Well this one wasn’t a shock or news to me at all recently launched ppc company Widgetbucks is now having problems with its publishers due to no payments and suspension of accounts based on the reason of invalid clicks and in some cases no reason at all, so far today there was 1 publisher that was suspended by widget bucks with the reason of invalid clicks when he was earning nearly 100$ a day, yea thats a big chunk of change to loose.

As if that wasn’t enough people are deceiving publishers as well by making these landing page sites on domains that are typos of widgetbucks.com with their own affiliate id and promoting it as the original widget buck’s site, thats just wrong in my opinon any marketing move that decieves the audience is morally and ethically wrong.

I guess i can’t defend widgetbucks in this post as well because they are being unfair to their publishers as well.

Guess this is one for the ages, marked as a trend because of the most unique case in ppc that i have seen, ther were times where the publishers were shady, sometimes the company itself was just a scam, but here the company its publishers and most people around it are shady..

Many advertisers that are just beginning to promote their websites, begin to consider pay per click advertising.  Usually whenever they discover pay per click advertising, the most obvious choices are Yahoo Search Marketing or Google AdWords.  However out of hundreds of choices for pay per click companies out there on the Internet, these are only two.  There are many more options for pay per click advertising.  And often enough, advertisers will realize that as popular as Yahoo and Google both are, they do not fill the advertiser’s needs.  It is important for advertisers to remember that there are alternatives out there for Yahoo and Google, whether they are new and just now emerging into the pay per click advertising market, or veteran supporters of smalltime business advertising.  A couple of these choices are reviewed and described below.

ChaCha.com

In the beginning of September in 2006, ChaCha.com was released as being significantly different from the typical search engine advertising company.  One of the things that make ChaCha.com so different is that they incorporate actual human beings into their company, as search guides.  This service is free of charge and applies to users and advertisers that might be having trouble finding their target audience, or what they want through organic search engines. But what makes ChaCha.com truly unique is that there are two different ways to use the search engine. An user can do the standard search, using a keyboard. Or they can do a search with the assistance of a real live, –human, guide to assist them in finding the right links to solve their queries. Also, the guides are specifically trained in different types of knowledge, this way the user making the search has high chances of connecting with the researcher that actually knows what they’re talking about and want from their query. A user can even request a specific search guide to help them with their search, for a guide based on their areas of knowledge in what’s called the “ChaCha Underground.”  There were about 2000 ChaCha search guides in 2006, and at that time there were 5000 more ready to be added; so by now, there has to be around 10,000 search guides willing to assist customers and users and their queries. Search guides are paid for every search, they assist in and are able to cash in their payroll at any time they choose, after any period of which they been working, no matter how long they have actually been working, whether it’d been an hour or a week.

One of the great things about ChaCha.com are that the search guides are very polite and they ask pertinent questions in order to help the user find exactly what they’re looking for, in a fast and efficient manner. There are also plenty of cost per click and cost per action advertising opportunities available with ChaCha.com, but they give no actual details, unless whomever is interested in advertising contacts the sales area of their service.  This can benefit an advertiser in a lot of ways, for instance, there won’t be a lot of competition, and they can be assured of a certain amount of professionalism within the company.

Some of the negative things about ChaCha.com, although they are a great search engine, with great opportunities available for advertisers, for instance, is that even if the search term has already been searched thoroughly by a guide, the user making the query may be presented with that search even if they’ve chosen to search without the assistance of a guide. Also, some standard searches that are made generally show, sponsored links that are generally pretty relevant to the query, but when searching with a guide the sponsored results can show completely unrelated paid ads.

RedZee

The pay per click advertising program offered by RedZee.com, is equally as inviting as the animated red striped zebra that is its online mascot.  They also use the clean screen interface, that was made famous and popular by Google, and initially they were famous for the fact that they were a family-friendly search engine. Compared with search engines that have been operating since the late 90s, RedZee is fairly new to having begun operating in 2002.  The founders of the search engine have strived to keep any kind of pornographic influence away from their search engine, and in order for adults and their children to be able to safely search the web, without encountering any ads that incorporate adult themes. However, by way of controversy RedZee.com offers a certain custom toolbar download for searchers, that many forum threads claim, hijacks your browser. Although this hasn’t been investigated it hasn’t exactly been substantiated, one report claimed that the toolbar disappeared from view when a spyware scan was ran after the installation of the toolbar. Following the claim, the suspect item had a different name than that of RedZee, and was afterwards removed from the registry.

The more positive aspects about RedZee.com, is that they do filter out a high percentage of pornographic sites in order to keep their search engines “kid friendly.” They can also check for the availability of a search term without the users having to open an account with the site first. The highly pertinent and organized information provided within their results, also highly appeals to consumers and visitors.

