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All these questions about 'are there any good cpc programs for 10 cent clicks?', and posts about did anyone ever try 'x' or 'z' cpc?
Ask yourself this question. Where do YOU search for things on the internet? When you want to know about Italian hotels or places to eat in Manhattan you go to Google, MSN and Yahoo and search correct? Ok AOL too if you are an AOL user. My point is you have never willingly gone to any other search engine in the last year correct?
People all these companies....Kanoodle, 7Search, FindWhat, Blowsearch, Eplilot, ABCSearch, #*$! (and the others' if they are still in business)...they DO NOT have distribution with Google, MSN, Yahoo and AOL. You are wasting your time and money in the end. Every once and a while you can have a good span of 2-3 days where you might make a little money. But I guarantee you within the next week you've lost all those profits and possibly a lot more. What happens when/if you have a day where you see a 500% spipke in clicks for no apparent reason? you think you'll get your money back? Hell no. You may get a credit which is worthless...because these programs are worthless.
The saying 'You Get What You Pay For' is true. And if you don't believe me, fine try these programs and find out for yourself that they do not work.
Again if you yourself does not search on these 'websites' who do you think does? And what is the likelihood that they are serious consumers :)
My apologizes if you interpret this as being negative. It's just common sense this 'game' of CPC's. When things seem too good to be true they are. Why are prices so high on Yahoo, Google, MSN? Because that is where serious shoppers are.
We just ran a test on ePilot and Kanoodle. Noticed two things off the bat.
We did our own internal tracking using tracking strings within the URLs to track clicks and java script code on the conversion thank you pages to track conversions.
1. ePilot and Kanoodle visits were inflated between 41%-55%.
2. Usually, we see a 30-35% conversion. On ePilot we saw 0% (yes, none, zilch, zip, nada) and Kanoodle, a measily 1.4%.
I would be very interested to hear of any success stories. It would be a good way to build incremental volume if there was a decent one out there. We are testing eSpotting, the UK engine, which I have heard some decent things about.
Word to the wise. Don't waste a red cent on testing second tier engines unless you have a good reliable visit and conversion tracking in place to compare the junk numbers they may give you.
2nd tier search engine shopping is exactly like ebay shopping to me. I can run down to the local mall and buy exactly what I want for triple the price because I know where its at but if I know enough about what I'm looking for and am willing to watch it then I can get it at a significant bargain.
But the major point I wanted to make is do you search anywhere except Google, Yahoo, MSN and AOl? And if you do; why?
They are at least making strides versus the others in their tier. Findwhat has tanked so hard, it's very disappointing. That's my 2 cents.
I agree with the post earlier about the "bargain." It's just not worth the time, effort, and energy to try and keep an eye on these guys and keep them honest. The fraudsters are getting rich and developing new ways to swindle you out of money. As fraud has increased, Findwhat and Kanoodle have seen their revenues go through. And a lot of their gain has been at the expense of their advertisers.
These companies have knowingly sacrificed long term success for short term gains. Period. They are both going the way of Looksmart.
Take a look at all the news about Findwhat lately. Look at their stock price.
It's not looking good. I used to really like both of these companies. I've abandoned both and joined the crusade to educate others about what is happening.
Here's the bottom line. Findwhat and Kanoodle will take your money and give you little or no real traffic in return. They used to, but not any more. Go Click is the same thing.
It seems ABC search and the other compaines get their traffic from websites which feature their search boxes etc. So they still do have high traffic levels.
The point that you have hit very correctly is the type of websites they are with. How come these websites are not with Adsense? Did they get kicked off the program for fraud?
Mind you though 7search seems very good and i know Mirago is excellent.
I think the 2nd tier Can be 'usefull' in the hands of a very very savy advertiser.
The problem, 2nd tier advertisers are having, Appears to me at least, is that they are Only Educated in Advertising. This, in my humble opinion, Will Not Sufice, on the 2nd tier. You NEED, to Also Educate yourselves, on the 2nd tiers' Clickers.
What I'm Driving at here is this:
Advertisers, Spend Years fine tuning their capabilities to Target a Market!
But when they hit the 2nd tier, they Don't Know Who their Market Is, hence, their results are dreadful.
