Overture, simply not worth it.

[martinlatanet]

(Submitted by invitation of a forum host, Brittany.)

Dear Garrett:


I just resigned Overture because I found it to be a waste of money and time.

Like all other Overture subscribers I placed x dollars on deposit with their firm. Within my industry, log home building, I selected my key words
and agreed to pay $0.10 per click through. This month I was notified that Overture had a $20 per minimum and that were deducting $17 and change from my account. This means we had about 26 visitors who used Overture to click through to our web site and we paid $17.40 for those that do not click through. We were ranked #22 on Overture.


I have ten years Internet experience and I am not a novice to the SEO game. So I logged in to make changes. Overture is undoubtedly the most cumbersome system to use. Deletions are impossible, additions and updates take days to make. But, you can raise your bid fee instantly. There has to be a better way to conduct business. The bidding on Overture is up to $0.75 per click through in the log home industry. For small business people this is unreasonable. Overture claims 94,000 log home clicks through per year if you are #1-2-3. That is $70,500 per year. The firms who are currently in the top positions cannot sustain this bite. I know them by reputation well. They are gambling with the success and survival of their company. It takes two to three years to educate a prospective log home buyer to the point where they can make an educated purchasing decision.


I have spoken to log home firms who have spent $20,000 to build an outstanding web site. Then they spent $10,000 per month to be placed in the top ten of the major search engines. At the end of six months they had no sales resulting from an Internet click though and they were out $80,000.

I believe that search engines are helpful but next to the Federal Reserve, war and taxes are the biggest rip off of American industry ever.


I know you promote them because your advertising department said to do it. I challenge you to send this letter out for feedback.


There are better ways to drive Internet traffic to our web sites. I am going to find all of them and reduce my dependence on SE's as much as possible.


Kind regards,

Martin Lee Turnbull
www.loghomes.com
719 534 9777

PS...

Here is a little after thought. Anyone can buy their way into the top ten of each SE, but at what cost? Being in the top ten and getting click throughs does not guarantee business for many businesses on the Internet today. Purchasing a log home is not an impulse decision.

[Dave Hawley]

Agree! I too found Overture a waste of money and double the cost of Google AdWords on top.

Martin. Below are what I have and continue to use on Google AdWords. By following these steps I have managed to clinch a ROI of over 100%. Some of these are in very competitive markets.

Please note Each step must be followed.


1) Don't let your AdWords show on sites using AdSense.

2) Target only counties that can afford to buy. This often means no third would countries etc. If your product/servive is local, then only show you ad to relevant Countries/States.

3)Bid the min only, 5c pc

4)Use as many combinations of keywords and phrases as possible. This is VITAL!. For example, if selling "Excel Templates" I would use;

Excel Templates
Excel Template
Templates Excel
Template Excel
Xl Templates
Xl Template
Templates Xl
Template Xl
Microsoft Excel Templates
Microsoft Excel Template
Excel Templates Microsoft
Excel Template Microsoft
Excel Microsoft Templates
MS Excel Templates
Excel Templates MS
Excel MS Templates
Financial Template
Finance Templates
Financial Templates
etc
etc

The idea with this is to exhaust every possible term keyword that could be used. By doing this you are unlikley to fall below the 0.5% CTR that cuts out the keyword/phrase. Aim for at least 50 different combinations.

5) Set your daily limit VERY high. If you use steps 3 and 4 above you are *very unlikely* to reach this limit. I have some set a $600 per day and they never exceed $30.00. The idea of this is to keep your ad showing which helps a LOT when bidding the min.

****IMPORATANT****** This MUST be monitored very closely for a few days.

6)Make full use of negative keywords. Use
-Free
-Freeware
-shareware
etc

7)Mention the word "buy" or a $ value in the ad. This helps stop the freebie hunters. I'm continually amazed by the number of ads that don't do this.


Good luck!

[cbp]

I have found both Overture and Google Adwords to be beneficial - I get a positive ROI from both --> that makes it worth it, though as Dave points out Google is cheaper, so my ROI from Google is better than Overture.

