You have determined you want a pay per click or cost-per-click campaign; you
have determined how much of your marketing budget to devote to it; and you have
an idea of the keywords you want to use and know the target user/visitor you are
trying to reach.
Where to go depends on many things including the process, reach and target
search engines. To get an idea of some considerations, here’s a look at the three
top dogs – Google AdWords, Overture Pay-for-Performance and LookSmart:
| |
Google AdWords |
Overture |
LookSmart |
| Speed & Ease of Set-Up |
Instant. You set up your account online and within minutes,
your ad appears in the search results. |
There are two options - Express & Self-Serve* - With Express,
it will be 3 business days. With Self-Serve, it will be 3-5 business days. |
After you complete the online form, you will be notified of
your status within 5 business days. Then it can still take several days to appear
in the LookSmart listings. If your submission is rejected you have 30 days to
resubmit after you have made the necessary adjustments to your site or you can
submit a different URL. |
| Start-Up Cost |
$5 & then you're billed monthly after the clicks have
been delivered. |
Express - $199*
Self-Serve - Free
You must also submit a $50 refundable deposit that will be applied to clicks.
|
Consideration to be listed is $49 (not refundable). You must
also pay a $45 refundable deposit to be applied to clicks. |
| Type of Listing |
You appear as a Sponsor listing on the right-hand side of
search results. Your ad is ranked based on the price you bid & your click
through rate (CTR - the number of times your ad is clicked divided by the number
of times your ad is shown). |
Search results are listed in order of bid amount for each
keyword. |
Search results are displayed in order of relevance to the
particular keywords. Everyone pays a flat fee, so you have to be relevant to list
high. |
| Click Cost |
You specify a maximum bid for each keyword and you are never
charged more than a penny more than the next bidder. |
You bid how much you will pay for each keyword. Minimum bid
is 10 cents. |
Each click is a flat fee of 15 cents. |
| Partners |
AOL (USA) & Sympatico.ca.
You can opt-out of appearing on the sponsor pages. |
MSN, Yahoo!, Netscape, Alta Vista & Lycos/Hot Bot + thousands
of other smaller engines and directories. Note: You will only appear in the big
directory partners sponsored listings if your bid is in the top 3. |
MSN, About, Alta Vista, Netscape + thousands of other smaller
engines and directories. |
| Accept Affiliate Links? |
Yes, but you must identify yourself as an affiliate in your
ad. |
Not likely – your site must have original content that you
own and must not redirect to another URL |
Not likely - your site must have original content and must
not redirect to another URL |
| Easy to Change Details? |
All automated online. Changes are in effect within minutes |
All changes made online. They must be approved first, but
this is done within a couple of hours. |
You must submit a change request and there is a fee. |