If you target your good/service to the 2nd tier, you ARE, for Practical Purposes, Targetting the Paid-To-Read-Email biz.
You CAN Convert Them, but you First Need to Know, WHO it IS, that you are trying to Convert!
Once you Understand, what is taking place, and How it is happening, you THEN, are in a position, to Apply the skills, that You, as a professional advertiser, have allready honed, to the Market you are Paying to view your pages.
There are Two Approaches that ought work:
1- Kan the 2nd Tier entirely, and virtually By-Pass them, AND the even Larger 3rd tier, from whence comes the vast majority of their traffic, and Directly Target the ptr biz itself.
2- Continue spends at the 2nd tier, allowing your money to continue to filter Accross the 2nd tier, via its' cross-feeding, Down through the vast networks of the massive 3rd tier, Accross the 3rd tier, via its' network of cross-feeding, and Finally, Down to Their Only Traffic Source, the ptr biz, with their accompanying manual/auto surfs, and the occational safe-list blast.
There are Problems, Inherrent with Both Approaches:
In the first instance, Directly Targetting the ptr biz, There are few sites, that have large enough memberbases, to support a 'serious' advertiser.
-This Can, be overcome, by advertising with multiple sites, but that becomes burdonsome for the advertisers, and most of you won't trouble yourselves with it, as it becomes a time is money issue, making google/overture a more Overall attractive option.
In the Second Instance, Continuing to fund the 2nd tier, it is a Matter of Education, more than anything else.
Once you Understand, Where your money is going, with little or Nothing in the way of sales, And Why, you can Then Fine-Tune your Keywords to Match the Market you are Targetting.
*This, keyword work, becomes what amounts to the 'Anti-Targetting' of advertising, as Your Goal, if it is to be a successful campaign, Need Be one of gaining Less, Not More, Traffic.
***If you are getting anything More, than a Trickle of traffic, from a second tier campaign, you ARE getting it, from Abuse!
-Kan, your high traffic keywords. Use 3 word keyword combos, Minimum.
That will keep you, for the Most Part, OFF the Massive Numbers of 3rd tier portal pages Directories, which are Extremely Heavily Advertised, at ptr sites, where clickers click your budget into oblivion via Blind Directory Clicks, without even so much as noting what they are clicking.
It is the Greater Portion of the ptr clickers, that you are Trying to Avoid, and Filter them OUT, as you Target the Remainder, that are doing Genuine, and Legitimate Searches.
***Who, is your Target Market at the 2nd tier?
-They, for the most part, make up about 10% of the Entire ptr biz.
-They WILL, Convert.
-They Are, for the most part, peeps that have time on their hands, stay at homers mainly, but working class as well.
-They Tend to be peeps, that are into the 'shopping bargins' thingy. 'rewards for shopping' stuff.
-They Tend, to make purchaces Under 100 USD.
-They Also, are an Excellent 'lead' market, for 'opt-in' offer stuff. Enter your email addy thingys.
-They Respond, Very Very Well, to the 'Personal Approach' end of the advertising spectrum.
-Do Not, try and 'con' these peeps, they are Hardened to the Core, from the ptr biz... 'Hard-Sell', will be dismissed without a glance here. Hype, is their daily life, and they'll give you a chuckle for your time, and move on to the next chuckle, without blinking an eyelash.
good luck.
* To my critics:
*** Take the funds pouring into the ptr biz, From the 2nd Tier, Out of the ptr biz, and you have Virtually, for practical purposes, Erased the ptr biz, as it exists today. We're talking Thousands of USD's Per Month Here, Accross the nearly 1,000 programs in existance.
*** Take the ptr traffic from the 100 Heaviest Traffic Generating engines on the 3rd tier, and it's Toast.
*** Take the ptr traffic from the 2nd tier, and you're left with what goclick looked like some 5 to 7 months back, when they were all but Clean, of ptr traffic.
-I could Not find a Single Page, that I could find with goclick, at an engine running at a ptr site, for about a 3 week period.
-I Also, Could NOT generate a Single Hit, on a 20 buck deposit. rofmao, on the Last of it, I was Bidding on keywords, I had No Association With, just to see If I could Generate a Single Hit! I got 2, one for Viagra, and One for Hosting, as I recall, in about a one week span, had a Full Buck on Each!