Different sites selling different products will get a different ROI from Overture and Google - Dave gives some good advice in sorting it out.

This month I was notified that Overture had a $20 per minimum and that were deducting $17 and change from my account

You knew that when you signed up for Overture, that this could happen.

If visitors to your site, regardless if they come from organic results or paid clicks, do not convert to sales --> who's fault is that? Its not the search engines, so why blame them? It could be no one realy wants to buy your product online, it could be the design and text of the site, it could be you did not do your maket research first, etc

At the end of six months they had no sales resulting from an Internet click though and they were out $80,000.

Why are the search engines responsible for that?

CBP

[Duncan Pollock]

Dave: If you'll forgive me for the interruption, let me ask how I go about keeping my AdWords ads out of AdSense pages as you suggest.
I run AdWords for a variety of search phrases (computations of "Homes for Sale [location]" and "Real Estate [location]) and have no complaints at all about clicks and CTRs. I'm not aware, though, that, my ads appear elsewhere, except for within the ubiquitous "Content" figures as opposed to the "Search" ones.
So, then, are AdSense appearances included in the "Content" impressions/clicks and, if so, what could/should I do to exclude them?

Duncan

[Dave Hawley]

Hi Duncan

If you go into Edit Settings, there is a checkbox for content network Uncheck that.

My reasoning is this. From our findings, most click fraud occurs via AdSense ads. I guess this would be logical for the scammers. That is, if they are going to engage in click fraud they might as well pay themselves for doing it. However, it's not only that by any means. We found our ROI increased a LOT when unchecking content network as most were just browsing.

It is my opinion that those that are looking to buy, will search. It's unlikley that someone on another site will see and AdSense ad and decide to buy on that alone.

[Duncan Pollock]

Thanks, Dave.
I'll go there and do just that.
As I said, I've no real concerns about my CTRs, but the Content figures certainly help to pull them down and I have no reason to think that any prospects have reached me that way despite the occasional click that occurs.

Duncan

[activeco]

Double post. Sorry.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawley

It is my opinion that those that are looking to buy, will search. It's unlikley that someone on another site will see and AdSense ad and decide to buy on that alone.

I am afraid I couldn't agree with this.
It is MUCH more likely to get more often a sale from a link from other site than from a search engine.
Even nicely positioned sites mostly get up to max. 10% of all traffic from SE.
I would like to hear from someone having different experience, even if he's #1 on a SE.

Knowing Google's business professionalism, I know they are very serious in detecting fraudelent clicks and harsh in dealing with violators of their TOS.
I am not saying it is not possible. Your experience with the ROI is a bit disturbing, it could indeed be the case (fraud), but the general reasoning is wrong.
If some webmasters do such things, it would be shortminded - killing the really nice program, for all the parties involved.

I guess it would be possible for Google to introduce (if they don't do it already) tracking of conversion sales rates for any site participating in Adsense.
If the site is notably below industry average, well - goodbye.

[Dave Hawley]

I am afraid I couldn't agree with this.
It is MUCH more likely to get more often a sale from a link from other site than from a search engine..

Why do you say this? All our studies show the total opposite.

Even nicely positioned sites mostly get up to max. 10% of all traffic from SE.
I would like to hear from someone having different experience, even if he's #1 on a SE

Now that is just totally untrue! Where on earth are getting these figures from? If you are only getting 10% of your traffic from SE's you have a lot of work to do in regards to SEO. It's no wonder you think sales are more likely to come from other sites!

Knowing Google's business professionalism, I know they are very serious in detecting fraudelent clicks and harsh in dealing with violators of their TOS. I am not saying it is not possible. Your experience with the ROI is a bit disturbing, it could indeed be the case (fraud), but the general reasoning is wrong.
If some webmasters do such things, it would be shortminded - killing the really nice program, for all the parties involved.

My ROI has nothing to do with click fraud.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawley

Why do you say this? All our studies show the total opposite.

