Testing Pay Per Click Search Engines

I wrote a quick and dirty article about how to test pay per click search engines.

If you've been thinking about trying pay per click traffic, but you were worried about fraud, or how to figure out if it's worth your while, my quick guide might help.

The article is about how to test pay per click search engines and where to spend your pay per click ad budget. It is NOT about how to find pay per click search engines to advertise on in the first place. That information is easily found by doing a Google search.

(i.e., I don't want to start yet another thread about "which PPC engines accept poker ads?")

[justred]

Good article Randy. I'll add my 2 cents (although with the Google update I dont know if I can afford it lol).

When I entered the industry about 3 yrs ago there were obviously more marketing channels that were open online. I have tried about 20 ppc's over that time. This was while I was waiting to get somewhere in the rankings.

I got quite comfie with Adwords and Overture (now of course blocked for gambling ads). I conistently got up to about $40K per month in adspend and got a decent return (it was hard work though). In that time I toyed with 7 Search, Go Click, Genie Knows, Roar, Mama, Searchfeed and, dare I say, some contextual ppc stuff.

When G and Overture dropped the bomb. I started focussing on the smaller PPC's.

These are my observations:

Fraud is still a major issue here. The discrepancy between clicks they report, and visitors to my sites were pretty huge at times (with Google a 20% "loss of cliks" was OK, less with Overture). Conversion was much lower (less that half). They almost always deny fraud and that they "were in control. I left a few as they actually got quite aggressive about it (even though click scmas in India were exposed at that time).

The best of the lot imho was 7 search, but when the G shutdown came, their click prices went sky high. I am of the opinion that some of the bigger casinos and poker rooms push up prices to keep affiliates out. Conspiracy theory I guess but anyway.

Now I know some people still make good cash out of PPC's however, I can't see an affiliate doing much. You can justify a $200 CPA if you are a casino / poker room. As an affiliate you can't.

So all in all, I am quite sceptical.

Indeed as Andy suggest, you have to do toms of work to figure out keywords that work for you. It will cost you a bit though.


OK that has grown into 3 cents (I definitely can't afford that!) :P