This post is not meant to directly bash or "flame" anyone or any organization in particular. [It is however, intended to generate discussion on past experiences.]
Just out of curiosity, does anyone here use a search engine other than Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask, or Looksmart? I'm willing to bet that 99% of you use one of the search engines that I just mentioned. So this brings me to wonder, why do we feel so inclined to promote ourselves on so many different search engines, when we ourselves are loyal to a small select few? What makes us thing that the people that we are targeting with our online marketing are so different from us? Chances are, they use the same search engines that we do.
Here is some food for thought:
Why is it that the smaller PPC search engine sites give more prominence to their PPC programs than they do to the features of their search engine? It makes you wonder who the real "client" is. When the PPC is given more prominence than the search engine itself, it makes you wonder who they are targeting.
This brings me to my next point: Targeting. Any Marketing 101 Class should tell you that the most important thing in Advertising is reaching your Target Market. How exactly do these smaller PPC sites do that? It seems that they are targeting us, the advertisers, moreso than the audience we are trying to attract.
If you read the smaller print, you'll see that some of these smaller sites use affiliate marketing. This might sound ok at first - but that means you really have no control over where your ad appears. What if a member of hte affiliate program has a site that consists mainly of links? Did you know that your search engine rating actually goes down if you have links leading to your site from pages like this?
Just my two cents.......
Carolyn Budreski
Marketing Specialist for Rob Johnstone
Re/Max Real Estate Mountain View
(Calgary AB)
Comments(2)