I obviously don't count (PAID) PPC Search Engine results. OK, for a nicely positioned site (read: first page) it is more, but in average I don't think I made a huge mistake.
Would you please provide more sources that point to other conclusions?

Here are some from my side:
http://searchenginewatch.com/serepor...le.php/2164571
http://www.pornresource.com/article.php?aid=536
http://www.geekvillage.com/forums/sh...216#post140216
etc.

Bear in mind that I am talking mainly about regular marketing ways , thus not some special linking or other tricks involved.
If someone have regular links with high PR (Google), I am still convinced that he will receive more visits through the links themself than from SE.

[Dave Hawley]

From your only reliable resource.

A new release from StatMarket has found that web users are more likely to find web sites through direct navigation than a year ago, but this gain hasn't been at the expense of search engine usage.

The search engines are going to remain really vital. People are going to find sites via search engines and then navigate directly to them," said Geoff Johnston, vice president of product marketing for StatMarket

So, if you get most traffic from sources others than SE's you have likely stagnated. If you then simply allow this, stop any SEOing, and focus more on other means of traffic, you are likely to not last in most cases.

Nothing on the page indicated that links from other sites are likely to bring buyers, more the SE will.

It's really just common sense. When looking to buy something of the www you are very likely to search. So the intitial contact is made via a SE in a vast majority of cases.

[crobike]

I don't think Overture is bad. I'm now using Overture since 5 month and I'm happy. I have a ROI of 300%. I'm bidding for all possible keywords for my industry each max. 10 cent. I have 250 keywords now.

I think Overture is better than Google because in Google my ROI is only 180%.

Success: Low bids and a lot of keywords.

[activeco]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawley

So, if you get most traffic from sources others than SE's you have likely stagnated.

A bit off the topic, but still connected:
How many people here do really have most traffic from SE's?
Could you please provide some traffic data and ideally url address.

Nothing on the page indicated that links from other sites are likely to bring buyers, more the SE will.

Well, it is an old article, I would like to see fresh data.
However, are you trying to prove that 8% of visitors represent more buyers than 92% visitors coming by other means?

It's really just common sense. When looking to buy something of the www you are very likely to search. So the intitial contact is made via a SE in a vast majority of cases.

Speaking of common sense; when you say "search engine", what do you think first?
And simplifying things here, what is the most important factor Google takes into consideration?
So, the same quality links that bring (high) rankings are directly responsible for the most traffic in huge majority of cases.
Again, I am talking about regular linking. In most cases PR is directly proportional with traffic, higher PR = more traffic, more links from such pages = ...?
If you are really able to get more traffic from SE than from the links - it smells strongly to spamming SE.

...If you then simply allow this, stop any SEOing, and focus more on other means of traffic, you are likely to not last in most cases.

I'll tell you the secret most SE and BUYERS like:
Content is still the king.

I don't want to spread heresy here, but the formula should be: Content+Content+Content+SEO=Traffic=...

[Dave Hawley]

However, are you trying to prove that 8% of visitors represent more buyers than 92% visitors coming by other means?

No, I think you are confusing things here. You are fogetting that most will locate a site the first time via a SE. After that, they may use the direct URL or favorites etc.

Speaking of common sense; when you say "search engine", what do you think first?

A means to locate what I want on the WWW.

And simplifying things here, what is the most important factor Google takes into consideration?

Nobody knows for certain, but's it generally believed to be keyword anchor text in links from other sites.

So, the same quality links that bring (high) rankings are directly responsible for the most traffic in huge majority of cases.

Not sure what you mean?

Again, I am talking about regular linking. In most cases PR is directly proportional with traffic, higher PR = more traffic, more links from such pages = ...?

No, not at all. PR is is only one of hundreds (possibly thousands) of factors used to determine a pages position in the SERP's. One only has to look at the SERP's to see that many lower PR pages are outranking higher PR pages.

If you are really able to get more traffic from SE than from the links - it smells strongly to spamming SE.

Sorry, but that is a totally ludicrous statement. If anything, those that get more traffic from links on other sites are likely link farms.

