Google versus Overture versus Online Yellow Pages

[! !]

:?: Which have you gotten the most:
Clicks from

Orders/Sales/Business from

[Dani]

I'm not too happy with Overture. I just don't like the fact that it takes a few days for them to improve keywords, and I find their entire interface to be very clunky. In addition, there is a $0.10 minimum per click.

I am a heavy AdWords user, and usually pay $0.05 to $0.07 per click. I have conversion tracking setup, and about 10% of those who find DaniWeb via AdWords will register with us.

I have no experience with the Online Yellow Pages. How does it work? Priority listings? I would assume it wouldn't apply to me since I'm not a brick and mortar business.

[! !]

It is the forth largest referral for some Clients' Online Businesses - after
Google Yahoo MSN and tied with AOL
It is also the fourth most popular source of Sales

Superpages appear to be one of the Most Productive - easy to use interface. Some others also give you your own Web page - this provides an extra LINK to your URL and also manages to get on the Search Engines and inherit some of the PageRank of their Company's Homepage.

Many Business Buyers are Opting for the Digital Yellow Pages - as opposed to the Hard Copy, since they are already AT their computers, and do not want to go Looking for That PhoneBook and Turning all those Pages.

[mcamp999]

:?: Which have you gotten the most:
Clicks from

Orders/Sales/Business from

I have found overture to be the best value for money. I also feel more in control.

[Dani]

Eek for overture ... I just don't like the idea of having to wait days before keywords are accepted. Their UI is just sooo slow. And they have a $0.10 minimum as opposed to AdWord's $0.05.

[mcamp999]

Eek for overture ... I just don't like the idea of having to wait days before keywords are accepted. Their UI is just sooo slow. And they have a $0.10 minimum as opposed to AdWord's $0.05.

True, but I found that I got more leads from Overture. In my industry you usually have to pay more than the minimum anyway.

[mcamp999]

Yep, how does online yellow pages work?

[seobook]

all of them are just going to depend on industry and demand.

the nice thing about overture or adwords is that you are not locked into a $500 buy right out of the gate and you can quickly learn from and retest your marketing to make it grow constantly smarter and more effective.

[Page]

Overture is not good. Bordering on SCAM. I consider them to be a scam but they might be good for some people. They took my $50 and refused my keywords after a ten day wait for approval because my site is an "online product or service". And they took another $50 for my "get local" listing even though my business is a brick and mortar physical building, in a business district (not my house), because I offer an online "product or service".

I would steer clear of them. I was under the mistaken assumption that everything advertised on overture was an "online product or service".
And three attempts to cancel seems to have gone into a black hole as I have heard nothing back from them whatsoever after 20 days.

In short, they take your money, refuse totally relevant keywords after a two week wait, but keep your money and do not reply to cancel requests. And they charge a minimum $20 a month, so in 21/2 months my $50 will be used up. I assume I better change card numbers or they will hit it for another $50 when the balance is used up in the $20 a month minimum.

[jewboy]

I'm not too happy with Overture. I just don't like the fact that it takes a few days for them to improve keywords, and I find their entire interface to be very clunky. In addition, there is a $0.10 minimum per click.

I am a heavy AdWords user, and usually pay $0.05 to $0.07 per click. I have conversion tracking setup, and about 10% of those who find DaniWeb via AdWords will register with us.

I have no experience with the Online Yellow Pages. How does it work? Priority listings? I would assume it wouldn't apply to me since I'm not a brick and mortar business.

You are 100% right Dani, it usually does not make sense to pay $.10 per visitor for businesses that generate revenue via advertisements.

However, I've seen higher ROI and conversion rates for e-commerce stores that advertise with Overture versus Adwords for particular campaigns. Keyword prices are usually cheaper, and bidding is slighly less competitive. And don't forget - the Overture network has a huge reach - second only to Adwords.

Online Yellow Pages are following the highly lucrative PPC trend. You do get priority listings if you are the highest bidder on a particular keyword or phrase. They are great for businesses that want more localized traffic than geotracking can offer. PPC via Yellow Pages works great if your goal is to target your particular town/county, etc. Many offer free basic listings, including Verizon Superpages. I don't like that fact that some of the big ones - particularly Verizon Superpages, have highly intrucive PPC ads on top. Learn from Google!

Avi A. Wilensky

[Dani]

I used to always think that people were just picking the wrong keywords. I have a relatively large-scale AdWords campaign going, where I spend quite the hefty sum per day (for a site that relies solely on ad revenue, at least!). I keep my bid at 5 cents and my keywords all run just fine. I tried doing a test one day and upped my CPC to 10 cents! And whoa! What a difference! My ad views and clicks increased nearly five fold! - I had to quickly go right back to 5 cents when my daily charges accrued to nearly $500 after only a few hours. I was also a bit disappointed that the cost per conversion multiplied as well. At least I know it's possible should I ever be in dire need of an unlimited supply of somewhat costly traffic ... and I no longer think that everyone else just doesn't know how to pick the 5 cent keywords - apparently I don't know any better!