However, there is still a large amount of concern revolving around the toolbar. Advertisers choosing a program want real results; not PPC programs that offer damaged and unsafe tools for their visitors. Also, there are many concerns from the advertisers who are using the program, that the majority of visitors are not making it past the home page, or landing page. Both of these factors are very bad for prospecting advertisers. Although, there may have been significant changes made; in 2006 the site was still in Beta, so there may have been some modifications made for the better. Hopefully, the site will improve itself to a more efficient degree, making it more popular for users and advertisers alike.

On the Internet right now there are over 500 smaller and less known PPC advertising programs operating, and serving advertisers quite well. Small business owners, and webmasters are appreciative of the smaller programs because they provide lower costs in advertising for their products, services, and websites, than the competition of the larger PPC advertising programs.  Many of these smaller companies have great reviews from different sources throughout the Internet, are popular, have great usability, and excellent features, as well as many other factors.  Small business owners, and others are encouraged to shop around for a pay per click program that is right for them.  Instead of automatically choosing the most popular; because this can be more costly, and can eat up a budget faster than it can make them money, in the long run.

ePilot

EPilot debuted in 1999 as the search engine arm of Interchange Corporation of Laguna Hills, California and has since made quite an impression on the pay per click advertising market. EPilot is centered around a very user friendly interface that is easy to use and manage for its customers and advertisers. EPilot has also managed to gain partnerships from numerous other PPC advertising programs such as LookSmart, FindWhat,  24/7 Real Media, and Enhance Interactive.  These companies it was able to expand in a very short time.  And ePilot still may be expanding today, as more and more search engine channels emerge and are used by developing pay per click advertising programs.  Back in 2003 it had already added numerous others such as Ask Jeeves, Business.com, and Search123, and was already able to completely remodel their website.

Some of the great things about ePilot is that for one it has a very professional look and atmosphere.  The Interchange Corporation has invested a lot of funding in ePilot, when one considers the size of the company within the pay per click advertising market.  But they have paid particular attention to how it enters the local search market with its new feature called, Local Direct search, which is also an advertising platform.  Local Direct for sure is the advertiser that there will be an extremely quick search result, which is also great for the visitor making the search, and uses what is called “Keyword DNA.”  This feature uses language in search results that the average user is familiar with and can identify with more easily.  EPilot had a partnership with 290 different search engines and websites in 2006.  This included large properties, and over 300,000 advertisers for a very large market reach; and this number may have grown by now.  They also employ a very thorough screening of relevancy factors, when they’re taking on new ad campaigns.

The negative aspects of ePilot are that, for example, the Local Direct feature actually only includes local results from within the United States and excludes results from that of other countries.  Also there is a minimum bid price of seven cents, but all things considered, this is still a very low price and should be taken into account.  Also, although it can be used towards the advertiser’s ad campaign, all advertisers are required to make a $100 minimum credit card deposit for quick activation.  This for some is still a very large commitment especially for small businesses, and advertisers that are on a budget.  The support service for ePilot is also only open and available Monday through Friday during business hours, for anyone who may need live contact with an agent of ePilot for some kind of assistance.

AdOn Network

Founded in 1999 AdOn Network, was formally called myGeek, until it evolved into a shopping site.  After it dropped the majority of the shopping model within nearly a year, it began spending the next two years helping other smaller websites, visitors, and general users with search engine optimization.  MyGeek was based in Phoenix, Arizona before it changed its name to AdOn Network in August of 2006.  The company changed its name because of the confusion, spanning between their company online, and the name of the popular computer repair company “Geeks.”  There were a lot of benefits about the confusing circumstances around the name issue with their company, versus the other company, but there were more than enough negative aspects of the confusion, which were the cause of the name change. There are many advertising options with the AdOn Network pay per click program, such as “pop under” ads that makes keyword targeting with the cost per thousand or CPM view, that display the advertiser’s website and not just an ad. Another option is text-based display that is keyword targeted and also sold on a cost per view basis in a bid format. There are also search listing ads that fit into the basic pay per click model, and they start at only five cents per click.

There are also many other great aspects of AdOn Network, such as the Max Bid feature, which allows an advertiser to set the cost per click amount according to what they were willing to pay for keywords instead of a default balance that is set by the program.  Afterwards the prices are adjusted by auto-settings down to the pricing that is set by other advertisers. This is a somewhat questionable feature, but although one advertiser might not have access to the keyword bids, they can always remove their ad from an affiliated network depending on whether or not they were satisfied with the traffic received to their ads on that partnering search engine or website.  The advertisers using AdOn Network also have the option to block a maximum of eight websites from seeing their ads, and AdOn also protects against and detects click fraud.  There is also what is called a day parting feature, which is offered in search listings to help the advertiser to select specific times of the day to run their target ads, for instance, a late-night browser depending if their product is aimed at that target.  There is also very in depth reporting in order to help advertisers analyze their traffic in their cost per keyword.  This helps ensure the advertisers that they’ll get the correct targeting, and also AdOn Advertiser Services representatives will assist advertisers in maintaining their campaign accounts to their best needs.

