E-Spotting, whats the score

[trickdog]

Hi Currently i am advertising with Google and Overture UK and i have come across E-Spotting.com as another potential source of advertising.

To begin with I was interested in the bronze service but with the minimum £100 deposit fee i wanted to find out your feedback on its service as i know next to nothing about them?

Cheers

[hurlimann]

Good for UK market coverage. £ 100 doesnt last long in many cases.

Like all of them the fraud protection is less than brilliant.

[Shakil]

Espotting is EXCELLENT for reach into Yahoo and Ask Jeeves.

although I am very concerned with some of their other "1 page" partners, where high level of fraud is possible.

Shak

[Dino_M]

Excellent customer services, good UK coverage, more expensive than looksmart.

[trickdog]

i take it by fraud you mean people clicking repetitively on your link, why is fraud on e-spotting worse than say google or overture?

[Shakil]

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i take it by fraud you mean people clicking repetitively on your link, why is fraud on e-spotting worse than say google or overture?
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The above related to the low quality of some of their partners, one page sites which have been up a day or two, suddenly start sending you lots of traffic (which never converts) and considering these partners get anything upto 40% of the Click-Price.

You can see what I mean, I am sure Jim from WebDiversity will be able to enlighten you a bit more.

Shak

[veritysystems]

For me good, cheap traffic. Many clicks at 5p a time.

[webdiversity]

Espotting have got some very good headline traffic delivery partners (Yahoo (UK), Ask Jeeves (UK), Looksmart and their syndicated partners (backfill when nobody bidding on Bidsmart), but there are also some as Shakil says that deliver traffic of questionable quality, with all the classic hallmarks of click spam.

To be fair though, you can name affiliate partners that you would prefer not to receive traffic from. But you do have to be specific, and often you will find the partner appear under a different name.

The most important thing to do though is to implement some industrial strength tracking, monitor the results over time and then make your decision on whether it is worthwhile or not.

There are 3 "packages" sold, two have some editorial process as part of the deal, the other one (Bronze) is £99 plus VAT with £89 going towards traffic.

The other thing to note is that Espotting sell plurals and singulars seperate, so bid on both "widget" and "widgets".

We've got some great results from Espotting for clients, but in some instances it's not been at all easy to achieve. The "Make Me Top" facility (is that one of Barry's trademarks?) means you do get some silly bidding wars fuelled, and it's normally between two advertisers who signed up via the Espotting instigated campaigns, so work that one out! That being said, there is still some good inventory available at great value, if you dig deep and sift.

[hurlimann]

>why is fraud on e-spotting worse than say google or overture?

I didn't say that: I said "Like all of them the fraud protection is less than brilliant"

We ran tests on all three and all three failed badly.

The one page spivs Shakil refers to know doubt exploit this.

Don't let this put you off using espotting, adwords or overture just keep an eye on your logs.

[TomWaits]

eSpotting gives us better coverage in the UK than Overture UK. We use both though. We spend about the same on both but get better results at eSpotting.

[makemetop]

>The "Make Me Top" facility...

Such flattery :) And, yes - I gave them a copy of my trademark certification.

Seriously, Espotting give good coverage and some decent traffic and I recommend them (along with Overture and BidSmart) to all clients. As said before, watch the lesser known affiliates ;)