Are Small PPC Search Engines Really Worth The Effort?

The final answer is "Maybe."

Hey...Whadya expect? I'm an attorney!

But let me explain further. The correct answer to almost any marketing question is "to test." That's the only way you really know the true answer. But we can learn from the results that others have and adapt them to our marketing.

When it comes to PPC (pay-per-click) search engines, you know they are not all created equal. Google and Overture dominate the market. The total traffic you get from them will dwarf the total from all other PPC search engines combined.

But does that mean that there's no money in the little guys? Au Contraire. (That's the fancy French way of saying, "No." -- and I probably missspelllled it. It's been long time since my high school French class.)

Before I give you some suggestions, please realize that your results are going to vary - always.

Here's the most important point of this entire article:

Your conversion rate will vary from search engine to search engine. A lot. By as much as 300%.

You can run an advertisement on Google and get a 2% conversion ratio of visitors turning into buyers. Then, run the same advertisement on Overture and only see a 1% conversion ratio. Always...always track your promotions and results. They'll be all over the place in terms of conversion.

Does that mean you should stop the ads with the lower conversion ratio?

Absolutely not...unless you're not showing a profit. Aha. Remember, it doesn't matter that the conversion ratio varies as long as you make a profit!

Let's assume you foolishly have no backend marketing in place so the only money you ever see from a customer is on the one- time sale that has a profit of $30 per sale. And you require at least a $15 profit to you after costs. with a 1% conversion ratio, you can pay 15 cents per click and still make your numbers work. You'll get less clicks than if you bid higher, but you can still make the numbers work for you.

Of course, every PPC campaign you get set up and running profitably can be basically put on autopilot. You don't have to micro-manage the campaigns. Just let them keep on bringing in buyers.

You will generally find that the smaller PPC search engines have lower conversion rates than the big two. But they will also usually have a lower average bid.

Just track your clicks and sales so you can adjust your bids to make your numbers work. Even if a specific campaign only results in 1 more profitable sale per month - that's a sale that can keep coming in month after month after month. Do that for just 50 or 100 keyword and search engine combos... and you've got some nice extra moolah rolling in.

If you go to http://www.ShawnsNews.net/ListPPC_SE.html you can get an enormous listing of over 600 PPC search engines and read reviews of the top 30 - more or less. You also find that these listings are often somewhat out of date, but it's a still a good resource.

Yours in success,

Shawn Casey