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Sprinks PPC Lost Funds

Watch your selves

         

Conard

9:26 pm on Jun 5, 2001 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



I started an ad project for a client on Sprinks in Feb. this year. We sat on some pretty slow listings untill the middle of May. When we went for the big listings with an account balance of $95.00, the listings lasted only 1 week before we recieved an email about the account balance being low. All of the reports agree with our figures and there should be a balance of $85.00 left to play with. After 6 emails and 1 phone call to their support system we are getting no where....It has been 2 weeks now and we just recieved our first email responce and it said nothing. There have been no listings and no answers. If you have plans on using this service....watch your self very closley.

Brett_Tabke

11:33 pm on Jun 6, 2001 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



There is so much noise about alternative ppc places these days, that I am finding it hard to figure out whom to believe on these issues. From FindWhat, Goto, Bay9, Sprinks, and to those in the UK, there has been such an avalanche of negative posts about various ppc engines. I can't help but think some are "plants". This is the first time I've heard Sprinks having a serious problem like that.

seoboy

7:19 am on Jun 7, 2001 (gmt 0)



without going into details, let me just say that i've had extremely negative experiences with them in the past, bringing a large percentage of their traffic into question. we were spending significant money with them, and i pulled all our campaigns.

long and short of it is that i recommend you carefully watch your sprinks traffic for spiders. my experience is that their filtering of this traffic (for the purposes of billing) is extremely rudimentary. i could go on at length about SIMPLE solutions to the problems i saw, and was astounded that they weren't implementing these filtering techniques. which probably explains why conversion numbers are so poor with them, compared to goto...

if the problems i saw are widespread... well... lets just say its huge. check your logs carefully.

<note>to be fair, our listings may use different techniques that many smaller advertisers (we have advanced tracking tools in place, which may have affected us differently then the average joe-advertiser). however, i'd think that other major advertisers would face problems similar to those we faced.</note>

-seoboy

Mike_Mackin

12:02 pm on Jun 7, 2001 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



My feeling is that Sprinks is still in BETA .
The cookie thing drive me nuts.

Jill

8:49 pm on Jun 7, 2001 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



What other PPC companies would you suggest using aside from GoTo? I have a client that would like to start putting money into this kind of thing and I don't want to steer them wrong.

seoboy

5:26 pm on Jun 8, 2001 (gmt 0)




jill,

well, goto is the game right now, hands down. i think you'll have better options 6 months from now, as the market diversifies (read: larger websites implement their own versions of goto). goto is proving the business model works and is in demand; other companies would be foolish to ignore this.

in the meantime though, i dont know what to tell you. i thought sprinks was the best play, but they've disproven themselves to me. everyone else generates too little traffic to speak of, honestly. there's a tradeoff between effort and results, after all. but if you're going to consider others, stick with the "second tier" - findwhat (deal with excite) and kanoodle (decent distribution with meta-engines). also, try to build synergy between your listings in different engines, and the payoff will be maximized visibility in the "cumulative" metaengines (like metacrawler.com).

best of luck!
seoboy

sprinks

6:55 pm on Jun 11, 2001 (gmt 0)



Dear Conard,

I'm the Executive Producer on Sprinks, and I'm sad to hear about your negative experience. I want to ensure you that we take customer service very seriously. Feel free to shoot me your account information to
feedback@sprinks.com, and I will ensure that
all your concerns are resolved.

Sincerely,
Colette Lagala

Mike_Mackin

7:07 pm on Jun 11, 2001 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Welcome to WmW Colette
Can you tell us if there are any upgrades in the works.
Will there be changes to the user interface for submitting Sprinks bids?
Why is it required to trash cookies when returning to the account or in working with multiple accounts?

angiolo

7:16 pm on Jun 11, 2001 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Hi Colette!

I am a client of Sprinks and I am satisfied with the results! I can adfirm that for us Sprink is fine as Goto and cheaper!

I would ask you why Sprinks doesn't send an email when funds are going to finish!

A tools like the Goto keyword suggestion tool would be appreciated too.

Angiolo

Mike_Mackin

7:24 pm on Jun 11, 2001 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



angiolo:

We get them.

"Dear Sprinks Client:
This is to inform you that your Sprinks balance for the account, xxxxxxx, as of June 7, is low."

sprinks

9:04 pm on Jun 12, 2001 (gmt 0)



Spiders do not index dynamically served pages (which are indicated by a query, or "?", after the URL). Therefore, Sprinks links are not requested by spiders and no charge is passed to the advertiser.

angiolo

9:21 pm on Jun 12, 2001 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Senior Member 10+ Year Member



Hi Mike_Mackin!

