6 replies to this topic

[braveheartdesign]

Looksmart seems to be still providing some PPC visibility on MSN amongst others. At 15 cents per click it is reasonably priced. Is anyone still using Looksmart for either PPC or is anyone getting traffic from Looksmart?

Thanx


David

[Jill]

No, I don't believe they are visible on MSN.

They are definitely not worth paying for and are pretty useless these days since losing the MSN account.

[AussieWebmaster]

I have not seen any LookSmart results in MSN... and I still use them a little

[AussieWebmaster]

They seem to be listed in BlowSearch, ABCSearch, even SearchFeed.

Not strong search sites and the conversion ratios are at the point of dropping them.

[Eschtruth Harrison]

Since being dropped by MSN the number of clicks delivered by our looksmart ads have dramatically increased, while our conversion rate dropped dramatically. Both seem counter intuitive. I emailed LookSmart support and received the following reply:

"After reviewing your account it appears that this traffic is coming from your inclusion listings. Inclusion listings are different from targeted-keyword listings in that the algorithm searches the title and description for keywords, however the algorithm is not nearly as tight as it was with MSN. Thus inclusion listings are receiving a lot more traffic and for any combination of terms. I think your best bet in this situation is to cancel your inclusion listings and only have targeted-keywords in your campaigns."

I've done as they suggested. That is to cancel our "inclusion" listings and carefully review and more tightly focus "target-keyword" listings. Now we'll see what kind of results we get.

[AussieWebmaster]

Well hope you have a family-friendly site... I shared the platform with the CEO of LookSmart at the SES conference - Beyond Google and Overture - and he restated what I thought had been shelved "that LookSmart was pushing ahead as the family-friendly search engine".

[Papadoc]

LookSmart was pushing ahead as the family-friendly search engine

Not a bad marketing tactic if they can pull it off. Since they are pretty much going the way of Excite and AhHa or whatever it is now, at least they are trying to differentiate themselves to appeal to a certain market. What else do they have to offer?

With regard to the PPC costs, if they are still turning conversions and you still have the ROI, then everything else is irrelevant, right? If they are not converting and you are not pulling a reasonable ROI, then a penny a click is too high.