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The
Jury's Still Out on Lycos InSite AdBuyer
By: Cindy
McMahen 02.13.03
If
you're like me, always looking for new pay per click opportunities,
you may have felt a little rush last fall in hearing about
the birth of the Lycos InSite AdBuyer program, and the hoopla
about the new pay per click kid on the block.
For
those of you that missed it, the Lycos
InSite AdBuyer program displays keyword-driven text-based
ads. They're similar in design to Google AdWords, and are
listed to the right of search results. Lycos started out with
three panels (ads) being displayed per page; it now allows
six. These ads appear at Lycos Search, HotBot and throughout
the Lycos network (in the US). To open an account, you only
need a $50 minimum deposit, and bidding begins at $.05 minimum
per clickthrough.
One
big plus going for Lycos InSite AdBuyer has been the ease
in which you could create the account by simply cloning your
FindWhat account. That's because Lycos is using the FindWhat
ad-auction platform, so both accounts setup is identical.
If you like FindWhat's administration and reporting you'll
probably like Lycos, if you don't you won't. However complaints
by marketers using the Lycos program seem to center more on
conversion, traffic numbers and cloning.
Some
believe that the composition of the Lycos ad, with its white
background isn't as visible as GoogleAdWords to visitors.
Other problems have been in the FindWhat account cloning process
when advertisers had keywords pending editorial review at
FindWhat. This causes some delay, admits one of their support
representatives, and has caused some inaccurate cloning.
Judging
by my own experience with Lycos, its support after I cloned
an account has been good. On one instance I'd forgotten that
I had put in tracking urls (i.e. source=findwhat). A representative
emailed me soon after and said he was happy to replace those
urls, so they would to track as Lycos. While somewhat self-serving,
it left me feeling pleased at their attentiveness to my little
account.
The
biggest question about Lycos InSite AdBuyer for most pay per
click enthusiasts however has been the amount of traffic it
delivers, or in some people's opinion fails to deliver. In
reviewing posts at discussion areas like searchengineforums.com
and others I'd have to conclude though that the jury's still
out on that point.
It's
a given that you're not going to get anything near Overture
or Google in terms of delivery. I'd estimate your own results
may also fall under what FindWhat or Kanoodle may deliver
to you (although I have one client whose FindWhat listings
are running about equal). But, I have got to argue -- you
just gotta love the comparative cost of Lycos -- which runs
75% less on average than what Overture bids go for these days.
In
looking at Lycos it may also be useful to note the other ways
you can also build your presence besides the AdBuyer program.
There's no shortage; queries display three results from Overture,
web search results from the Fast engine, and finally ads from
Lycos AdBuyer to the right.
Getting
into Overture is no mystery. As for the Fast engine, it's
nice that they still allow free submission (an increasing
rarity), as well as the opportunity to join their paid inclusion
service (Lycos InSite Select). I'd suggest It's not a bad
idea to consider all your options with Lycos: to optimize
pages for keywords so as to place high in Fast, to put out
some Overture bids for keywords you can afford, and then to
bid in Lycos for keywords that might be out of reach in Overture.
How
will Lycos traffic and the AdBuyer program fare in the future?
Admittedly Lycos hasn't made much progress this year despite
their announced goal to grow their US audience reach. An October
2002 report by Nielsen/NetRatings,
put Lycos at #10 on the top search engine list with a popularity
at around 4.4% of the searches. That puts them on par with
AltaVista, which is also at 4.4%. I predict Lycos use will
rise or fall with the popularity of the Fast search engine
that powers it.
Another
factor as it relates to traffic delivery by Lycos is the recent
re-launch of HotBot in December 2002. Since HotBot also displays
AdBuyer results, it may yield the biggest key as to whether
or not AdWords will see much immediate growth in traffic delivery.
Once considered a trendy search engine among the early Internet
adopters, HotBot has lost a lot of ground in last few years
since it was acquired by Terra/Lycos. Lycos is spending multimillions
in ads this year to get the word out to both the experienced
Internet users and the mass market about it has now changed.
The new HotBot is powered by Fast, Google, Inktomi and Teoma,
so it allows users to keep right on using their search engine
favorites, and to easily perform multiple searches across
those engines from one interface.
The
new HotBot also allows for extended search options, languages
and has a new look. Since it doesn't have any paid advertising
on the first page, it relies heavily on paid search listings
appearing on the results page; consisting of Overture pay
per click at top, and Lycos AdBuyer that display to the right.
It's
too soon to predict what Lycos' use and the outcome will be,
how HotBot's redesign will be accepted, or whether or not
Fast's popularity will grow. But since you're only paying
for performance under the pay per click model, why not open
your Lycos account today and see for yourself? I look forward
to hearing about your results!
More
info about the author: Cindy
McMahen
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