[Ted S]

I say more is better! For ScubaBoard I use only a small amount of ppc advertising and not all the time but our most effective campaigns are always from less than major terms with low bids. Obviously a lower min bid is better for this and I prefer the speed of adwords. However, there is a lot of traffic on other sites and I'm not going to miss that. For some of my larger clients Overture and Google are the top of the line (aside from some special niche specific engines). In both cases the return is more related to the keyword than the engine although xyz on google does not always preform as well as it does on overture (or vise versa).

The key to all ppc/yellowpages/advertising efforts is tracking. No, you can't track 100% of the time but I'm always amazed how little effort many people do spend tracking and equally frightening, how little time people spend reading their reports after they implement a campaign. You can spend $0.10 per click or $10.00 per click and make money depending on your site/ model but in either case, if you don't track the campaigns you won't know if you really made anything or not.

[Tapanti]

Definitely AdSense is much better than Overture in most aspects.

- Conversion rates of leads coming from Overture are around 3 or 4 %, while conversion rates of customers coming from AdSense are usually around 15%.

- The minimum CPC is half the minimum CPC in AdSense. For relatively small sites this could represent thousands of dollars and the viability of the whole project at the end of the month.

- New keywords and changes to your existing ads are almost in real time with AdSense. But it can take almost a week to get your keywords and ads approved in Overture, especially when they are "experiencing a delay".

- But the best of all is that in Overture you have to pay top to stay on the top, but with AdSense you can pay low, and still be on the top, as positioning of your ads in AdSense doesn't depend solely on bid amount, but also on average click through rate. So even for highly demanded keywords, if you pay low, but have good ads, that catch the attention of the user and keep a decent CTR, you can stay at least on the first page. I have ads with words that average $7 or $8 for the top payers, and even though I pay $0.05 per click, my ad still shows on the first set of results (positions 1-6), as I have an average CTR of 5%.

Overture is a good source of traffic too, but if you put them one besides the other, AdSense rules without any question.

.

[! !]

Overture now being changed to Yahoo Search Marketing Solutions

But speaking of PPC's - how can one tell how many clicks are actually
Phoney malicious actions by competitors:evil:

Now there is Pay Per Call which basically provides a Micro-site with an 800 number - and you pay if only someone Calls your business via that toll free number

[clifylq]

Hello,

I have read this entire thread and discern that adsense is the way to go. Is this what is called PPC?

Can any of you direct me to a good site to set up an account for either of the recommended i.e. adsense or PPC?

How much can I expect to put up which I assume is a bank of X amount of dollars and what is the time frame from setting up the account to actually getting hits to your site?

What would this forum advise is the best minimal amount for the bank?

Note: I have had this done for me by contract and I think I can do it better myself and save money at the same time.

Your help with this would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for so many questions.
Cliff

[ElementalDistor]

yeah... i dunno. overture is easy to use, and they answer my questions without hassle... but its so expensive sometimes. and I'm really not seeing any traffic from it. I"ll have to try some of these other sites...

[seobook]

>You are 100% right Dani, it usually does not make sense to pay $.10 per visitor for businesses that generate revenue via advertisements.

cost per conversion is all that matters. I pay over $3 a click for some ads.

I have read this entire thread and discern that adsense is the way to go. Is this what is called PPC?

Can any of you direct me to a good site to set up an account for either of the recommended i.e. adsense or PPC?

How much can I expect to put up which I assume is a bank of X amount of dollars and what is the time frame from setting up the account to actually getting hits to your site?

What would this forum advise is the best minimal amount for the bank?

Note: I have had this done for me by contract and I think I can do it better myself and save money at the same time.

Your help with this would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for so many questions.
Cliff

the financial questions really are going to depend on market and business model

http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/ is a good spot to start learning the basics about Google AdWords. keep in mind they want to sell you stuff so they will be giving pro google biased data, but most of the concepts there are fairly solid.

also you probably want to start with content ads off.

[Webvicious]

Online yellowpages are great if you have location specific products or services like florists, movers, or dentists. Superpages, Citysearch, Yellowpages.com are some good ones.

[slklaphake]

The actual yellow page website for Yellow Book seems to be best because the product is best advertised/recognized. Yellow Book is a nation wide phone book and has national recognition - this in turn drives people to YellowBook.com all over the country resulting in large number of UNIQUE visitors to the site.

[Dani]

Superpages is too, no? We have Superpages in my house :)

[slklaphake]

If you Google looking for a national publisher you end up with a bunch of opinion pages... but to Google for Nationwide directories you find both Superpages and YellowBook. We don't have a phone book by Superpages in my house but we do have a Yellow Book. BUT... we are talking about on-line directories...
I tried to look on-line and I only found companies boasting about their own size - no independent sources. It boils down to asking the right questions to the yellow page companies in your target market to decide who will be your best ally.

[Dani]

Huh? I'm confused.

[Dani]

Nevermind ... it's just really late :)

[binohotel]

Google adwords is good enough to bring be traffic, through google network websites they do a nice job to bring you clicks even for little click cost.