Listing Router...A briefing

A friend here on ActiveRain had some questions about the Listing/Hit Router so I thought I'd post a quick tutorial to help her out and any others that may be wondering how it works....

To sum it up briefly, the Listing Router here on ActiveRain is a essentially a pay-per-click service.  When you click on the hit router link on your home page, you'll see something similar to the following, without the links you see in my screenshot below..

Here you can do one of two things...

1. You can set up a free campain by using the "My Markets" section.
   
2. You can set up a pay campain by using the "Start a new campaign" section.

Following is how you set up a free campaign:

1. Type in a city in the "City" box under the My Markets section.
2. Press the search button.  This will bring up all matches for the city you keyed in (shown below).
3. Click on the city you'd like to select for your local campain.  Here I'll select Carmel, IN.
4. Next you'll need to key in the URL you'd like to send people to, when they search the city you just selected.  For instance, I'll key in http://www.chandasellsindy.com/PropertySearch.html
5. Click the Add Market Button.  This will add your entry to the My Markets section as you see below...

Keep in mind, this is a way to set up a campaign for free.  If a user is visiting your profile and they decide to click on the search bar up at the top and select a city that you've set up in your hit router free campaign, the user will automatically be taken to the link you specified for that city.  See the screen shot below for the search toolbark the user will see.  NOTE: You WILL NOT see this search bar if you are actually logged into activerain. 

Setting up a Pay Campaign involves the same steps except you will start in the "Start a new campaign section".  Once you select your city, you will be prompted for your billing information.  After you complete the billing information, you can set your spending limits as shown below.  You key in your desired Cost Per Click.  They give you a recommended amount but you can select any amount you wish, although they do have a minimum of .49.  In addition to your cost per click, you specify how much you want to spend on a monthly basis.  Once you reach that threshhold your campaign will suspend until the first day of the next month...

Now that you have a pay campaign set up, people will automatically be routed to the links you specified during setup if they perform a search anywhere else on the activerain website.  Keep in mind, it's free if they perform a search in your designated areas within your profile, but you will pay for click if they search anywhere else. 

I would like to say, the one thing I don't like about hit router is the fact that the user is forced to your site if they key in a location you are paying for.  This catches many of the consumers off guard so then they come back and perform the same search again thinking they did something wrong the first time.  I usually get at least two clicks each time someone performs a search.  So technically it's costing me double.  It would be nice if they displayed a results page to allow the user to decide whether or not they wanted to continue on to your site.  It would help keep bounce rates down and paying extra for people that really didn't want to visit your site anyway.  Just my .02.

I know this was a lot of information packed into one post but I hope it will be of some help to you...

Feel free to contact me with any questions you may have!