Success outside of search?

[PPC]

Currently, our company makes the vast majority of our sales via PPC campaigns and organic search listings. I am looking to branch out into other areas of online marketing but have not found much that looks promising. We have had no success with content targeting, site targeting or banner ads due to low CTR and/or conversion rate. I am wondering if other advertisers are seeing positive ROI in any other marketing channels that are similar to PPC? I will probably set up accounts with the major shopping engines, eBay, Amazon, etc. Is anyone seeing similar results to search at these areas or any other channel? Any help or comments will be appreciated.

[Jonathan Mendez]

Originally Posted by PPC

Currently, our company makes the vast majority of our sales via PPC campaigns and organic search listings. I am looking to branch out into other areas of online marketing but have not found much that looks promising. We have had no success with content targeting, site targeting or banner ads due to low CTR and/or conversion rate. I am wondering if other advertisers are seeing positive ROI in any other marketing channels that are similar to PPC? I will probably set up accounts with the major shopping engines, eBay, Amazon, etc. Is anyone seeing similar results to search at these areas or any other channel? Any help or comments will be appreciated.

Email still works. Try co-branded solo emails offers. Partner with sites that have lots of loyal users who've opted in. I know advertisers that do well with sites like beliefnet. But be careful who you deal with. Get references. Run a test campaign. Probably you could run a test for $5k on a decent site.

Have you tried Yahoo's paid inclusion (SearchSubmitPro)? You can set up a feed. Does pretty well from my experience.

Affiliate programs are also great but require more admin.

[GDMInteractive]

You might also want to consider starting a blog. If done properly, a blog can be a nice compliment to your website helping both in the search engine results and in creating interest in your company and/or products.

[PPC]

Thanks for the replies.

[vayapues]

listings in paid directories can be a great way to go, if the traffic is steady.

Also, the very often over-looked value of inbound links should be a part of what you do.

Inbound links are great for the search engines, but they are even more important from the standpoint of just driving traffic to your site. On average you can expect roughly 1 visitor per day, per inbound link. Some of those links will bring you thousands per day. Best of all, they are completely free, once they are established.

Thus, if you can work up 20,000 or so good inbound links, all coming from websites that are likely to have users interested in your products and services, than you can plan on 20,000 free new visitors every single day.

[deepestblue]

Another idea is to try the free shopping submission sites such as Froogle.