One of the less reputable factors about AdOn Network is that they do allow adult sites to campaign advertisements through their program. However these ads are monitored to ensure that they are only using adult oriented keywords, and are targeting the right audience. Another somewhat negative factor is that the advertiser cannot directly view the keyword bidding but as a productive alternative they are in courage to observe and estimate their own traffic to determine the factor in what to bid for keywords.  Unfortunately AdOn network also has very limited geo-targeting. Keywords the deal with location can only be used by advertisers when their websites contain a decent amount of content that is relevant to the particular location.

Despite popular belief, some of the lesser-known pay per click advertising networks can be better suited to your needs, then a more popular pay per click advertising company.  Many times most aren’t even lesser-known they’re just overlooked, because programs such as Google AdWords, or Yahoo Search Marketing can have such overwhelming advertisements online, for their programs.  When everybody else promises to be better it easy to overlook programs that actually are because their advertisements might be smaller or not as popular.  There are pros and cons to each and every pay per click advertising network, and many people are under the assumption that because an ad program might not be well known that the ads distributed by the program aren’t going to be clicked because they don’t show up in enough websites.  This is actually incorrect; many of the so-called “less popular” pay per click advertising networks have extensive and quite a large amount of contacts and websites where they show ads created by people using their service.  And in many cases, some of their ads are more well circulated among optimum sites that the advertiser chooses for their ads to show up on.  The pay per click advertising companies listed below are prime examples of overlooked, and great service.

MIVA

MIVA is a completely independent online advertising program, and has established business relationships with over 100,000 different companies.  Their pay per click program is called MIVA Media, and was formed during the merger of FindWhat.com.  In the United States and in Europe was formed with Espotting.com.  MIVA a media currently operates on three major continents, North America, Asia, and Europe.  Instead of just being a search destination in and of itself, MIVA is basically a network of all of its partner websites and portals to distribute the paying consumer advertisers’ ads.  These ads are distributed through thousands of partner websites and loosely affiliated businesses; usually circulated amongst web publishers and industry-specific websites.

The positive aspects and benefits of MIVA media are, for one thing, that it appeals to smaller businesses that aren’t quite ready to get involved with large budget advertising campaigns with Google or Yahoo. It incorporates what is called the “BidOptimizer” tool that allows advertisers to bid for the specified ranking, instead of first ranking, which is usually more expensive.  This implements the ability to allow advertisers to adjust their bids in order to keep their keywords in the second or third rank depending on whichever they have chosen. Another great benefit of this company is that it offers the integration of being able to advertise in both the United States and Europe. There is also a pay per call option that lets advertisers without websites target online shoppers.  Also, the keyword generator tool allows advertisers to see how their keywords are doing all over the MIVA network.

But just like anywhere else this company has some negative aspects as well.  There are incidents, some users have been indicated that advertisers should pay attention to whether or not MIVA’s network has appropriately covered their vertical market, or risk low ROI from non-targeted markets. There were also low revenues from the European district of the company, which was formerly Espotting.com, in mid-2006.

Enhance Interactive

Enhance interactive was originally founded in 1999 as ah-ha.com and was owned by the eFamily of Provo, Utah and was basically concentrated around a family centered and family-friendly approach to its listings and customers.  In 2003 it became a subsidiary wholly owned by Marchex Inc., who also happens to own GoClick as well.  As of September 2006 they had both been able to remain separate, corporately speaking.  But many believe the merging plans are going to be a near future development, although this does remain to be seen.

There are many benefits to using Enhance Interactive.  Customer service is an incredibly large factor within the network of Enhance Interactive.  Right now, this is pay per click advertising program includes live chat support for all its customers and advertisers.  Enhance Interactive believes in strong contact between advertisers and the account managers, and they prefer to keep it regular and ongoing.  So usually an advertiser is able to find someone able to assist them who is already familiar with his or her account.  They also include a program called LogoLinks that is provided free for the first month of that advertiser’s service with the company.  This service is available for $9.95 after the first month. What LogoLinks does is place a small logo next to your ad in order to personalize it and it’s also not found in any other properties, and usually not of the same size. Another service offered by Enhance Interactive, is called the AccuMatch system. AccuMatch expands the keywords that advertiser will use in their ads, to include popular misspellings, plurals, and of course, most importantly simple phrases of key words.  There is also a very low average of cost per click, or CPC.  In fact, it starts at three cents, and there is plenty of emphasis on ROI.

