Talk Turkey

[Rungreen]

Ok,

Looking for new options for PPC and ad spending.

I want to know where you folks have experienced the best conversion rate in your paid advertising.

To get the ball rolling: we get the MOST conversions from Google PPC, but the better CPC conversion comes from Yahoo Searchmarketing.

In my experience, Yahoo Shopping, Shopzilla, Shopping.com, Ask.com were below average- 2% or lower. Shopping.com was prob the best of these.

Whatcha got???

[GoldenEagleOutdoors]

You could try sites more related to your market.

I've seen ads on Nascar.com and other sites that are not google adsense ads, its worth a shot.

[cekman]

Not sure what to tell you other than about 4-6 months ago I turned off my Google PPC ads and kept my Yahoo and MSN. I was paying $600-$900 per month on Google.

Since then my sales have really gone down - but my PROFITS are about the same. So - I'm working less for almost the same amount of money.

Still depressing to see the sales plummet - but the bottom line defines it all.

The absolute best bang for the buck for me is direct email marketing - I use Constant Contact. Huge return for the $45 a month I pay.

I look forward to reading other comments.

BTW - have any of you looked into Project Wonderful where you bid to advertise on blogs???

[rrw]

We did the exact same thing as cekman--only we were spending several thousand a month on Google PPC. Our sales too have dropped way off, but our bottom line has remained the same. It was scary at first, however, to see the slowdown!

[yourcablestore.com]

Instead of dropping Google PPC you might try lowering your bids. I usually find when the CPC is really high it is because one or two keywords have a bid that is too high (i.e. there are lots of views and clicks for the keywords but no conversions). If you lower your bid on those keywords it should bring your spending down and your CPC back to something acceptable. The big thing to remember is that you don't have to have a high bid to get traffic and traffic itself is irrelevant it is traffic that converts (and that converts at a reasonable price) that matters.

[Rungreen]

Has anyone noticed how much less traffic there is with Yahoo?

It's simply stunning. On some of the keywords, we're at the #1 position, and paying less than 1/2 of what we used to. Even then, the driven traffic is VERY sporadic. I can't even get more with more money.

Google is less, too, dollar-wise.

[yourcablestore.com]

I have noticed the same thing. Yahoo is still worth the effort since all you have to do is copy your adwords ads over to Yahoo it takes very little effort to setup. Just watch your cost per click and cost per conversion. Even with the lower levels of traffic you can burn thu a lot of money with Yahoo and get nothing out of it.

[BROIMarketing]

Hello,

You may know of my company. If not, many 3dCart clients do. We are a marketing partner with 3Dcart.
http://www.3dcart.com/beyond-roi-shopping-cart.htm

As part of our partnership, we have agreed to provide 3dCart with our insights for their clients. We specialize in performance based marketing so I can most likely point you in the right direction.

On your question with Conversion Rates, you are not alone for the most part. Google is 27% higher CPC then Yahoo! usually and also Yahoo! tends to generate a more favorable "buyer" demographic. I certainly hope that you are utilizing MSN / Bing Ads.. This has show the highest ROI out of the paid search campaigns. Again, not as many conversions but very profitable.

Because buyers are becoming more frugal, we are also seeing better returns from CSE's (comparative shopping engines). All of this depends on your individual products, profit margins, selling points and the competitiveness of your pricing.

If you have some free time, give me a call at 954-374-2003 and I will have an evaluation put together for you as well as recommendations.