I'll tell you the secret most SE and BUYERS like: Content is still the king

.
Let me tell you a secret, your secret is no secret.

don't want to spread heresy here, but the formula should be: Content+Content+Content+SEO=Traffic=..

I agree, to a point, however, you have now contradicted yourself. One minute you say traffic and sales is all about links from other sites and now it's all about Content and SEO. Do you know that SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization?[/quote]

[voodooboy]

Originally Posted by martinlatanet

Like all other Overture subscribers I placed x dollars on deposit with their firm. Within my industry, log home building, I selected my key words and agreed to pay $0.10 per click through. This month I was notified that Overture had a $20 per minimum and that were deducting $17 and change from my account. This means we had about 26 visitors who used Overture to click through to our web site and we paid $17.40 for those that do not click through. We were ranked #22 on Overture.

Rank 22, and your wondering why you didn't get any click-throughs? There is the problem. You wanted to pay .10 a click and you wanted the world for it. Overture works; but you have to be willing to play the game. Just like Google Adwords, you have to drill down to the specific search terms you want, make sure they are being used, then take the marketing risk of paying for the top placements.

And you need to know marketing, not SEO to understand how to use Search Engines. It is $20 minimum a month. You had 26 visitors which is equal to .77 per click. That is your ROI for that investment. Now instead of .10 a click at rank 22, where could you rank at .77 per click? Probably a lot higher. If you are going to market, then market smart. Don't blame the tool, blame the user.

Being in the top ten and getting click-throughs does not guarantee business for many businesses on the Internet today. Purchasing a log home is not an impulse decision.

Go and pay $2500 USD on a half page Yellow Pages ad. Is that a good investment when 78% of the population own computers and use them to look for local businesses instead of the yellow pages? No. What about printing up a couple thousand FSI's for newspaper inserts when 63% of them never get read? Every marketing venture is a crap shoot. There is no definitive plan or strategy that will make you soar above your competition. It is all based on what you market and who you are marketing too.

Again, for posterity: Don't blame the tool, blame the person using it…

[asher02]

I too was using overture when I first started with my internet business, but found out very fast that I was working for overture. With cost of $1.5 for a click and an average basket of $50 with a conversion rate of 3% just figure how much money you loose. So basically what happened I had to be a better search engine optimizer and to dominate serps without paying

This method is good for Google since the free result appear side by side or even better then the paid result, unlike overture that if you worked really hard to be the first site in the additional listing you are probably somewhere in page 3.

So like many others I put all my effort in Google with quality traffic and forgot about overture at all, I don’t even have an account there. I can hardly imagine any site that works with overture and manage to end up with a profit from their clicks and bills.

All this is without mentioning the problem that they have with click abuse, we received refunds every month for about 10% of the total cost but not before we asked for. My thinking was that at list 30% of the clicks were of my competitors….

[billyrides]

I am certainly a newbie to this and we just signed up with Overture a week or so ago to try and get some more traffic and ultimately sales.

Although the numbers look impressive I'm not the most trusting type and was wondering if these numbers can be artificially inflated. Having basically no experience at all with this, I'm not sure if I should be happy or not.

[chocochef]

Absolutely agree that it isn't the tool, it is the user. You've got to figure out how much as sale is worth and how much you are willing to pay to get a prospect in the door. Once they deliver, it's up to you to close the deal. If you can make a few thousand in profit on a customer, then why skimp on lead generation? Even if only one customer closes, it's probably worth the cost of the clicks.

I've used Overture very successfully in the past and find that their advertiser tools are much easier to use than Google's. In particular, the keyword suggestion tool showing actual monthly traffic estimates and the current bid tool showing high bids is extremely helpful in planning a campaign. If Google Adwords has something similar, I have yet to find it. (Apart from their keyword suggestion tool, which doesn't give traffic estimates).

Wondering if anyone has any good suggestions for Google campaign planning and bid setting, or do you just guess at first and adjust accordingly?

Thanks.