Again, it's NOT, about Getting Hits! It's About Avoiding Hits...
To give you just one example among hundreds, we bid on the 'domain registration' at ePilot. Our title and description were 'Register Domain Names at XYZ at Low Prices!' and made it clear we were a domain name registration service. However, even though our price was only $9, of the supposed 5000 visitors we received from ePilot, not one - not ONE - registered a domain name. Complete waste of money. Why would 5000 people search for domain name registration, click on a listing which says it offers a domain name registration service and then not one register a domain name? The site converts very well via Adwords and Yahoo PPC.
As for second tier pay per click engines, I know people who make great ROI's from them, only like I said they are to busy to come on forums and pretend they they are experts.
Seriously guys, companies do not exist for years simply because they do not work. They do not retain adveertisers for years either because they dont work. They work. Its just that you have to know what your doing and how to use the platform for best ROI, which many people here, including myself do not.
Seems you guys do great with google and overture, so stick to those if they work for you.
Just because many of these 2nd/3rd tier companies does not in any indicate that they have legitimate traffic and satisfied customers.
These companies have so little overhead; and most have total employees that you can count on 2 hands (some companies 1 hand).
They make money because almost every advertiser at one point is going to try a program like these for $200 to see if it can work. Advertisers' are desperate to find a cheaper alternative than Google and Yahoo.
I would LOVE to see customer retention rates; I bet it's somehere around 1-2%. But they don't care. Again you just need enough people to try you out for $200 and you have a pretty good business model given such low overhead and absolutley NO advertising.
I just spent, (again, lol), the past 15 minutes, reading the tos of one of the major players on the 2nd tier, and their 'partners' tos as well.
I picked on kanoodle, but it doesn't really matter, 2nd tier is 2nd tier, they are all bolted together with the same bolt.
Now, if you go over the TOS Carefully, you will at first glance, feel pretty well protected from fraudulant clicks. This, of course, is the Intended air you are to leave the pages with. Closer Examination Reveals, to Me at least, that the 'Wording', is NOT so very carefully Worded, to Weed Out the undersireable traffic, but On the Contrary, to Carefully Protect and Perserve the Primary Source of Traffic, The Paid To Read Email Biz.
When You Read, the terms of service/use, of Any 2nd tier, you'll note, that they convieniently 'Forgot' to Include the Term 'paid-to-read', in their rather Large lists of Unacceptable Traffic.
-Kanoodle goes so far, as to carefully Omit 'php' Scripts, including only cgi and java_scripts, in their exclusions, as php Scripts, are what Drives 90% of All PTR Programs, lol. gotta luv fine print...
*I'm long winded, but please Bare with me, as The Following, IS the crux of the Entire Matter:
*The 2nd Tiers, (do), (depends on what your definition of the word is, is), refer to 'Paid'to-read programs, when they refer Repeatedly to 'Incentivized Traffic', Right?
Nope! Depends on What your Definition of the word IS, is....
How it works, is like this:
-The 2nd tier, for the benifit of their Advertisers, Clearly State, that they do NOT accept 'incentivized traffic:
-The 2nd tiers, Dictate, To the 3rd Tiers, that They Too, Make the Same Claims, in Their TOS's as Well, No 'Incentivized Traffic'.
And, indeed, the 3rd tiers Don't allow, (for the most part, lol), What They, define as 'incentivized'.
Here is the Working Definition of the phrase 'Incentivized Traffic', as it IS Applied Accross the Entire Large 3rd Tier:
'Incentivized Traffic', constitutes Any Paid Email, that Asks, Begs, or Otherwise Incentivizes the Clicker to Do A Search! That's it in a nutshell.
*The Cent that the ptr clickers get for 'viewing the advertisers website', lol, is NOT considered 'Incentive' to search, so it's Perfectly Acceptable Traffic, for Both, the 3rd And the 2nd Tier.
That's where your Money, And your ROI Are Going!
Now, Is It 'Fraud'?
Depends, on what your definition of the word is, is...
I just checked out another ptr program recently.
What a Goldmine, rofl.
