'Net Features : 7Search

Manage Search Marketing Campaigns On the Go

Allison Howen — Thu, 31 May 2012 14:00:00 GMT

Manage your search marketing account on the go with the new Android campaign management app from online advertising network 7Search.com.

The 7Search On the Go app is available for free in the Google Play Store and marks a milestone for the search marketing industry because it is currently the only option for a mobile campaign management solution. The app was created because of a rising demand for productivity apps, which is due to the continued growth and usage of smartphones as media consumption devices.

“We work with quite a few digital agencies that have multiple 7Search accounts," says David Figueroa, the company's director of customer service and support. “Being able to monitor campaign progress and view performance reports on the go is essential for digital campaign managers. This app lets you do just that and more. 7Search On the Go makes our customer support staff available to advertisers no matter where they are.”

The application provides advertisers with basic functionality such as an overview of their accounts and a look at their campaigns. Campaign managers can also use the app to pause and activate individual campaigns, download a PDF of campaign and keyword reports, as well as email reports directly from the app.

Additionally, users can contact customer support by phone or email while on the move if needed, via the app’s support tab.

Five Non-Google PPC Programs

Michael Garrity — Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:30:00 GMT

Yes, we get it, Google does everything. Ask an affiliate marketer what they think the best Pay-Per-Click (PPC) program available is and they'll likely say Google AdSense.

Why? Because it's free, easy-to-use and comes with a very popular and proven name attached to it. And while AdSense is a great program, it's also expensive and it's not necessarily for everyone, so what are some of the alternatives out there?

Many other PPC programs offer things like a return on investment (ROI), faster payments and other features that rival or surpass Google's product. But with dozens upon dozens of different options out there, where does an affiliate start to look for the PPC program that is right for them? Well, at Website Magazine, of course!

Without further ado, here are five non-Google AdSense PPC programs to consider:

Bidvertiser
As the name suggests, this is an auction-based PPC program. Payouts with Bidvertiser are based on an advertiser's bid for your ad space, as opposed to things like keyword popularity. This makes it possible for more popular sites to make more money than their unpopular counterparts who use the same keywords. The upside here is that flash, low content or other application-heavy sites that are typically difficult to crawl much easier to monetize.

AdBrite
One of Google's biggest competitors in the field is AdBrite, largely because they accept many sites that Google doesn't, making it the sort of go-to program if you're rejected by AdSense. This PPC and Pay-Per-Impression (PPI) program rakes in over 330 million impressions and operates on approximately 100,000 websites. Members get paid based on how many clicks an ad gets or how many times an ad is viewed. Sites are monetized by AdBrite when the company pulls ads from top brands, keywords, demographics, location and over visitor targeting metrics. It's also free to sign up.

7Search
7Search, though smaller in their reach than Google, has one of, if not the, highest ROI measures in the industry based on their high quality search traffic sources. They provide solid analysis, such as letting you see how many searches were done on each of your keywords in the last month and then comparing those numbers to how many clickthroughs you got and where you're ranked. You can then see what happens if you raise or lower your bid. 7Search provides affiliates with multiple opprotunities to for revenue through their affiliate program such as standard and white label search boxes, Pay-Per-Text, an advertiser referral program, AccessoryAds and XML partnerships with other search engines, portals and directories. They also proudly claim to pay affiliates faster than any other ad network, with those who earn just $25 a month receiving their chekcs in the first ten days of the following month. Having operated since 1999 means that 7Search is a tried and tested network for affiliate marketers.

Ad:Dynamo
This PPC program is said to be the "fastest paying ad network." One leg up that they have over Google AdSense is that they show contextual ads. They also launched a mobile advertising platform earlier this year. The program offers an array of features like geo targeting that allows you to target customers in specific locations, dynamic text insertion into text ads and URLs, the ability to configue an ad to only show to the same unique user only a specific number of times and, perhaps most importantly, conversion tracking that lets you follow leads, acquisitions and sales in real-time to evalute the performance of an ad campaign. Though it's a young program (it started in South Africa in 2009 and went global even later than that), Ad:Dynamo is already considered a serious AdSense competitor by many users and reviewers.

Chitika
As a direct competitor to Google AdSense, Chitika is probably the most well known and highly regarded program on this list, and that is largely because of its proven record of success. Many who use both AdSense and Chitika have reported that they see a higher clickthrough rate with Chitika, though this is largely because the ads are product related, so they greatly outperform Google on niche blogs and sites. They have an interesting 1-tier referral program that allows you to earn 10% of the income generated by publishers that you refer. Their site claims that they are the only network that "knows when not to show an ad," which makes for a positive user experience. The compatibility with AdSense has, ironically, been the biggest boost to Chitika, and makes it a great option for those who are already using Google, but would like to add to it with another program.

What other PPC progams do you use? What do you think should be on this list? Let us know in the comments section below.

Five Pure-Play PPC Search Engines to Try

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 14:14:00 GMT

When pay-per-click (PPC) advertising came on the scene nearly 10 years ago, it changed how companies promoted their products and services for the better. PPC remains one of the default ways to generate traffic, but many advertisers ( to their own detriment) routinely limit their promotions to the big three; Google Adwords, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft AdCenter. Savvy advertisers understand that the inherent value proposition is not in clicks, but in return on advertising spend. Let’s look at five pure-play search engines and why you should add them to your paid search engine advertising mix.

First let’s explore why so many Internet marketers shy away from these networks.

