Its Official: Jeeves PPC Coming to SERPs Near You

[rustybrick]

Everyone is buzzing about it now, here is the Yahoo! AP article Ask Jeeves Launches Advertising Network.

Here is a good quote as to the "why"...

Diller views Ask Jeeves as the glue that will help bind together IAC's eclectic mix of Web sites, including Ticketmaster.com, Match.com and LendingTree.com. IAC recently spun off online travel agency Expedia.com and several related Web sites into a separate company, but Ask Jeeves is widely expected to be integrated into those properties, too, since Diller retained a major stake in those operations.

Here is an embarrassing quote, which was probably taken out of context.

Chris Bowler, media director of online advertising firm Agency.com, doubts Google will feel too threatened, based on his preview of Ask Jeeves' system. "Ask Jeeves isn't presenting anything new: it's a copycat service," he said.

I am actually excited to see how they roll this out. AJ is far from a copycat company, IMO. So lets see what unique ideas they bring to the PPC game.

[dannysullivan]

New Ask Jeeves Sponsored Listings Program Lets More Advertisers Buy Direct from SearchDay today also has coverage.

[Shoko]

just a thought,

1. if this world is going more and more towards niche marketing, where small, vertical sites are winning the eyeballs - then AJ made a good move. in the long term they will make more money

on the other hand

2. if we are going more and more towards consolidation and merging of small companies into the big players, then AJ are going to find the hard way they were better off with Google adwords.

I personally, thinks it hard enough to manage adwords campaign in Yahoo! and Google as it is. Especially when you have hundreds of keywords in dozens of different ad groups...

Handling one more ?! well, I might just drop that and convince my client its not worth it.

if this will happen.. AJ might be better off with Google....
...too late now... ha ?!

[rustybrick]

Who said PPC management should be easy.

[AussieWebmaster]

I hate to say this but I hope the conversion is better than the branded response we still run as a loss leader!!!

[RepairGuru]

We are a very large PPC advertiser and tried an Ask Jeeves Premium Listings campaign in June 05. The results were very poor. Before signing the contract we required a 30 day out-clause. Good thing we did, we ended up paying 4 times as much per conversion as we do with either Google or Yahoo (Overture). The lesson for us? Ask traffic is not nearly as valuable, in our space, as its larger competitors. We'll still try a sponsored listings campaign, we just won't be willing to pay much. This experience also helps me realize Ask traffic through my Google ads hasn't been worth very much either. If Google were to split out the traffic from Ask many of us advertisers probably would have abandoned Ask some time ago.

[sebastian]

PPC is going to price itself out of the game. It's a temporary strategy that we should utilize now on the major engines, but be planning for "what's next" as well.

Advertisers cannot continue to pay more and more for PPC. In my four years of PPC advertising, I have seen costs skyrocket and while we are still making sales using PPC, eventually click fraud, media contests, affliations and plethora of other "click situations" will make ROI almost nonexistent.

Eventually advertisers will begin looking for a better solution. Something with stronger, more reliable measurement. In my opinion, this is called PAY PER ACQUISITION.

With PPA {pay per acquisition} you only pay when you have made a sale. To me, this is a no-brainer. No click fraud. No competitor crap clicks. No contests nor affliate clicking would matter.

The only true judge of success is a measurable and concrete end result be it a newsletter signup, a widget sale or a request for information.

PPA is already here in a limited capacity and really most affliate deals are PPA in nature ...but when the big traffic pushers can offer us PPA, that will be the turning point for Internet advertising.

Keeps everybody honest.

Someday we will all look back, as we do with high priced banner ads sold on impression, and say "wow man - I can't believe we used to pay for any click regardless of source or outcome"

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by RepairGuru

We are a very large PPC advertiser and tried an Ask Jeeves Premium Listings campaign in June 05. The results were very poor. Before signing the contract we required a 30 day out-clause. Good thing we did, we ended up paying 4 times as much per conversion as we do with either Google or Yahoo (Overture). The lesson for us? Ask traffic is not nearly as valuable, in our space, as its larger competitors. We'll still try a sponsored listings campaign, we just won't be willing to pay much. This experience also helps me realize Ask traffic through my Google ads hasn't been worth very much either. If Google were to split out the traffic from Ask many of us advertisers probably would have abandoned Ask some time ago.

There is that ability to do that now....

[Jeff Martin]

Originally Posted by sebastian

With PPA {pay per acquisition} you only pay when you have made a sale. To me, this is a no-brainer. No click fraud. No competitor crap clicks.

While Im in favor of a PPA model I think it would be slow adapting to the big PPC networks. I say this not just because of the time/expense it would take to overhaul the complex and intricate systems in place now, but also because the current perceived loss of revenue. How much of G's billions would dry up on a PPA model?

This would allow advertiser to set a specific price based on the profit margins and might help advertisers from getting into bidding wars or letting their ego of being at the top get the better of them. The CPA model is a definate plus for the advertiser.

Maybe the architecture of PPA would change if more widely adapted. After all G, Y!, MSN and now Ask will want to make sure they are getting their due cut.

[sebastian]

the current perceived loss of revenue. How much of G's billions would dry up on a PPA model?

Exactly. And that should scare you. It's a round-a-bout admittance that PPC is a cash cow for engines regardless of return. For every success story in PPC there are hundreds of companies slammed with huge PPC bills that were either unexpected or due to Internet conditons that do not even understand. (like click fraud and contesting and affliate clicking)

In other words, the engines make money - a lot of money - off of activity that couldn't possibly drive a sale nor even equate to genuine interest in the advertisers products. They know this and it's part of the strategy. It's a numbers game - just like banner ads sold on impressions was - It's a forecast of how long will the market endure these costs to make sales? How long can we keep charging them more and more each month before they start to drop off?