39 1-Cent Each, Paid Search Emails Every Single Day of the Week, lol. Around 2,200 members at that one. Are those Links 'Incentivized'?
The ptr clicker, Recieves 1 Cent for clicking the link, and letting the 30 second timer expire. Whether they do a search or not, well, if they Don't, likely there won't be as much money to make next week, as the 'advertisers' will Stop advertising there, and move on to more fertile ground.?....
(What happens, when someone tries to 'support the advertiser', when the 'advertiser' consists of nearly 40 Search Portal Pages Every Day? Blind Clicks on the Directories of these portal pages, That's What, lol).
If the Second Tier, did Not try and Hide it, it would not constitute fraud, that's for sure.
But you see, they Don't 'hide' it, it's Left, to that 'gray area' of Definitions.
I don't bother confronting 2nd tiers with this stuff anymore, they just throw it in the trash, and never reply to me, rofl, big bucks in the blind eye.
My Point, if I have one, lol, I guess is This.
I don't 'Mind' them Allowing it to Continue, I just think it 'Appropriate', that Someone Tell, their Advertisers they Are...
good luck all.
Yeah, they Know, um, in my opinion. ;)
But if you are Concerned, I'd suggest Asking Kanoodle.?... Seems a reasonable thing to just kinda casually 'Ask'...
Please Let me know if they Reply though, as they don't appear interested in Talking to Me.
Do They Know? I don't Know. They Refuse to Answer the Question, via not replying...
Could one 'assert', that if a Mere Half Dozen here in this forum, were to Email Kanoodle the same day, and Ask them, to Include the Term "Paid-To-Read-Programs" in their Tos, and they Refused, that they 'know'.?...
If we Want to be Sure, it's Not really all that difficult to Organize or anything. 6 advertisers ought pull More than enough weight, to be made Sure, if they Know, or Care.
I mean Kanoodle, nor Any other 2nd Tier Company Any harm in Any Way. Heck, I'd Even Help them, lol.
It 'May', lol, be far Easier, for ME to Shut down the ptr Traffic For Them, than for Them to Do it themselves, lol.
All I Need From Them, is the Term "Paid-To-Read-Email Programs", On their Tos Page, I can do the Rest. It Then, just becomes a matter of them Responding to my sugestions to Cancel their Top 40 Affiliate Accounts, due to Direct and Blatent Violation of the new TOS.
Now, Mind You, it's All a Waste of Time, as they'd have to Also Include the Term, in the TOS for Their 'Partners', and That ain't a gonna happen....
in ppc, the buck Stops Nowhere, it Cannot! if it Does, it gets Seen, so it Keeps getting Passed around...
Any One 2nd tier, Could come 'clean', but they would be out of biz the next day, as they wouldn't have enough traffic to Bother with them.
But by all means, Ask Them if they know or not.
Thank you for the kind words. Which I'm not alltogether certain I've earned, as I tend to be pretty um, blunt, and there are far more 'gracious' writing styles I could choose to use to get my point accross. Just really wanting to tell folks what I see as one of the Most Serious sources of problem in ppc today, but I get a little carried away sometimes.
:) :) :) You're Going to contact them! Great! Thanks on behalf of Everyone who's ever used any 2nd tier.
I hope you'll share with us any response, if you're able. lol, maybe I'll be eating some crow, who knows.
How happy I'd be, if they'd take that Leap, and put it in their tos.
hope to hear back from you on this, and thanks for participating here.
I honestly cannot believe that human beings account for more than 10% of this traffic. The searches for my terms like "widgets" come through as "widgets green price yellow" - as if they were created by some program to simply throw out different combinations of keywords.
These sites all have 0 PR, and 0 backlinks.
Other notes:
1) The traffic appears to be fairly incremental to Google and Yahoo.
2) I've seen ROI to be about half that of Google on a similar keyword list (so 10x ROI on Google is ~5x ROI on a good 2-tier).
2) Adding multiple 2-tier engines quickly cannibalizes each other, meaning there's a high degree of overlap of traffic relationships. I've tested out various combinations of engines to see where the optimal point is.
The funniest moment for me came when a sales rep called to pitch me on their listing solution, and I asked him to walk me through their site with links to all of their traffic relationships. Every listing I went to, had listings from some other 2-tier engine! It was comical to hear him try to explain the value of his service. He still hasn't gotten back to me....