And of course there are negative properties of Enhance Interactive as well. There is a $50 minimum deposit required, however, an advertiser can apply this fund towards their future clicks purchase. As odd as this may seem, also abbreviations are discouraged, even for such things as the abbreviations of states, and the ad titles are also limited to 40 characters.  It is also necessary for the users and advertisers are careful to set up “daily cap.” This needs to be set at a realistic level, and advertisers should keep a vigilant eye on funding being is that Enhance Interactive removes the advertiser’s ad automatically once the cap is reached. Also, probably most inconveniently is the search results sometimes show advertisers that have their relevant content.  When search queries are made, the highest PPC bidders will be showing the first on the results page, and then the organic results will be listed.  When their relevant paid results show up in a search query on the results page, people will eventually stop using that search engine.  For example, a search will be made for a soap opera website and ads will come up for a plasma TV first.

One of the hottest trends in online marketing right now is paid search or Pay per Click Advertising, and some say that this trend is only going to rise in popularity.  One expert says that sales in pay per click advertising,  which are currently over $14 billion in the US this year, and are expected to rise at 37% each year.

Right now Google is the leading choice among advertisers, with its innovative program and service called Adwords; and this primary service is only increasing in its numbers of paying advertisers, both new and experienced in the pay per click market.  The traditional media market, such as televised commercials, are losing their market share, as the money shifts over to online marketing, but more specifically to the pay per click area.  With this enormous amount of money invading the paid space, advertisers who aren’t careful, can make mistakes that can cause thousand dollar errors.

PPC advertising is simple, and because it is so simple advertisers enjoy it more because they have better control over their ad campaign and receive more feedback on its performance.  PPC advertising is an important method for them to use, and master because of its growing importance and because of the trend in online marketing.  It’s not so terribly uncommon that company owners will do their own PPC advertising campaigns.

If you aren’t already using pay per click ad campaigns, it’s becoming more and more important to understand pay per click advertising and have a plan of action to make pay per click advertising work for you.  When running a large campaign, an advertiser needs to be carefully managing what they’re doing, and have a planned strategy for their ad campaign. Although the process looks fairly simple, it’s a fairly easy process to waste thousands of dollars.  What makes the pay per click advertising so great is how fast you can reach your targeted market, and a good quality of sales opportunities that are constantly produced.  But at $5-$10 per click, an advertiser can easily go over their ad budget.

Out of all the pay per click advertising programs, the two best programs in known for having the greatest market reach, are from Google and Yahoo.  The program from Google called AdWords, delivers targeted ads with its own search engine, websites and a variety of different partner sites. Yahoo, which is the other very popular pay per click ad program, purchased Overture Search in 2003, and renamed it Yahoo Search Marketing.  This program has a selection of specific pay per click advertising programs.  These more popular pay per click advertising programs offer an excellently high reach, to the targeted visitors.  Instead of organic search engine results, pay per click listings don’t need the complicated content development or the link building campaign.

The most important thing to efficient pay per click advertising campaigns has to do with how meticulously planned your keyword strategy is and whether or not you have quality visitor analysis.  Several companies manage their pay per click advertising campaign was kind of sloppily.  Campaigns have to be well organized so that didn’t keywords can be gotten rid of, and the good keywords improved.

Once in a while an advertiser won’t be able to bid on a particular keyword phrase, or phrases because their ad’s click through rate wasn’t so great.  This is a problem an inexperienced, or new, or even a more experienced advertiser will definitely want to avoid, but might have already encountered.  A visitor or consumer associates popular keywords with popular solutions or particular solutions; before they even set out to find a solution, they already have a vague idea of what they’re looking for. An advertiser is basically competing with other companies that offer a more popular solution, so even though an advertiser’s ad might show a particular search phrase, it might not be what people are looking for.  This means that your click through rate will be extremely low in your ad is going to stop being shown.  The way an advertiser’s ad looks isn’t necessarily a certainty, if you’re trying to sell a specialized product underneath a pretty general search term.  An advertiser will need a well thought out, strategized plan for their keywords and ads.

In order for your PPC advertising campaign to work at its best, an advertiser must bid on the correct types of keyword phrases, they need to write ads that hook the consumers, and have a page that is well written, in order to get more targeted consumers to click through. Knowing how to attract potential visitor or consumer is half the battle and an advertiser will, nine times out of ten, be rewarded with better sales rates.  When the amount of words, style and type, are restricted an advertiser would want to make sure that they have well written ads, but are attractive and persuasive to the reader, but this is a task that will always be easier said than done.