There is a threshold which I guess is the basis of captialism. Eventually, we'll all wise up and think, "damn ...I am dropping some serious money on this pseudo-tackable product and I need something better"

BUT, none of this PPA will come to fruition as long as we continue to embrace our beloved PPC and continue to buy into brand infatuation. If you are a Google customer you have most definitly received the cute little notebooks, pens, Google backpacks, t-shirts, radios and plethora of goodies they send out. They want to turn their users, advertisers and customers into Google adjourning brand lovers.

Think about it. There is one in every office. That girl or guy with the google paraphenalia hanging up everywhere, always bragging about owning Google stock (usually a whopping 10 shares or so...) and pretty much trying so hard to associate with the hip, trendy brand that they lose site of the fact that Google.com, behind the cutesy and periodic artwork, is a business and a public business at that absolutely dead set on turning a massive profit.

These aren't the people you see. This isn't the brand image that they like to exhibit ...but look at your logs. Look at your spend over time. Look at your sales. Have you grown as much as Google has? No? ...didn't think so.

Rambling a bit here, but the point is PPA is not only the best and most fair solution in Internet Marketing - It's also the most measurable - creating a true level playing field between the advertiser and media.

[RepairGuru]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

There is that ability to do that now....

I've been told by our account rep that they don't break out traffic by source in a way that's available to advertisers. Would you explain what you mean? Thanks.

[AussieWebmaster]

Originally Posted by RepairGuru

I've been told by our account rep that they don't break out traffic by source in a way that's available to advertisers. Would you explain what you mean? Thanks.

I was referring to content. You can exclude publishers in that area.

[RepairGuru]

OK, thanks for the clarification. I opted out of all content matching for Google and Yahoo long ago due to poor conversion rates. I don't know whether Yahoo's new system will help but we're looking in to it.

[Shoko]

Originally Posted by sebastian

Eventually advertisers will begin looking for a better solution. Something with stronger, more reliable measurement. In my opinion, this is called PAY PER ACQUISITION.

With PPA {pay per acquisition} you only pay when you have made a sale. To me, this is a no-brainer. No click fraud...

... that will be the turning point for Internet advertising...

"

PPA cannot be the answer to PPC frauds and ROI problems.
In a perfect world, with perfect sites and marketing people, when you know each site and each landing page is maximizing the potential to convert prospects into buyers - your suggestions will be great.

But the truth is that most of the site has very poor landing page, and lots of misconceptions on how surfers walkthrough their site.
In almost every project we did (and we are doing mostly large corporations in Israel), I hardly had any company that actually had someone going through its Webtrend (or any other stat. software) reports and then DOING something about it.

You cannot expect the traffic seller (e.g. SE or Content Site) to be responsible for conversion into money which is also influenced by Usability, Landing Page, PRICING (!)etc…
…and since Marketing is not a "clear cut" methodology and its not a "Science",
And since every marketing person (including me) think they have the right answer how to increase ROI and reduce PPA....
I don’t see any way these two sides of the equation agree on anything regarding PPA.

As a SEM expert –You can say I am also a kind of a traffic reseller. Its my job to bring more quality traffic to my customers site. So why shouldn’t I work also on “Success Fee”?
Well, I am not willing to earn less for my efforts, just because my client has a poor pricing policy, poor landing page etc.
Unfortunately, in the real world, not all our clients agree to give us full control of the way their site is looking and the way their landing page are designed.

I don’t think PPA is the way to “normalized” CPC or handle click frauds.
Eventually, the market itself will balance prices. (part of the problem of high pricing is that hi bidders don’t have a clue about their PPA!)
About the frauds: maybe if someone would take it more seriously and we will have law enforcement here as well as in any other fraud in the real world, people will think twice before they do that.

flying tomorrow to SES,

See you all there

Shoko

[AussieWebmaster]

I don’t think PPA is the way to “normalized” CPC or handle click frauds.
Eventually, the market itself will balance prices. (part of the problem of high pricing is that hi bidders don’t have a clue about their PPA!)
About the frauds: maybe if someone would take it more seriously and we will have law enforcement here as well as in any other fraud in the real world, people will think twice before they do that.

Though there are a certain number of high bidders that do not know their PPA - the majority do. You can't be spending that type of money without some tracking and ROI analysis especially now that the major engines offer it for free.
I have been dealing in a high bid area for three years and in the beginning had the edge as I used thorough tracking while others didn't.
I agree that there needs to be more strict consequences to click frauders - but until we start getting phone bill like invoices with IP info etc. it becomes moot.
Though you can track income IPs it is a much bigger undertaking when ytou are dealing with millions of visitors a month.

[Shoko]

Originally Posted by AussieWebmaster

Though there are a certain number of high bidders that do not know their PPA - the majority do.

what you say only strength my point:
PPA is not a substitude to PPC (as Sebastian suggested) ?!

[rustybrick]

Its here!

http://sponsoredlistings.ask.com/

[dzine]

Is there anything unique in the PPC from ask?

[AussieWebmaster]

Welcome to Google 2....

Seems AJ is using the same method as Google for determining PPC and ranking. As shown here:
http://sponsoredlistings.ask.com/pricinginfo.php

I also spoke to my rep who said though similiar there are a couple of differences... he claimed Google has a popularity element to their PPC pricing tool... don't know about that.

Since they are still back filling with Google... I personally think they have licenced the technology but have no confirmation yet.

[bulsworth]

Has anyone started using it yet? What type of results are they seeing so far (and yes I know it is too short to make real judgements)?