7 replies to this topic

[parkinglinks]

Can someone please explain the deal with directory sites that advertise with Adwords... I keep seeing these generic looking directory sites that just list a bunch of sponsored links. Forgive me if I am being naive, but why would anyone PPC just to list more links?

[chrisbiber]

Easy answer - if these directory sites make more money when someone clicks on one of their ads than what they spent to attract them to the directory site in the first place, that's called 'profit'

C.

[OldWelshGuy]

Leveraging adwords is a business, because people who come to your site via PPC are more likely to leave it using PPC. leveraging PPC is a high risk game though and you have to know your analytics or lose money. Adwords for Affiliate schemes are also a sensible choice if you have your analytics right.

[parkinglinks]

I understand that people profit but how... Are they syndicating Google ads (Adsense) or are they finding their own advertisers?

[OldWelshGuy]

I will explain it a little better (Sorry).

they use what is known as leveraging. They will bid on phrases like 'small blue widgets' and display adverts on the page for 'blue widgets' or just 'widgets'. These adverts paya heck of a lot more than the more specific ones, so they work in the premise that they can make money from higher paying adsense clicks.

With an affiliate scheme it is much easier and less risky. e.g

Let's say that a company pays £20 for a conversion OK.

You run your tests on your keywords, and find out which are converting best.

Let's say now that you have a keyphrase that converts at 1:10

lets say you can get clicks from that keyword for £1 a click.

Let's say that the keyphrase is searched for 1000 times a day, with a CTR of 20% =200.

You now have 200 click throughs to your page, and you know this will convert into 20 sales. 20 sales x £20 = £400
1000 impressions@ 20% = 200 clicks, = £200

£400 affiliate revenue Minus £200 cost of clicks = 100% ROI £200 profit.

[parkinglinks]

Thanks for clarifying this. I appreciate it. I see a lot of these generic looking directory type of sites popping up in Adwords... Does Google frown on this? It seems really shady.. doesn't seem to benefit the end user.

[Jill]

Why would they frown upon it? They make tons of money from those sites. Every click is more money in their pocket.

[tyggis]

Well, one reason Google should react: Their TOS says that making pages just for the reason of putting adsense ads on them is not allowed. Of course its their choise if they want to enforce the TOS, if they really wanted to do that, 90% of all pages with adsense ads on them would have to remove the ads.