Another great tip towards pay per click advertising, is relaying to advertisers what kind of ad campaigns are the best, and despite what is sometimes advertised, the best kinds of campaigns, and the best way to approach paper click advertising, are usually the kind that are custom prepared by an SEO professional.  A large corporation, using this technique of preparing their ad campaign, can save great amounts of money, time, energy, frustration, and basically just save in general, not to mention maximize their performance by way of outsourcing to an SEO consultant.

Pay per click advertising is a great way to run an ad campaign and to get your site, or your products, quality attention from consumers.  But also pay per click advertising is about how relevant your ads are to the product, especially with Google AdWords.  The simple truth of the matter is, that when marketing with pay per click advertisement campaigns, if an advertiser’s ads don’t get clicked on, they will not be displayed.

Pay per click advertising is one of the fastest growing ways to advertise for your online company, blog, website, and just generally anything you can think of that a person could get paid to do online.  There are many pay per click advertising programs existing today, of varying qualities and benefits.  If you’re an advertiser, it can be hard deciding which one of these programs to use.  The two most popular PPC advertising programs are currently Yahoo Search Marketing and Google AdWords.  But just because the majority of people are using these two programs, doesn’t necessarily mean that you have to also.  An advertiser should be able to shop around and decide what’s best for their company’s needs while at the same time finding a pay per click advertising program that is attractive and useful to them.  Listed below are a couple of choices other than Yahoo Search Marketing and Google AdWords.

7Search

7Search was a small company had its headquarters originally in Chicago, Illinois problem, but eventually grew into something larger.  And now is a continued supplier of comedy within the Internet.  At one point in their company’s history, they decided to focus on the pay per click advertising market, using the slogan “the closest prospect to a buyer.”  7Search claimed to have over 400 million searches per month through affiliates and partners in the year 2004.  What diverse via 7Search from the rest of the paper click advertising programs is that they concentrate on the business owner and advertiser who either does not want, or cannot afford to pay more than $.10 per click.

7Search has some great benefits and features.  Just one of these features, is that they recently installed a new toolbar available for a download program, that is called “Predictive Search.”  Predictive Search, uses reverse engineering in order to help the advertiser choose keywords that might be more productive than the ones that they are already using, in order for the advertiser to get better results from consumers.  7Search also gives advertisers via available option of using PayPal to fund their campaign, according to what is more convenient for the advertiser using the program. Unlike some other programs, 7Search also sends an e-mail alerting advertisers to when there is only another three days estimate worth of click money left in their account.

There are only a couple of negative aspects for advertisers using 7Search for their pay per click advertising program.  For instance there is a $25 minimum deposit amount in order for them to open an account, but this is also a substantially low fee when compared to some of the other pay per click advertising programs.  In fact, some programs charge up to $50 in order to open an account.  7Search is also only available in English-speaking countries, but this still makes it a widespread program for advertisers in the United States, many countries in Europe or in most of Canada.  7Search rose arms availability in order to detect and protect itself against click fraud.

Findology

Findology.com is a division of TrafficAds Media, Inc., an enormously through the year 2005, where it went from under one billion searches in one month, and by 2006 had grown to over 2 billion searches in a month.  Findology.com partnered itself LookSmart, in 2004, in order to expand. Findology.com search engine is a fairly standard for their industry and the search engine itself has a clean look to it, much like Google in the efficiency of its appearance.  Findology provides advertisers with “the most affordable bid rates at an even higher ROI.” This is because supposedly, there are search engines reach into traffic that others don’t have access to.  Findology’s most important advantage is that its partnerships with a number of channels allow advertisers this access into the traffic that they would usually not be able to target.

Findology is a fairly popular, and well-known pay per click advertising program, and also has many benefits.  They are known for being very user-friendly and especially intuitive with their advertisers and customers.  They also provide a free instant messenger and link to people search with Reunion.com.  Also it is the opinion of many users and advertisers that the portal is very attractive and integrates the search bar with very useful and pertinent information, without adding a lot of irrelevant “tips” and “suggestions.”  Also for advertisers that are on a budget or don’t want to spend a large amount of money on their campaign right away, the minimum bids for Findology.com start at only three cents.

But just like with any other program, Findology.com’s paper click program has a couple negative factors. One of the unattractive qualities about the search results page is that sometimes there are duplicate listings in the results.  For the consumers using the search engine in reviewing the search results, duplicate listings can seem very unprofessional, useless and take the search engine a lot less popular to consumers and visitors.  Although in many aspects, Findology.com’s pay per click program is very unique in its own way, unfortunately there’s not really much difference in running a web search versus a shopping search, which is another not so great feature for both advertisers and consumers and visitors. Visitors and people using a search engine want clear, original results, that solve their queries, and a convenient and fast manner without it being necessary for the visitor to click on several results before they find what they’re looking for.  Many companies should remember, that although they are our to make money and to make it even easier for advertisers on the Internet to make money as well, the consumer friendliness is above all, the most important factor of the industry. If people can’t find what they’re looking for, or find a relevant responses on the results page, then they will stop using that search engine.  Customer service is the key to any business that has to do with customers at all, because without customers there would be no business.