[DanThies]

Martin:

All of Overture's terms and conditions are there to see when you sign up. If you really misunderstand pay per click and online marketing that badly, you probably shouldn't be spending any money just yet. Get a little more education before you plunge into anything.

If you're selling a high margin product, with a decent website and sales strategy, you ought to be able to afford more than a dime a visitor. Trying to get by with the minimum bid was just one of your mistakes. You're lucky to have gotten even 26 visitors.

[DrTandem1]

PPC is a loser. About the only rationale for using it is for hot items such as concert tickets and other time-sensitive/impulsive buying.

Most fraudulent click-throughs come not from AdSense, but AdWords. Why? Because to fraudulently use your own site to "pay yourself", as some put it, is a quick way to get booted. The search engines are not interested in paying anyone. They are interested in collecting, from both ends. Period. It is also much easier to fraudulently click on sites that are targeting "your" keywords.

Also, why would anyone throw money into Google's Adsense or AdWords PPC when they already hold top spots in Google's "natural" redults? What someone isn't telling you is that they have over 6,000 sites linking to them. Their PPC campaign with Overture simply gets the site into the directory to be indexed by search engines, but not ranked.

It is doubful that they would lose any sales by abandoning the PPC campaign. This in turn would increase their ROI, because they would no longer be throwing away their money.

[DanThies]

Originally Posted by DrTandem1

PPC is a loser. About the only rationale for using it is for hot items such as concert tickets and other time-sensitive/impulsive buying.

I make plenty of profit from my PPC campaigns, as do many others. Sorry your results haven't been as good.

Also, why would anyone throw money into Google's Adsense or AdWords PPC when they already hold top spots in Google's "natural" results?

Because your click-through rates for both listings are higher when you use Adwords.

Adsense is the cheapest form of branding I've found yet. I get my ad on thousands of pages that link to Wordtracker, at a CPM of around 25 cents.

It is doubful that they would lose any sales by abandoning the PPC campaign. This in turn would increase their ROI, because they would no longer be throwing away their money.

Doing PPC badly is like doing any other kind of advertising badly. You're better off not doing it at all if you don't know what you're doing.

[zbatia]

I use SEO for about 3-4 years with both, Google and Overture. I have many more clicks from Google (about 90% including foreign countries' Google such as France, Belgium, etc) and it's understandable because of Google domination. Overture now is a part of Yahoo, and Yahoo's clicks run about 5-6% of total.

It's hard to calculate ROI in our business, because when we receive e-mail with some questions related to the computer training it doesn't mean we have the customer who will definitely pay for training. My first goal is to get the telephone call or e-mail from a customer who is searching the web for career training programs, particularly in Baltimore, MD. We have the position #1 at both search engines and on MSN as well. I would not get there without thorough optimization and, believe or not, a lot of $US. It’s easy to calculate ROI on selling the test preparation software because if the price is right, we are getting payments.

Therefore, I *****totally disagree***** with your suggestion on $.10 bid per click and multiple variations of the same key phrase. It just doesn’t work! I have a proof of it. When I run the reports on keywords, I can clearly see that the only most used keyword phrases are being utilized. All others have BIG ZERO next to the number of clicks. It’s wasted time. Therefore, if you want to be on the first page of search results, be ready to spend a lot of time and be ready to pay. Not $17.00, but much more, and only then you will higher than #22.

I pay $19.95/month for detailed information about clicks. Except all other goodies, this is the only way to find out if the fraud occurs. I do not pay Overture a fixed fee, but rather establish my limit by paying money as needed. If I have the message from Overture about money running out suspiciously quickly, I verify the clicks, and then go to the Hitslink service to see if the clicks were from the same user. So far, Overture did not credit anything back to my account because of fraud, but Google credited me twice admitting the fraud cases.

As you see from all replies, the results from both search engines vary for different web masters. As soon as I am stopping to pay to Overture, I am not getting sales for Transcender’s software. Example: I did not add money to my account for about 2 weeks with no sale occurred. Yesterday I added $50. Today I sold software with a profit ~$30. In my case, $50 is enough money to run for about 2 weeks. So, go and figure.

