Internet Babel

The results of a recent (admittedly small scale but well presented) experiment suggest that an effective way to boost a PPC ad campaign is to acquire relevant on-target generic names to enhance or enforce the ads and get more traffic from them.

The guys at Memorable Domains ran a study which showed that: “All other things being equal (same headline, same ad copy, same bids, same landing page etc.) the ads that used an on-topic generic domain name received up to twice the clicks that ads using a “coined” non-generic domain name did”.

Full details of the experiment and the results obtained can be found in the report at http://www.memorabledomains.co.uk/ppcanalysis.pdf

The results are something that many of us might have guessed at, but it’s nice to see some specific figures to back-up that intuition. Part of the reason could be down an increased ‘trust’ by the visitor in the generic sounding domain name, but the report proposes some more specific reasons, and certainly gives some food for thought.

Read the report – it’s only a few pages long. I hope it will encourage you to do some experimentation of your own with generic names.

Thanks to Memorable Domains for permission to post about this.

In one of my first posts after taking ownership of this Blog, I described how the relative search popularity trends for ‘SEO’ vs ‘PPC’ as shown by Google Trends reflected the current economic climate.

I laid it on a bit thick to make the point but the link seemed pretty clear. Jim, from the NetFool, thought I was reading too much into it and that search trends didn’t reflect the economy.

Well they do - to an extent.

If you only look to see what’s Hot in Google Trends at any one time then of course that just reflects the relative popularity of current cultural/social/news topics – but if you narrow your search down to two competing ‘generic’ terms like this and refine your search to look at specific geographic areas then they do give some indication of the current economic state. 

Look again now at Google Trends, compare seo & ppc and look at the 12 month trend for USA, UK, Australia as opposed to say, China (India seems a different case, as SEO has always led PPC there and the pattern seems stable).

The trend I pointed out in my original post is continuing (and in the case of the UK and Australia the gap looks to be growing). SEO is gaining ground over PPC in the main English-speaking ‘Western’ (and European) markets and that’s not reflected (yet) in China. 

OK, I’m not being 100% deadly serious about this - PPC will always be here of course. It’s great for kickstarting campaigns and getting traffic boosts – and the guys with the massive generic domains (Fly.com is for sale at SEDO by the way – be prepared for a 6-7 figure price though) will always be secure anyway. For the rest of us it just reminds us that organic is best.

By the way – Wednesday seems to be the most popular day of the week for ‘SEO’ searches in the US

While you’re here – have a click on that nifty little ‘pencil’ in the sidebar – yes, that’s the one, it says ‘Random Post’ on it. Guess what it does? Well – if you click on it, it’ll take you to a mystery Internet Babel Post – it could be one from yesterday or a year ago and it could be about anything – you might find something you missed before. go on…Click it.

A site that caught my eye a few days ago is TextAdMarket.com – they’ve got a nice angle on providing a hybrid CPD-PPC ad solution.

For those of you don’t know the term, CPD (Cost Per Day) is a type of paid-advertising where (strangely enough) the Publisher gets paid for each full day that they carry an Advertiser’s ad on their site. There aren’t too many CPD providers around but there has been more talk about them lately, as they have the potential to offer a regular and known income stream without having to tie-in to any long term deals.

Background

TextAdMarket started out as a CPD ‘marketplace’, where Publishers could showcase their sites/ad-slots and advertisers can bid for those slots for an agreed period of time. Publisher’s can join up for free, and advertising ‘credits’ can be purchased in amounts as low as $20. TextAdMarket provides the mechanism for bidding, the embed code to use and various monitoring facilities.

The site went live in May 2008 and to date (23rd July) just over 300 Publishers/Advertisers have signed up.

CPD/PPC

One of the potential drawbacks with such a system is that ‘unused’ ad-slots can remain empty on sites, so the guys at TextAdMarket came up with a novel twist by also allowing PPC ads to be run whenever a CPD slot is not being used. Obviously these PPC ads are just paid ‘per click’ but all revenue goes into the same account.

Publishers can opt to sell their ad slots at a fixed price, or have their ad prices rise and fall on a nightly basis, based on ad popularity and other factors.

TextAdMarket say that they work on a fixed commission of 20%, regardless of the type of advert being carried.

This all seems like a good approach to me – I’m certainly going to sign up and try it out on a few of my sites (from both a publisher and advertiser perspective).

Conclusion

It’s early days yet of course, and the site’s success will hinge on the take-up rates, and also on the quality and breadth of advertising available. However, I think it’s certainly worth a closer look and the guys deserve some encouragement and exposure for bringing a pretty novel idea to the market.

The site can be found at http://www.TextAdMarket.com

Ben at TextAdMarket has also kindly offered an ‘opening special’ coupon code – for an extra 10% ad credit on all purchases until September 30th. Code: “10-GRANDOPEN”

This has not been a paid or commissioned review – just a service I came across that might be worth a punt. I’m not endorsing or making any claims for the site, nor am I getting any fee for this. Just saying it’s probably worth checking out.

I’d really like to hear your thoughts on this type of service, and feedback from anyone who signs up either as an Advertiser or a Publisher.

Google trend figures show that the term ‘SEO’ is now becoming consistently more popular than ‘PPC’ in the major Western, English-speaking markets such as the United States, United Kingdom and Australia.

For the last few years of the ‘boom’ economy, ‘PPC’ has generally had the upper-hand over ‘SEO’ as a search term, but the last few month’s figures show a steady reversal in fortunes, with ‘SEO’ gaining ground, overtaking and recently building a lead over ‘PPC’. The actual proportions vary from market to market but the pattern seems to be there.

This could be a reflection of the tougher economic times in the ‘Western’ markets, and an associated tightening of wallets. ‘PPC’ is going to be the first to feel the pinch because it’s more of a luxury item than bread-and-butter SEO. Consequently, more businesses are having to adjust to the reality that the slow-burn and long-tail business of GOOD SEO is always going to be reap dividends in the long term, even if you don’t get the ‘bang’ of a PPC campaign.

PPC is a ‘target’ traffic booster that is good for individual campaigns but of course it’s effect is generally short-lived and in the current financial circumstances PPC can be the first thing to be put on the back burner.

I had a quick look around at different regions and the same trends didn’t seem to be reflected in markets such as China and India, which seems to confirm the ‘recession/cutback’ idea – but there is every chance that China in particular will follow suit if their economy starts to overheat.

Just another reminder (if one was needed) that PPC and campaigns have their value in the right time and place, but content and quality SEO still rules the roost.

Comments welcome.