When “shopping” for a pay per click network, an advertiser should be aware of what is popular, what companies aren’t, and which incorporate efficiency, speed, and a friendly, supportive environment for their advertisers, both experienced and new to the PPC advertising market. Although it is easy to choose a program based on it’s popularity, it’s also easy to choose a program just because it’s not. Certain types of PPC advertising networks are unpopular for good reasons, and others are simply too new to have enough advertisers and clients to correctly fill a user’s needs. It is always in the best interest of an advertiser to find a happy medium between the two extremes. Also, not to forget, that in every venture, there will be the pro’s and cons that people find in everyday life. Nothing is perfect, but with a lot of research, and a great attitude, an advertiser can find the next best thing.

Ask.com

Ask.com is formerly known as Ask Jeeves, and is a part of IAC Search & Media, which is in turn, part of the larger corporation, IAC/InterActive Corp. Their headquarters are in Oakland, California. Ask.com has great reviews, on most websites, dedicated to giving full ratings and factual advice on the latest, greatest, and heinous PPC advertisers out there,  and the popularity of Ask grew quite a bit last year, and is still very popular this year; it is in fact, listed in the top ten PPC search engines on many sites. They approach the keyword bidding, and auction process a bit differently, and use something called “eCPM ranking,” which is a simple formula, though most find it confusing. eCPM is simply the cost per click, multiplied by the clickthrough rate; the advertiser’s ad will be ranked, relative to what amount other bidders are bidding on the same keywords. There is what is called, a “reserve price,”  which is the minimum cost per click needed to guarantee an advertiser’s keyword will be ranked in first position, on the top of sponsored listings, shown in the search results. The reserve price is based on market intelligence, so claims Ask.com, and the CPC’s that are already there.

Ask.com PPC advertising program has some great features and benefits, but amongst those are the fact that as early as June 2005 it was already overlapping in users of only just over 20% with and Yahoo, and Google, which basically means that they’re providing original, and a great unique search engine for users. The terminology for the site is much the same as the other search engines out there, despite their different approach to bidding on keywords. Another great feature, provided by Ask.com is that the tool for bidding on keywords, allows the advertiser to view the top five competitors for the keyword the advertiser might be interested; that way, they can make note of any “bid wars” going on, and can steer clear of getting involved in that money losing process.

Although the pay per click advertising program offered by Ask.com is both popular, and efficient, users are slightly concerned over how their bidding on keywords process works. The auction model is simple, but many advertisers find it complex, and confusing, because it simply is not the formula that other programs use. The bid amount for most PPC advertising programs, is based on CPC, whereas the formula used on Ask, is CPC multiplied by CTR, instead of the conventional method. Also, the minimum bid price, is only five cents, that is true; but although the reserve price is great for some bidders, it can make things more difficult for others, if there is one placed on a keyword they were planning to use.

Microsoft AdCenter

Microsoft AdCenter is fairly new; it debuted only last year in May, for the United States, and were reportedly still experimenting on the functions and features available within the site, opening up new options slowly for advertisers, in late 2006. But last year, contextual advertising was still by invitation-only. Microsoft AdCenter refers to their ads as, “P4P” instead of PPC; they call them, “pay for performance” ads. Their PPC option is offered for the Live Search property, whose audience is identified mainly as  “[on average] 45 years old, skews female, married, and 45 percent have children. They also earn high incomes (Avg. HHI $76.1K), and are well-educated, professionals–with an additional 4 percent being full-time students.”

One the great benefits of using AdCenter is that potential advertisers can get access to a demographic, and information, on the millions of users that use MSN products, and services, or have registers for the MSN.net Passport account. The reason for this, is that if advertisers can see their potential audience, they’ll be much more confident in beginning a campaign with AdCenter, not only based on sheer amount of users with the passport; but users who actually buy products from Microsoft are also excellent for a new advertiser.

There are some negative aspects, as well, with Microsoft AdCenter, for instance, although this really isn’t so bad, that they do provide a Quicklaunch program, which is a tool for helping advertisers create their ads, and start their campaigns; however, the advertiser must spend at least $30 a day. That kind of feature, as nice as it is, however, is entirely too expensive for new advertisers on a budget, and is slightly unrealistic. Also, there is a tool to regulate and set how much an advertiser can spend in a month, there is no tool available, and no way to set a daily spend limit. Besides that, ads that have higher, or the highest click-through rates, may supplant other advertiser’s ads. However, these are reports made late in last year and may have been changed, simplified; also, new tools may have been added to their program is well. The best thing an advertiser can do is look around their site, and ask others who have used it, how the AdCenter program worked for them.

