve.
I could call and pay a long distance charge to ask them to please take my money - then again, I think I'll find another PPC. :-(
Anyway, in the past week, I have seen as much traffic as with the same ads on OV. The conversion is comperable too.
I was very surprised, since most of what I had read indicated that the results would be poor.
