| LED Digest 1850: The PPC ROI, False Clicks, and Web Stats |
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================================================== The LED Digest Moderated Discussion List "Effective Online Advertising, Since 1997" pair Networks: The LED's Web Host Hosting and Domain Reg. from a Trusted Leader pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains ================================================== List Moderator: Published by: Adam Audette LED Digest adam,led-digest.com http://www.led-digest.com ................................................ August 4, 2004 Issue #1850 ................................................ .....IN THIS DIGEST..... ====== NEW ====================== <Moderator Comment> --== Inktomi / Yahoo? ==-- ~ Charles Bennett "I am wondering if anyone else has received the renewal from Inktomi/Yahoo and what the verdict is." ==== CONTINUING ================= --== Click-Thru Discrepancies ==-- ~ Scott Marino "We now know exactly how much each keyword is earning for us." ~ D Penn "Has anyone found a good source for information that is consistently reliable?" --== Part Simple, Part Industrial Stats Programs ==-- ~ Lanell Grant "I believe you should have a look at Urchin..." ~ Terry Riley "Now we use Smart Tracking..." ~ Dirk van der Werff "...thanks for the suggestions for stats packages..." ==== BILLBOARD =================== --== Removing a IE Hijacker ==-- ~ Bill Davison --== Affiliate Links in Sig Files? ==-- ~ Steve Pronger ======= NEW ====================================== <Moderator Comment> Greetings, Well, I did it. I got married. I am now officially history ;-). It was an amazing experience, and probably the best wedding I've ever been to if I do say so myself :-) Remember that we're on our new summer schedule now -- Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Hope things are well with you. -Adam | adam, led-digest.com ------------------------ From: Charles Bennett Subject: Inktomi I am wondering if anyone else has received the renewal from Inktomi / Yahoo and what the verdict is. I used to receive wonderful traffic from Inktomi but very little since the takeover. I am reluctant to pay an annual 'review' fee based on the URLs PLUS a click through fee whenever someone clicks on a page. For a small business, it could easily turn into thousands of dollars a month. Easily without sales. Any thoughts and opinions? Charles Bennett ===== CONTINUING ================================= From: Scott Marino Subject: Click disparities > ... I have fair numbers of visitors to my sites and considerably > high conversion rates, and I am a total convert and a non-believer > in PPC. If something aint working for you, I suggest you drop > them, no point wasting money for something which isnt working... - Eddie Teo, LED 1849 That's an awfully closed minded approach. Perhaps you never used the tools (or wrote one's for yourself) to properly manage your PPC. I too was spending ever increasing amounts on PPC and was not seeing the results. Our shopping cart had a built-in affiliate program so I decided to use that to track the ROI on the most active keywords. It recorded a unique ID assigned to each keyword in the incoming click in a cookie. Then looked for the cookie during checkout and logged the ID along with the date and sale amount. A load of the log files into MS-Access (you could also use Excel) and I could generate a report and compare the amount spent by keyword to the amount earned. There were some eye-openers. When you spend $300 to make a $20 sale, there is a problem. I dropped my bids on many keywords that were unproductive, and upped my bids on others. We now know exactly how much each keyword is earning for us. We cut our PPC spending in half and tripled sales the PPC was generating in a matter of 2 months. Google and Overture have since written these tools for you, so you can plug in a little code on your check-out page and track the conversions right in those tools. PPC works extremely well when you can monitor the results. I have found Google, Overture and FindWhat to be fair and honest. I can't say much about the smaller PPC engines as I did not have favorable conversions with them Scott Marino www.webundies.com ------- new post - same topic ------- From: D Penn Subject: Click disparities Very interested in what Eddie Teo had to say about PPC's. However, we've found that a lot of companies that promise to optimise the site and "guarantee" search placements are here-today-gone-tomorrow cowboys. And so many of the sites providing advice provide conflicting information on the best way forward. Has anyone found a good source for information / assistance that is consistently reliable? D Penn Aardvarkstore.com ------- new post - new topic --------- From: Lanell Grant Subject: Stats > Can you guys point me in the direction of your favourite, > easy to understand, graphical... webstats package - Dirk van der Werff, LED 1848 Hi Sandy, I believe you should have a look at Urchin and one of the hosting outfits that offer Urchin and the tracking capability as an option. Simple stats packages, no matter how varied the output options, can not compare with the quality and accuracy of using session cookies and the resolution of IPs that change even during a single page loading. Have a look at www.helpinghost.com as an example of a host that offers Urchin for $2 per month as an option. You will quickly have a brand new understanding of your "visitors". I am not involved with Urchin or helpinghost. Lanell Grant E Diamond and others.. ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Terry Riley Subject: Stats We've gone the free statistics route and were pleased with what one could get for free. But as our sites grew -- and as free stats were replaced by paying programs -- we looked for alternatives. Now we use Smart Tracking (http://www.s-tracking.com). We like the convenience (you don't have to put a different code on each new page) and feel that the sliding payment scale for the service is fair and reasonable for a small business like ours. Terry Riley. PhD, Principal www.appliedpsychology.com ------- new post - same topic -------- From: Dirk van der Werff Subject: Stats .. thanks for the suggestions for stats packages that are good and graphical for small businesses... I have it narrowed down to: http://www.opentracker.net/ http://www.hitslink.com http://freestats.com/ .. any users have any comments? Dirk van der Werff http://www.plants-magazine.com/ ==== BILLBOARD ==================================== From: Bill Davison Subject: IE hijacker > ... IE seems to be diverting and showing a > screen of gocybersearch.com everytime I use it. - Thomas Yoon, LED 1847 Two utilities contained on my freeware site pertain to browser hijacking. Although this originally was established for my clients - all are welcome to use it. The URL is: http://www.freewarebiz.com Bill Davison bizwebpage.com ------- new post - new topic ------- From: Steve Pronger Subject: Affiliate links in sigs > I'm going to go a little bit crazy and start allowing up to > 2 URLs in your sig file. I'll still need to trim things a bit > here and there, but I'll try not to butcher it too badly. > This summer only... - Adam, LED 1848 Just wondering Adam, does this mean you will allow an affiliate link as well as a regular URL? I know I've thrown in the odd affiliate link in the past (only when on-topic) and it's been replaced by the direct URL. Is this because of the one URL rule or are affiliate links just not allowed? What do LEDers think about affiliate links? Steve Pronger http://www.stevepronger.com [My inclination is to say no, since it would conflict with our policy of not allowing affiliate links. I'm open to your thoughts though. -adam] ------------------------------------------------------- The LED Digest is sponsored by pair Networks: pair.com for Hosting | pairNIC.com for Domains Copyright 1995-2004 Adam Audette. All Rights Reserved. ----------------------------------------------------------------- "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love." - Corinthians |