- Ads with a larger CTR can supplant existing ads.

Many new businesses, small businesses, blogs, et cetera, are not as interested in the more higher-priced competition for their advertising campaigns, that they find within the Yahoo Search Marketing, and Google AdWords PPC advertising programs. Smaller campaigns require intuitive services, operated by friendly and efficient, customer-based search engines, that will relay and display their ads to the targeted visitors. Although the two programs offered by Google and Yahoo are popular, they are not always the right choice for some advertisers, looking to promote their businesses to a specific crowd. or channel, that the two popular programs may not have, or have, limited access to.

Clicksor

This program is a division of YesUp Ecommerce Solutions, Inc., based in Canada, and was originally founded, and began operation in 1999, although was not incorporated until 2001. YesUp Ecommerce Solutions, Inc., as the parent program mainly focuses on ecommerce solutions, as the name dictates, of course, but through  consistently advancing technical and marketing innovations, programming assistance, and design. Basically, YesUp developed Clicksor to be their PPC company, but claims that their company is different from the majority of others; just as every other PPC program makes the same statement. Clicksor is unique because it focuses on the advertiser getting visitors to their site, converting them with their feature, called product Content Marketing Technology. This featured technology tries to match up consumers to the advertiser’s site by more closely aligning them to the advertiser’s service or product that they are promoting, they claim, than most other PPC advertising programs. They emphasize that they strive more to improve the advertiser’s ROI quickly, efficiently, and more directly than other companies. Clicksor places more emphasis on content, although choosing the keywords, and bidding processes, are essentially the same as with other PPC programs.

Some of the major, amongst the numerous, befit of Clicksor’s PPC program is that besides offering the conventional affiliate program, they also offer the option for webmasters to earn an additional $5 for referring other webmasters to their services, if the other webmasters do decide to join. There’s also an online demonstration that shows detailed instructions on how to operate and manage the keyboard hover and contextual techniques. Also, campaigns generally begin within around twenty-four hours of the account’s creation, to make things faster for advertisers looking to start right away. When campaigns are terminated, any funds that have been unused within the account are returned in full, and Clicksor also gives the option of PayPal for payment, which is a major convenience to international advertisers.

Although international accounts can be made, Clicksor only accepts ads that are made in the English language. Also, another unfortunate factor is that the ads do not appear to be displayed quickly, meaning, they load very slowly, and this can deter traffic, and clicks on the ad; which also deters new advertisers from using their PPC service. Some users are uncertain as to whether or not affiliates of Clicksor can also use Google, because of the code needed to be inserted in the page may violate Google’s Terms Of Service, but other users claim to be able to run the programs well together. Also slightly deterrent, is that there is much concentration on the benefits of their affiliate program, instead of the actual PPC products.

Bidvertiser

Bidvertiser offers a somewhat different approach to the pay per click advertising program that most advertisers have identified as the standard method. It is difficult to categorise away the system offered by Bidvertiser; mainly because it offers a much more advertiser-controlled options for the accounts to be created in their program, by giving them more control over where their ads appear. Bidvertiser is a subsidiary program belonging originally to Bpath, which was established in 1997, to be mainly an international service provider for various types of websites. The approach to business by Bpath was to develop and offer private label websites options for the top web hosting and providers of domain registration. They had over four million webmasters, in their network in 2006, over 80% of these were small business oriented, and many more by now. Bpath offers solutions to the general population of small businesses that may be the right fit for many within the United States.

One the great things about Bidvertiser’s program for pay per click advertising, is that there is no contract involved in how long an advertiser must commit their patronage to using the service offered by Bidvertiser, nor is there a minimum limit instituted to the amount an advertiser must spend on bids. That kind of benefit is great for advertisers on a budget, who can’t afford large campaigns, or would rather start in smaller amounts. Advertisers also are able to choose the websites they advertise on; so if a site owner has a great site, that owner is more likely to get great, relevant advertisers, that generate interest in their content, and ads.

However, in 2006, the negative aspects of the site were very harsh on the pay per click program, Bidvertise itself. The majority of the users felt that, a year ago, that the site had great potential, but was too new and had too few advertisers at that time to really prosper and become a viable network. Another negative concern, was that advertisers were not allowed to use both Google AdSense ads, and Bidvertiser ads on their page, and not too mention, that the two programs looked too much alike. PPC advertising programs, when they emerge, should be aware, that when they restrict the ability for advertisers to use their ads, with a competitor’s, that they aren’t promoting their pay per click services; they are deterring people from using it. Also, advertisers do talk amongst each other, and news of a site with those kinds of limits travel fast. But a program like Bidvertiser could go quite far, given more time, and more internal modifications made, to make their program more friendly to advertisers looking for the program to fit their needs.

