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Looking at the eSpotting website and talking to their sales representatives gave me the clear understanding that eSpotting is comparable to their PPC-engines and sponsor listings. They market the product this way:
"By ensuring that your listings appear within our top 3-5 search results, you will benefit from highly targeted leads from Yahoo! UK & Ireland, Lycos, Ask Jeeves, ntl:home, Netscape, UK Plus and Looksmart and many more."
And
"Professionally written listings..."
I assume I am not the only one reading this that will conclude that what I am getting is keyword targeted ads - search results, in the form of sponsor listings, right?
Well, looking at some of the largest sites on the list above show something else. At lycos the eSpotting results do not appear in the default search results (Overture do) but are placed in targeted channels and directory categories. below is a link to the car channel (look for the sponsor links in the top right corner):
[lycos.co.uk...]
I found the original Lycos press release on the latest deal with eSpotting:
[pressroom.lycos.de...]
"The Espotting results will appear in separate areas on the sites of the Lycos channels featured as "Sponsored Links", two above the fold and two below the fold. On the Lycos directory pages three results will appear above the fold. Espotting's listings are generated by Espotting's advertisers who bid for placement under certain topics relevant to their business."
Now, that is how I see it appear on the Lycos website but it seems very different to me from what eSpotting is marketing at their website.
I haven't checked all the other partners in all the contries eSpotting is operating in (have anyone evaluated them all?). I did notice, however, that LookSmart seems to feature the eSpotting results - just like I would expect the results from a PPC-engine to be featured.
Is it just me getting confused here or is eSpotting really not a pure PPC search engine?
I don't care if the channel and directory targeted ads or good or not (maybe they are good) - if it's not keyword targted ads it's just not my business :)
In the UK neither generates much traffic from their own sites but both do though the SE's wwho use their data.
Espotting is Good for UK coverage and their results are in the default results on lycos.co.uk
The deal with Lycos is the only one that is ambiguous. Lycos have been going back and forth between Espotting and Overture UK, so this was a deal to enable both to benefit from it and Lycos to shift more inventory.
The good thing about Espotting is that if you'd prefer to offer pure PPC results then you can tell Espotting that you don't want your ads to be shown on Lycos (or any other partner for that matter).
We found that we could squeeze some extra CTR and ROI out of Espotting by eliminating the search providers/2nd division search providers that don't convert, with the details of what works and what doesn't being provided by our tracking tools.
I'm inclined to agree that the Gold service etc.. is not as good as independant companies might offer. The one benefit Espotting have is access to the historical inventory results, but good keyword research should be well within the scope of someone with experience in this field.
The "Gold Service" is not an E-spotting service - its from a different PPC isn't it?
Correct me if I'm wrong
(paid same as Gold - a month or two ago)
Espotting continues its strategy of looking beyond search to reach the right people at the right time.
I do agree that such ads can be very good at the right price. Howeve, I just like to keep things seperated - keyword targeted ads is one thing - channel and directory targeted ads is another. Those two kinds of advertising needs different strategies to work well. My expertise is search :)
The deal with Lycos was that E-Spotting and it's customers felt that the traffic comming from Lycos was terrible in the sence of CPA if you compared it to other traffic sources where E-Spotting is promoting.
With E-Spotting you have the ability to select on which portals/se you want the listings to appear, and it seems like a lot of customers have removed Lycos from that list due to the bad traffic, it think that's why you see some strange results on Lycos.
Espotting is PPC search engine like Overture, and claim to a bigger market than Overture in Europe (given the Yahoo! deal this seems possible - Spain, Italy, France, Germany and UK).
Epsotting have gone beyond PPC on search, with deals to provide results in some channels/directories on Lycos and destination sites like Kelkoo. ("Espotting continues its strategy of looking beyond search to reach the right people at the right time." as quoted above)
E.g. under the heading "motorcycles" on Kelkoo [kelkoo.co.uk...] it shows results for the word "motorcycle" from Espotting's advertisers (I've noticed it doesn't always show them in exactly the same order, so I guess there is a time lag)
To me this seems a source of relevant traffic - just as consumer who searches for "motorcycles" is relevant to a site selling motorcycles, then a consumer who clicks on a directory link for motorcycles seems like good traffic too.
We all tell clients to pay for directory listings - this just seems a cheaper way of getting listed in them - sometimes on pages where it would otherwise be very expensive and of questionable worth of it's own (like the Lycos directory).
On Looksmart UK, who have their own PPC, Espotting seem to provide a backfill when Looksmart have no advertisers on a term. Traffic from Looksmart is low I find.
Hope that makes it easier for you to assess Espotting. On a related note, has anybody experience of FindWhat in the US for UK terms (e.g. uk shopping etc). Does it have this traffic / does it work?
and claim to a bigger market than Overture in Europe
Has anyone else picked up on the fact that the claim went from 540 million searches down to around 500 million.
I'd be interested to know if the figures are audited by someone like ABC Electronic. For advertisers and affiliates alike this is important information. I think the numbers are right, it's just getting confirmation that they are would be useful when you are trying to sell this concept and service to prospective clients.
On the same note Looksmart UK need to revisit their 60% coverage, Overture in the US need to revisit their 80% all internet users....etc.. etc... You can't get away with claims that are unsubstantiated, so substantiate them!
