Advertiser Resources - Going Beyond Google

When we think about using paid search to market our products or services, our predominant focus is often the two major players - Google and Yahoo! (in that order). But the PPC search model has grown to mammoth proportions over the past few years, and companies are putting more and more of their media dollars into search to the point where there's not enough inventory (via number of searches) to go around. This drives up the cost of search for advertisers, and makes the channel less effective due to the glut of ads competing for consumer attention. Let's face it, if there are 12 ads for cell phones in the first page of Google's search results, it's difficult to stand out from the crowd. So what's a marketer to do? Spending media dollars, one click at a time There are a number of smaller, second tier, PPC search engines you can add to your media mix including Enhance Interactive and Quigo is a contextual PPC network which is similar to the Google's content network. You cannot target via keyword on Quigo, you target by category or "channel." Quigo uses a PPC bidding model. Quigo's distribution network is impressive and includes top destination and news sites such as Newsday.com, USAToday.com, Chicago Tribune, marthastewart.com and eDiets.com. Quigo provides advertisers with small budgets a way to get their ads on premium web sites affordably, and it's easy to track ROI since it's a cost per click model. Snap- It seems fitting to end this post with a paid search engine, although Snap.com offers a fascinating new twist to the current paid search model. This is a brand new search engine developed by IdeaLab, the brain child of Bill Gross (founder of GoTo which became Overture and is now Yahoo! Search). Snap.com is different from the Yahoos and Googles of the world because the search results are visual. Advertisers bid on keywords and their ads are displayed beside an image of their landing page (via a split-screen interface). Snap.com is also the first paid search engine to offer ads on a cost per acquisition (CPA) basis. Advertisers define what an acquisition is when they set up their campaign (e.g., registration, newsletter sign up, sale, etc.) Currently there are about 2000 advertisers on Snap.com, so while there may not be a lot of traffic to the site , there also isn't a lot of competition. Tag: Add to Del.icio.us | Digg | Yahoo! My Web | Furl Bookmark murdok: Michael Pedone is the President / CEO of eTrafficJams.com, a search engine optimization and website marketing company http://www.etrafficjams.com> located in Clearwater, Florida that specializes in getting targeted, eager-to-buy traffic to your site. You can catch him blogging at: http://www.etrafficjams.com/blog/>.