Inktomi/Looksmart/msn conversion rates vs. others

Do inktomi/looksmart/msn traffic have a lower conversion rate?

[sichen1234]

Have you found the conversion rate from inktomi and looksmart (and hence msn search) to be much lower than from other sources? I have seen this on our site, both from the traffic from their fixed fee paid inclusion programs and their directed feed programs, as compared to straight overture pay-per-clicks. Has anyone else found this to be the case? Does anyone have any theories why this might be?

[minnapple]

Inktomi delivers good conversion rates as long as you are targetting search terms that have a good conversion rate.

LookSmart delivers good conversion rates as long as you are targetting search terms that have a good conversion rate.
Non-targetted traffic can be a issue with LookSmart.

Overall Inktomi conversions are twice as high as google conversions on a bulk of my sites.

Not to say google does not generate sales, it just brings in alot of non-targetted traffic. This lowers it's overall conversion rate.

Minnapple

[skibum]

MSN conversion rates tend to be good for consumer products. The conversion rate will, of course, depend if it is calculated based on the traffic a certian directory charges you for or the traffic you actually get which is usually much less.

[Fischerlaender]

minnapple wrote:

Not to say google does not generate sales, it just brings in alot of non-targetted traffic.

The same here. I was so happy about the high CTR of my Google Adwords until I examined how many of those visitors were buying: nearly none. Other sources bring better targeted traffic, but Google's market share in Germany is more than 70 percent, so I have to get by with Google.

[x3nos]

I am currently working on an investigation with Google vs Overture Paid Listings. I had Google AdWords off for three days and Overture listings on and now have AdWords on and Overture off. Will be looking at a comparison involving ROI, cost, and effective targeting of same keyword results on the two. My initial feelings are that Google is on it's way out (I have been a Googler for years and this no way affects my personal position, however from a business standpoint, AOL has been out for awhile, MSN fell out for a bit while Google took the limelight and MSN is on it's way back in along with Inktomi)

So far I can say that Overture returns equal or better ROI for much less cost, where Google costs 333% more for same keywords and returns 33% of the ROI and number of conversions. In my opinion, when Google changed their algo last year and incorporated AdWords, they were playing out of their league. Yeah, PPC is a neccesary evil, but Google should of left it to the megajerk corps to swim in the shark tank.

Thats my take. Tell me I'm wrong.

[neophene]

I've always found visitors from MSN to be better consumers no matter what the keyword targeting.

I include the original referring URL with every order so i know where my sale came from. What keywords are the better sellers etc..

My theory (though totally unsupported) is simply that there are more newer users using MSN because they don't know how to change there homepage.

I find new internet users more eager to whip out the plastic on unknown sites the first time. Where as, an experienced user (which i find most googlers are) when compared to msn users skill level will shop around.

Just my take of what i've seen over years, not at all gospel.

Cheers

Brendon

[x3nos]

neophene: good observation. wheras my bread and butter client sells a large ticket service that is personal in nature as opposed to most emarketing which is online shopping for several small ticket items, we have to be specific as to which markets we are entering and to what demographic our hits are coming from. Although, I concur that in our offerings via the internet, we do receive a better conversion rate from those that contact us coming from MSN, and as for our involvement in PPC between Adwords (Google) and Overture (Primarily MSN) we see more action on the Overture side of things and a much more cost effective solution to driving traffic and conversions.

I am of the opinion that gut instinct and trial and error are better ways in the formulation of an online marketing strategy than all the logfiles and all the hits in the world.

x3nos