Well thanks Watchthis for the fair reply. Too bad really, I was Hoping maybe they would actually take up the chalenge, and set an example, but Frankly, I don't really think that's very feasable for Any of the 2nd tiers, the traffic loss would simply be too tremendous.
I don't really know, at this point, what they've got to lose really, their names are Allready mud, for those that are informed, and Those few that Are Converting the traffic, are like as not to Continue Converting it, allbeit at a substantially Higher Cost, than they could get it for Directly from the source.
I'm currently running a small campaign at goclick, and of the 14 hits I've gotten so far, ALL But 2 point Back to 3rd tier ppc's that are Regularily run at ptr sites. That's an 85.6% ptr traffic ratio, if That tells anyone anything, lol.
I don't Mind the ptr traffic for this Particular campaign, in Fact, it's Ideal, so I Welcome It! Most progs are using a 20 second timer, so the visitors are Forced to view my page for that time, and it's fine with me, Results are actually quite good on that one.
I just think it would be 'nice', if they, and their Partners, would Tell peeps, That's what their traffic consists of.
Advertisers, Aware of the market they are targetting, as has often been pointed out in this forum, are far more likely to run campaigns that Convert, building a Stronger Reputation for the 2nd tier, if in a somewhat 'round-about-fashion', of getting there.
Anyways, perhaps Someone Else here will take up the chalenge, and try asking kanoodle for a reply, or Any 2nd tier for that matter, ONE, should be enough to kinda, um, upset the apple cart, or blow the lid off the whole thing, depending on ones degree of enthusiasm.
Go to ibux it's .net.
Now this is one of these paid to search junkshops I've been tellin ya'll about.
Now, from the popdown menu, Choose Kanoodle.
rofl, NOW, Search for: ibux
enjoy. rofl, they don't 'know' though... ... ...
It's not 'right', what is happening with many of the paid to read sites.
But this OutRight Paid-To-Search, Directly from the 2nd tier, well, that's just plain a slap in the ole kisser of their advertisers.
Kanoodle reps, I Know Danged Well you are Reading this, Shut that DisGrace Down! Even the Vast Majority of those in gpf will NOT be Associated with this Outright Violation of Even Your TOS, Shut It Down! Kan It! Zap It! Before it Finishes what Is left of your reputation.
This MeatGrinder is one of the Highest Paying paidtosearch programs on the internet right now, and it is Growing like the Poison Ivy it IS! Dump some Arsenic mixed with a little sulfuric acid in it's search box, from Your Admin Area, That'll Work.
You will Not get away with this one, I'm Tellin ya. Was a time you Could have, but Not Now, with the new detection software/services available to your advertisers, it's only a matter of time when this ibux Loses Big_Bux for Kanoodle...
lol, now if Everyone in this forum, sent an email to kanoodle, consisting of the body-text:
ibux
Then just hit the send button, Surely to Dear God Someone will get the 'message'.
rofl, I suppose all the kanoodle advertisers could do their 40 searches a day at ibux, and salvage at least 80 Cents per day of their Loses, bidding and clicking on their Own keywords, lol. Rofl, if they'd get some Refs, they could Even Break Even, lol.
Come On Kanoodle, Do me this One Deed, and I Promise I'll keep my trap Shut the Entire remainder of the month of June. ;) Honest!
A Point for Kanoodle on This One!
And they Talked to me... :)
I've re-typed this response three times.
I've looked at your site and advertisers and can only say that I'm unable to say anything constructive without breaking the TOS.
is there a large advertising forum somewhere on the net, where Advertisers would Take the hundreds of thousands of dollars monthly being paid to the ptr industry, from the mid tier ppc providers a bit more seriously?
thanks if anyone can tell me of one.
Yes, I use dmoz for finding content that would normally be hard to find due to spam littered results. (i.e. sex related topics, medicine, gambling, travel, etc)
Yes, I use dmoz for finding content that would normally be hard to find due to spam littered results. (i.e. sex related topics, medicine, gambling, travel, etc)"
Yes I'll give you that Greenleaves. But DMOZ is not a cpc
company,,,which is what my post was about.