Folks, it’s an old rule. Invest money if you want to make money.

[Duncan Pollock]

zbatia: Would you mind pointing me in the direction of the $19.95 per month click analysis program you have. I'm using AdWords and, although I'm only a small (one-man) player, I'd find it useful to know more than the Reports graph and a drill down through my campaigns tell me.
Thank you.

Duncan

[Dave Hawley]

PPC is a loser. About the only rationale for using it is for hot items such as concert tickets and other time-sensitive/impulsive buying.

Tradesmen blaming his tools. Like has been pointed out, plenty make good sales from ppc that don't sell concert tickets etc.

Most fraudulent click-throughs come not from AdSense, but AdWords. Why? Because to fraudulently use your own site to "pay yourself", as some put it, is a quick way to get booted. The search engines are not interested in paying anyone. They are interested in collecting, from both ends. Period. It is also much easier to fraudulently click on sites that are targeting "your" keywords.

I dissagree and in our case it's AdSense that attracts the most fraudulent clicks. I'm quite sure the fraudsters are not silly enough to simply use the own site.

The search engines are not interested in paying anyone. They are interested in collecting, from both ends. Period.

Not True. Google pays me over $150.00 per week via AdSense. I would also say I'm only a VERY small player in the AdSense game.

Also, why would anyone throw money into Google's Adsense or AdWords PPC when they already hold top spots in Google's "natural" redults? What someone isn't telling you is that they have over 6,000 sites linking to them. Their PPC campaign with Overture simply gets the site into the directory to be indexed by search engines, but not ranked.

I doubt a ppc user would bid on a keyword phrase they already hold top position for. The fact you say that only adds weight to "another tradesmen blaming his tools". However, I doubt there are many sites that hold good position for all their targeted money terms. These are the one they target.

It is doubful that they would lose any sales by abandoning the PPC campaign. This in turn would increase their ROI, because they would no longer be throwing away their money.

What are you basing these statements on? Those who know how to use ppc for profit are using it to increase profit. So, those that are doing it properly would decrease their profit if they stopped.

DrTandem1, I get the very strong impression that you have tried ppc, not succeeded, and now assume it works for nobody.

I tried to walk a tightrope once, fell, sprained my ankle and embarrassed myself, then said, I'm never doing that again. However, I not going to start making tunnelled visioned statements that tightrope walking cannot be done.

[rhugosom]

Dear Martin:

I did a lot of research on pay per click and Overture, before I spent a single dollar. Then I concentrated on five key word phrases, and followed the statistics for two months before I invested in the program.

For me, the ROI is great. I have a conversion rate of about 15%. The click through rate is about 1.5%. I answer a lot of "shopper" questions by email, and, usually by the second or third contact, I sign up the one out of seven that will be my client.

Following the account statistics is what led me to concentrate on just one key word phrase. I couldn't afford to pay the $25.00 rate that a national law firm was paying for one phrase, so I went for another that cost me $4.91 per click, to stay within the top three places, which Overture states "they heavily promote". Analysis paid off.

My site is home made, so I concentrated on content, content,and more content. But, because of the specialty factor, I opted out of the Content Match portion of Overture, sticking with Precision Match.

Overture has worked well for me, but, as one previous poster mentioned, buying a log cabin is not an impulse purchase. You have to expect a long term relationship with anyone who contacts you, and give them a reason to keep coming back to you, as the expert on log cabins. Have you done four, five, or six followups on each contact? Including one that asks if they are still interested? And if they are not, please respond so they can be taken off your "bug in 30 day tickler file"? It is still a game of marketing. And they contacted you first.

Good luck, whichever way you go. But be sure to analyze those past statistics.

Robert H. Somerville, CPA
rsomerville@survivetaxes.com

[makeyoursoftware]

Dear Martin ,

Overture, has lot of potential it serves billions of users, there is minimum spending limit of USD 20, that is good for regular user & bad for initial or new users.

To have higher success rate on Overture, just do this.