Google Adwords

Many agree that the Google Adwords PPC program is the highest rated. It has many benefits, and very few specific negative aspects. Some of the benefits of Adwords are, first of all, that it has a great set of tutorials, and its support database is searchable, in order to assure people that whatever questions that they might have about the program are answered in as timely a manner, as possible. Also, Google’s searches are without a doubt, the fastest on the Internet presently. An advertiser can be assured that their add will have a great shot of getting their add viewed by their targeted audience, and there is little to know chance of the visitor canceling the search, if the results are being listed too slowly. The startup fee is a lot cheaper that quite a few out there, with less actual benefits, being as the fee for Adwords is only $5, with many other options and promotions available. There is also no monthly minimum of spending required, for Adwords. One service offered, is local advertising, for people who are looking to advertise their stores, etc., to people nearby, and an easily understood analysis page package. The only really negatives aspects of Adwords are that many of the factors that relate to Quality Score, can lead to some keywords being disabled, or the price increased, and that there is really no clear definition of cheating; aka fake clicks.

Yahoo! Search Marketing

Currently, Yahoo’s PPC program in undergoing an update, and is being modified through the use of the Panama update. The idea was basically to change it from the stricter system of bid for position, over to a system more like that of Google, positioning them according to how much the advertiser is going to spend on them. Currently, the benefits of Yahoo! Search Marketing, are the ROI calculator tools, which is available for both CPC, and CPM ad account set ups. There is also the added benefit of the insert keyword feature, which inserts the keyword that the ad is based on into the ad’s header, or title occasionally. The not so great thing about Yahoo was that when they updated their accounts to the newer Panama system, the current accounts were changed, and the results were said to have been “uncertain.”

ABC Search

ABC Search’s PPC program, is a subsidiary of Internet Media Corporation, and despite its small beginnings, it is among the fastest, and more frequently used search engines, growing in popularity every day. One of the more unique benefits of ABC Search’s PPC program, is that there is an automatic rebilling system, that keeps your account clean, after it’s reached a minimum amount. There is also a $25 referral bonus to whomever referred an advertiser to the program. Also, the minimum bid price is five cents, and there is no minimum monthly spending amount, certified fraudulent click solution, geo-targeting, and traffic source optimization. The only real problem feature of ABC’s PPC program is that approval of ads can take up to 24 hours.

SearchFeed

SearchFeed began in New Jersey, and first began operating actively in November of 2000, and so far, has continuously incorporated their own methods into the way they do business. That is, researching personally, all aspects of any advertiser, giving adequate and attentive assistance to their advertisers, and the software tools to help every advertiser bring the more relevant visitors and traffic to their sites. One of the added benefits to SearchFeed’s innovative and personal service, is that along with the standard tools and reports, there are also other, extra tools that are helpful in measuring the successful activity of keywords, ROI, and the total campaign cost approximation tool. Also, in comparison to other PPC advertising operations, SearchFeed pays close attention to conversion rates that might have some potential, but not just through automation, but also by personal researching of the traffic from every partner site, to assure better results for SearchFeed’s advertisers. One of the complications of SearchFeed is that getting an account activated can sometimes take up to two days, because of thorough checks of an applicant’s financial history. The minimum deposit to open an account is also kind of pricey, at $25, also to use with your first campaign., this fee is also unfortunately non-refundable, should you ever choose to close your account. Another downside, is that personal contact is limited to business days only, during business hours. Which means that, were there ever to be any emergency correspondences necessary, to do with an advertiser’s account, or a problem with ads, the person trying to communicate to support would be waiting up to two days.

Pay per click or, PPC, advertisement programs are usually an option offered by different kinds of search engines. The basic definition of PPC, is the guaranteed display of an ad on a search results page, for a specific keyword, or keywords, in return for a certain amount of money. But this only works, when a visitor clicks on the ad that belongs to that person. The person whom the ad belongs to, pays nothing for it to be displayed on the search results page. The advertiser pays the amount that they had agreed to, aka “bid for”– when the visitor does click on the ad, and is directed back to the advertiser’s specified page.

The display of the PPC ad on the search page results can vary, depending on which PPC program an advertiser happens to be using; but for the most part, there are general looks to a search results ad. For instance, the advertiser’s website name, or heading, is usually below fifty character, and then there’s a short description or hook, to get people interested, consisting of around two hundred characters at most. Some PPC programs are more open to the advertiser using their own text; other are more controlling and have regulations, preferring to use their own text.