> We get them

Probably now they send an email.

I recharged the funds two times after checking my logs!

Now I monitor my account frequently and I had not the opportunity to receive their message.

Angiolo

ppcseuser

1:52 am on Jun 30, 2001 (gmt 0)



We use the following have been very happy with the results:

GoTo.com (the best traffic)
FindWhat.com (the best online systems)
Ah-ha.com (the best customer support)

Boaz

6:18 am on Jul 2, 2001 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Hi Colette, I'll be sending you an email as well. I have already sent an email more than a month ago regarding what quite obviously were clicks I should not have been charged for, but never got any response (except for an automatic message saying I will get a response). Admittedly, I have sent the email to sprinks@about.com , as I wasn't familiar with the feedback email address you mentioned here. Maybe now I'll get a response? :)

littleman

7:33 am on Jul 2, 2001 (gmt 0)




Spiders do not index dynamically served pages (which are indicated by a query, or "?", after the URL). Therefore, Sprinks links are not requested by spiders and no charge is passed to the advertiser.

I am not a Sprinks customer, so I can't speak for your setup. However, many spiders have the capacity to crawl dynamic links. Rouge spiders do this routinely. Dynamic links are a very thin shield against spider hits. Session ID tracking would be a much better approach.

sea

9:57 pm on Jul 4, 2001 (gmt 0)



Wondering...when you sign up with the minimum $100.00 is that all Sprinks can charge you till you authorize more money? Like Google Adwords where you have a preset spending limit.

sprinks

1:47 pm on Jul 9, 2001 (gmt 0)



When you sign up for Sprinks, you will only be charged the amount you enter. You will not be charged for any more than that amount, until and unless you authorize it.

Best,
Colette

legster

8:17 pm on Jul 11, 2001 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Wow thanks for posting here Colette. This just shows that Sprinks cares about support that your willing to visit here. I wish more companies would visit here.

I have avoided Sprinks, and even discouraged a fellow SEO just today from using it because of what I have heard from others. Your posting here goes a long way, and I may even give Sprinks a test run as a result. Thanks. :)

nell

10:52 am on Jul 12, 2001 (gmt 0)

10+ Year Member



Received a bulk e-mail sales pitch this morning signed by Mark Rabe, CEO of Sprinks saying he saw our GoTo listings and offered a $10 bonus if we moved over and signed up with Sprinks before end of July. Below is my reply:

Mark wrote:
"I saw your ad on GoTo, and I couldn’t help but wonder why you weren’t
also advertising on Sprinks. As CEO of Sprinks, I’d like to introduce
you ....................etc., etc
Sign up before July 30, 2001 and receive a $10 credit to your Sprinks account."

We wrote back:
Thanks for your e-mail, Mark.
WE'LL TAKE THE $10.00. Please credit it to our account.

As you can see below, we did sign up for Sprinks with $100.00 BEFORE July 30, 2001. In fact, it was on 3/11/2001 that we did so. Therefore we qualify for your $10 giveaway. (Nothing said about existing customers.)
---------
Sprinks Client Activity Report
03/11/2001
Customer Info
Username: nellbutler

Order DatesAmounts Ordered
2001-03-14 16:45:38100
Total Amount Ordered100

Date BilledAmount Billed
2001-03-14 16:45:38100
Total Amount Billed100
---------------------

Perhaps it would prove less embarassing (and less costly) to check your Sprinks customer status of those to whom you spam with your sales letters. I also speak as a shareholder of Primedia,Inc (NYSE: PRM). concerned with Sprinks management image and its unnecessary waste of resources.

Brett_Tabke

11:09 am on Jul 12, 2001 (gmt 0)

WebmasterWorld Administrator 10+ Year Member Top Contributors Of The Month



Please resolve any disagreements in email.

Sprinks Heather

8:33 pm on Jul 13, 2001 (gmt 0)



Hi!

Due to rapid expansion and efforts to make more people aware of Sprinks, we occasionally trip up while trying to acquire new customers. However, we will certainly credit the $10 to your account as promised by the email.

We're always looking to make improvements to the Sprinks service and welcome your feedback. Feel free to drop me an email (hklein@about-inc.com).

Best,
Heather Klein

grnidone

9:37 pm on Jul 13, 2001 (gmt 0)



Ms. Klein,

Welcome to the forums!

It is not uncommon that we have general questions about PPC topics, and it is nice to see someone from "the other side" of things drop by.

Please drop by more often! We'd love your contribution and expertise.

-Grnidone
PS 'Heather' is *such* a classy name...only the *really* cool people are named 'Heather'