One of the most pervasive and damaging misconceptions about most ad network providers is that traffic alone (number of clicks) is the best sign of value. That's a mistake. Just because a network like AdWords is sending lots of traffic, that doesn't mean it's the best quality. However, advertisers should focus on other very important issues concerning second-tier, pure-play PPC search engines before funding any account.

Conversion rates will vary (just as they do with Google and Yahoo!) as the traffic from partner sources are different for each network and vary based on time of day. Investing in a longer term campaign will provide a consistent view into how the individual network performs over the long term - not just on one day.
PPC networks often specialize in topical areas, not all areas (as do larger networks). That’s not limiting however, it’s actually quite a refreshing change. Much like you would make a media buy on a high profile site, PPC networks like those mentioned below should be treated in the same way – as one providing you with an opportunity to get in front of the network's partners (the network may never in fact ever be seen as most are just middlemen providing a valuable service to both publishers and advertisers).
The cost per action and return on ad spend, not total spend or total traffic, should be the reason to engage in second tier PPC advertising. Advertisers routinely look at their total number of sales or the total amount of traffic sent from networks to determine quality. What advertisers should be doing is engaging in granular measurement of their return on total advertising spend. There is no other way to know for certain which network provides the best ROI unless you look at campaigns in this manner.

Where Does Second-Tier PPC Search Traffic Come From?
Another very important question advertisers have about second-tier search engines is where these advertising networks get the traffic they send to the advertisers. The answer in short is... their partners including other search engines, niche content portals or individual Web publishers that integrate advertisers from the network into their own sites (through contextual advertising for example) or their own search result listings. It is important to note that this practice is completely standard in the online advertising industry.

Selecting just five pure-play pay-per-click advertising networks is like choosing a favorite child - impossible, but you wouldn't want to even if you could. In addition, the summations of the networks themselves are intentionally brief. Each of these networks is more robust than can be expressed in just a few words.

Let's look at five of the top pure-play PPC search engines now though, their unique value propositions and the traffic they receive to their individual sites (data from Compete.com). If you would like to add the pure-play PPC advertising engine you use to this list, simply sign in and comment below. Again, it's exceedingly important to remember that most of the "clicks" these networks generate come from their partners and not from the actual sites themselves - measuring them in this way is a disservice to them and to the advertiser paying for the clicks.

7Search: One of the original second-tier PPC search engines, 7Search specializes in serving website owners of “low profit margin” categories of business. Features of the service include fraud detection, geo-targeting, keyword suggestion, campaign conversion tracking, custom per-keyword listing modifications, email outbid notifications, direct navigation advertising and quite a bit more. Often referred to as the "little engine that could," 7Search is known in SEM circles as providing a medium traffic volume but of high quality (the majority of which comes from natural listings on popular search engines).

ABCsearch.com: Part of the Internext Media Corp, ABCSearch is another provider using the classic pay-per-click advertising model. The network features geo-targeting (available for the US and Canada, as well as local markets), a proprietary click fraud solution in ClickShield, flexible bidding and many other features standard in second-tier providers such as auto-rebilling. The company's focus seems to be on distribution, featuring network partners such as Search123 and its own Scour property, publishers networks such as Bravenet Media, and direct navigation.

Findology: Founded in 2000, Findology Interactive Media is one network that many advertisers have tried at one time or another. The company's Pay-Per-Click Search network offers a minimum deposit of $25 with a minimum bid of $0.03, real-time click fraud prevention and some decent traffic reporting tools. Findology also has a contextual advertising program where bids start at one cent, offers URL/Keyword and category targeting, geo-targeting and a bidding auction model.

Marchex: Local search and advertising company Marchex is known for making waves. The company purchased over 170,000 domain names for use in its OpenList local search platform. The ad solution provides advertisers with the ability to geo-target specific areas and topics of interest. A pure-play PPC search engine, Marchex has an impressive list of distribution partners including TheMotleyFool and RealtyTrac, advertising resellers such as YellowPages.com and agencies.

Miva: Pay-for-performance provider Miva (formerly Findwhat) is known as much for its PPC service as it is for its e-commerce shopping cart solutions. Miva has been around in some iteration or another for many years and actually has two pay-per-click networks, the Core network features the company's standard bid-for-position technology, and the new Miva Precision Network enables advertisers to concentrate on specific business verticals. Miva has several interesting features including AdAnalyzer, to track the actual ROI on advertising investments.

Are you ready to try the second tier of PPC?
Should you opt to use second-tier pure-play ad networks such as 7Search, Miva, Marchex, Findology, ABCsearch or others, know at the outset that you will need a decent sample to determine statistical validity. That means you will probably be disappointed if you only fund your account with the minimum and expect big things to happen - much like any first tier engine. The best course of action is to leverage the keywords, titles and descriptions from existing campaigns and make modifications for each individual ad network that you add to your marketing mix.

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7Search PPC Network Gets Upgrades

Pete Prestipino — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 16:11:00 GMT

Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising network 7Search.com announced the release of three pretty important enhancements to its platform.

PPC advertisers using the service now have conversion tracking capabilities (helpful to measure the accuracy of third-party analytics systems), geo-targeting (only on the country-level however) and Click-Free™, a direct navigation advertising offering. 7Search is the first major PPC advertising search engine to offer direct navigation traffic.

"Online advertisers require programs and solutions that provide them with alternative sources of traffic, tools to ensure the highest possible return on their advertising spend and the highest level of traffic quality and customer support," says 7Search.com's Director of Internet Operations Gemma Piscotti. "These platform enhancements have been well received by our existing advertisers during their beta testing and will position 7Search to become more competitive in the pay-per-click advertising industry."

It looks like 7Search got a site redesign recently as well.