There’s a lot more to search marketing and PPC than just Google AdWords, Yahoo Panama, and MS adCenter. Even though these “Big 3″ account for a vast majority of the traffic available, there’s still plenty of traffic on 2nd tier engines and other programs that the big engines offer. For some reason many of the conversations I’ve had with other search marketers involves them talking down about these programs. I think to myself “fine…stay away from them! Less competition for me.” Less competition means lower costs per click. Lower click costs means lower costs per sales. Lower costs per sales means more money in the pocket, and isn’t that the entire point?
To help navigate the options out there I’ve created a list of 14 traffic sources that charge on a CPC basis that you might not be familiar with. Check them out. Do some research. Run some tests. If they work, great! If not, close the account and move on.
Full Disclosure: I was not compensated in any way for the mentioning of any of the listed platforms. Their mentioning in no way acts as a guarantee of performance, and any tests run should be done so with a separate test budget that won’t interfere with what is already working for you.
Now that the disclosure is out of the way, let’s get on with the list!
Paid Inclusion is one of the unintentionally best kept secrets of Yahoo. The service allows advertisers to have paid ads included in the natural organic listings. They look and feel exactly like organic listings, with only one way to detect them by a redirect link:
The only way to tell this Nextag link is sponsored is by looking for the RDRW1 seen after the double-asterisks toward the end of the link when you hover the mouse over the link. Another sign of an ad is the fact that the language in the description has a strong call to action and a bit too salesy for my taste. Regardless of my opinions, paid inclusion is an excellent way to get more SERP real estate on Yahoo to get traffic to your site. The upside is the CPC is flat-rate based on the category Yahoo assigns you. It varies from $0.10-$1.00. The biggest downsides are that there is no built-in tracking beyond simple clicks and cost figures, and not everyone can take part. Yahoo is looking for eCommerce sites with a deep catalog of products that can be included. For those who don’t qualify for paid inclusion, there is Search Submit Express. It’s free, but does little more than to tell Yahoo your website exists.
2nd Tier Engines
People write off lower-volume engines too quickly. Just as there is a long-tail with keywords, I think the there is a long tail with search engines and other media channels. Here are a couple of the engines that make up the larger part of the tail:
- Business.com: Primarily intended for business-to-business sales, I’ve had some success with using it for consumer sites targeting bulk purchasers
- Thomas.net: Ideal for industrial-based searches like machinery hardware, manufacturing, commodities, engineering, etc. If you sell to those types of companies, you should be here.
- Looksmart: It has a lot of the same features as the big 3, but less competition means cheaper CPCs. Their content network has always performed reasonably well for me.
Shopping Channels
If you sell products on your site, try submitting a limited feed of your highest margin and/or best selling products to some of the shopping feeds:
Each of the links above will take you to an account sign-up page or info page.
Content Advertising
Just as Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft all have content networks, there are companies that do nothing but targeted PPC content-based ads. Here are a couple good content networks that you can buy links from to get traffic from all corners of the web:
- Miva: It’s been around for quite a while, but Miva is a solid source of two content networks: One is the typical content network we’re all familiar with, and the other is a vertical network where you can limit the sites to specific industries or topics.
- Quigo: Quigo hosts AdSonar, which allows you to advertise on any number of special interest or local interest via paid links in local newspapers, online news sites, and many others. CTRs are typically very low, but it’s great if you’re building a TOMA campaign.
- Industry Brains: Industry Brains manages PPC links on hundreds of well known sites across the net. I love how their character limits allow for some detail, but refrain from the limit and keep it as brief as possible. Many of their other advertisers typically use all of the space, so by keeping your ads short, you’ll stand out due to a white space buffer.
Don’t be suckered into only going with Google because they have 70% of the PPC market. Even though Google is my largest source of traffic from a single site, I have been able to diversify my traffic using many of these sites and platforms. It increases volume, decreases risk, and often have less competition.
Article source - http://www.serpzone.com/alterternate-ppc-traffic-sources/
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