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I am thinking of purchasing PPC on Ah-ha. It's a lot cheaper then adwords (like 3 cents a click for my keyword). I am just wondering why everyone uses Adwords instead of Ah-ha?
I think most people use more than one PPC. It depends on the exposure you wish for your ad capaign.
I can only speak for myself - Ah-Ha did not deliver any traffic. Virtually zero. Your experience may be different.
CompWorld
At the end, 4300 or so clicks, 0% conversion, average stay on the site, 6.7 seconds. When you got to the bottom of the barel of search engines, you hit ah-ha.
Did ever think to look at the products being sold on your site and adjust the pages to see if conversions would occur?
What I am trying to say is that you received quite a lot of visitors so the traffic is obviously not bad and since the visitors came for an average of 6.7 seconds, they did view your site for quite a while, did not see what they liked, probably clicked back and selected the site below or above.
You cannot blame the PPC for bad conversions If the traffic is false, fair enough but if the traffic is legit then there is something wrong with your site that visitors did not find interesting (especially if you can log their time), perhaps something small like the wording on your pages or even something major like you costs.
Your better of with the epilot distribution network if you want to go the .01 - .03 cent route. Same partners/affiliates, cheap ROI (if any).
Hmmm, thats not 100% correct. Firstly, you need $100 with Epilot just to open an account and secondly, just to appear on all of their distribution websites, you must bid over $0.06.
You sould really read the whole post and then add your 2 sense. If you think 6.7 seconds is a while, I am afraid to ask what you consider a fair amount of time.
CompWorld
How can you say that they stayed on the site for a while? 6.7 seconds not minutes. Well, the same ads worh fine with overture, adwords, serchfeed, epilot, and a host of others. That is how I can tell.
CompWorld
I can understand that 6.7 seconds is not a long while but a consumer that has a list of results at a search engine will not spend even a minute on a page that does not instantly catch their eye. You could offer the best product in the world but if the page is not designed well or the page is unorganized, they will leave and you are left with 0% conversion. This seems to be the problem you had.
You sould really read the whole post and then add your 2 sense.
That is quite uncalled for assuming that in my last post I actually commented on two parts of your post which required me to read the entire post so I can comment upon it.
Anyway, back to the orignial post.
I am just wondering why everyone uses Adwords instead of Ah-ha?
The reason is because Google has a much greater audience reach and is much more well known. I would think that many of Googles advertisers started with them because they knew Google was the number 1 search engine so they should deliver great results when advertising within their search engine.
Also, Google has a limited amount of search partners. The partners generate millions of searches each month for Google and the partners most likely do not affiliates who have affiliates who have affiliates like Ah-ha and other 2 tier ppc search engines do.
What kind of websites are you guys running campaigns for that you think a 6.7 second average is reasonable for PPC traffic? On a dial up connection 6.7 seconds isn't even enough time for a lot of websites to load completely.
While it's actually a lot higher than most people get from ah-ha :-P 6.7 seconds still means really bad quality traffic... Unless of course the website in question is actually insulting people and telling them to leave. :-)
This doesn't count for affiliate sites, as you want them to go somewhere else.
Obviousally the bottom line is conversions, however, we also like to see quality visits even if they don't convert as that means they were interested in the product or information and that KW/PPC is targeting the demographic we're looking for.
For our sites, if at least half of the visitors (many people no mater what PPC you're using don't look at more than 1-2 pages) don't stay an average of 5 minutes, I consider it a low quality visit.
5 minute visits is a benchmark we've used for a long time.
For my merchant sites I think about 10 minutes to buy is cool. The record is 54 hours and 32 minutes before buying.....who the heck knows what they were doing! (must have been sleeping for some of it).
For my affiliate sites, some visitors have stayed over an hour......which is very, very bad.....as you say, you want them in and out instantly ;)
FindWhat might be a contender to consider in the "cheap PPC cost" arena, but most of the others are not, IMHO, and experience.
Like many I tried Ah-ha for a few months at the end of 2002 start of 2003 and found 0 conversions. I didn't spend much but for the number of clicks I received I should have gotten at least one sale. This test was with my 15 best keywords. Then this summer Ah-ha contacted me and offered to match my deposit if I reactivated and put down at least $100, so I figured what the heck I'll try. For some reason I almost immediately started converting clicks and it's continued to this day. My conversion rate is about what I get with Overture and Google but for a much lower price.
Again I have no idea why this turn around happened and I keep a very close eye on it to make sure it doesn't crash again but as of right now they work for me.
Well, that's good news. I would like to see some other confirmation, but have to admit, from your post, would be seriously contemplating trying Ah-Ha (Enhance or whatever they call themselves today), but only if others have input of similar nature.
It would be good to know: (if you can provide it with some sense of security): if you are ecommerce retailer or BtoB, and at what price range your typical product sells at? As higher priced items typically have a lower conversion ratio. For example, people will more readily (on impulse if nothing else) buy a $20 item than they will a $60-$90 item. They might make 1 vist to buy the $20 product, but take 2-3 to buy the higher priced one, after shopping around or taking more thought on the matter.
I have others that convert about 1/3rd-1/4th as well as the two big PPCs. However, since ah-ha is so cheap, the cost per conversion for these sites is cheaper even with the lower conversion rate than the big two.
Every 3-6 months, I toss $25-50 into ah-ha for the other sites to see if they can convert the traffic yet. Sometimes it works out, other times I wait another 3-6 months.
You are a respected member of this group, given the number of times I have seen your posts, I also suspect one well-informed. So thanks for the input. Your comments carry weight.
This is worth finding out more about, as Ah Ha when it started, as I recall, was supposed to be a "family oriented" site/search engine. I went with them for about 1 year, as my product is family oriented. I Felt, frankly ripped off after about 1 year, from buying into some of their proposals. And finally ripped off by excessive clicks that yielded nothing in sales.
So, if things have changed, would be good to know. I AIN'T BUYING TILL I HEAR MORE. Hope others will input.
So, if things have changed, would be good to know.
I don't think anything major has changed. I think occasinally they get a partner site that gets quality traffic for some particular keywords and that site is what ends up sending you the qualified visitors. Unfortunately, those types of sites aren't the norm, they are the exception.
Ah-ha spends just aren't worth the time doing major investigating on, so this is specualtion, but this would explain why some sites can convert and others can't. It's by no means industry specific, it seems to be keyword specific.
Thank you. Good Points. I think your last comment says it all: <Ah-ha spends just aren't worth the time doing major investigating on ...<
Unless you are o.k. with paying mainly for automated clicks with the hope that from time to time a real human visit will occur which might convert, I would not recommend them.