1.Get a professional for initial setup, then you can manage yourself – It is really easy.

(At earlier stage there may longer learning curve, it may cost you)

2.Make sure to get more keywords to get your listing up.

3.Make a monthly budget you would like to spend

4.Remain tight on what you want to pay for per click.

5.Don’t get into bidding war

6.Track-Check – It will help you what is the best for you

7.If you are earning on particular click get ready to invest more for Per Click – Experiment it

8.Keep track of ROI

I hope this will help you,

Any help do you need more you can contact me as well

Have a nice day! :)

[brian.mark]

While I have also experienced higher traffic from Google, ROI on Overture is better. We use Overture and AdWords to promote our site that sells power tool repair parts, which isn't what I would consider a mainstream market.

We have also worked heavily on SEO and rank pretty well on both Google and Yahoo for about 90% of the key terms we have currently chosen (by pretty well, I mean top 5 for most, and top 3 - above the fold - for a majority), we still do PPC advertising as well. Nearly 75% of our sales come from organic listings, meaning that 25% of our businesses is still paid for through PPC. We tried shutting PPC down for a few days once our organic listings were where we wanted, but sales dropped immediately. That would be why we and other sites would continue to pay for terms that we already rank well organically.

My biggest question at this point is this: why do we have 500,000 impressions per month on AdWords and only 20,000 per month on Overture? We have the same terms (or as close as we can due to Overture's stemming - I don't like that at all) on both, but we continually see huge amounts of traffic from Google and AdWords, but very little from Overture. We wouldn't mind paying more than the $100/month we currently spend on Overture, but we haven't figured out how to get more impressions yet.

Overture's conversion rate is slightly higher, with average CPC being lower for us, but we'd really like to see more impressions on Overture, as that should mean more sales.

Anyone with suggestions, it would be greatly appreciated.

[randshay]

I have some common sense words for this discussion.

Any business makes a budget which includes a dollar or percentage committed to marketing. While I do think that $20 a month is a small amount, this is perspective. Small businesses will, of course, have less to spend than large corporations. The point of the original post was ROI and honesty.
I am a small business person, myself. For those like myself, it is a struggle to have your business gain reputation, placement, etc, without spending so much on advertising that you no longer have anything to promote.
I'm going to wander for a moment. I found a number of replies from some so-called "experts" here to be nothing short of rude and highly unprofessional. I've made note of which companies these posters represent and shall never in my life do business with them. The original poster, martinlatanet, is not a SEO expert and does not deserve to be treated like he lacks intelligence. Unlike SEO experts, his business requires large sums of money invested in capital, shipping and other expenditures. I'm sure his business also requires time and physical labor. In short, before talking down to him, try building a log cabin. Then remember that he has more at stake than office space. Aside from that, it is obvious that noone is really too much of an "expert" in the SEO field. Read this forum and see how many conflicting theories can be found on any subject. It comes down to trial and error with other people's money. (There's something you can reply to rudely that may deserve it. Have at it.) (One note: I won't read the replies. I have too much real work to do.)
To the original subject, I have had my own experience with Overture. The divulgence that there is a monthly minimum is not clearly posted. This is something you have to look for, which you should not have to search for. Of course, it may not be such an issue for anyone that gets paid to tell people to spend money. For real people, it is an issue.

[shifty]

Quote"I believe that search engines are helpful but next to the Federal Reserve, war and taxes are the biggest rip off of American industry ever."

not just the american but british as well, i had an overture account, on one search term it was 15p per click kept me in a 7th position, within 1 month the top position was paying £1.99 per click......no way on gods good stuff, was i going to go up to that, i let it run out and forget overture..the ppc programme is a licence to print or "click" money, the answer is in a BBC type search engine, you pay to be included, but advertising in not allowed unless is is advertising its own products, that way the field is even, if you want to SEO your way to the top then fine.

[zbatia]

Dunkan, sorry for a delayed answer, but I just received the notification today.

I use the Histlink.com service:
http://www.Histlink.com
I cannot say it's the best and cheapest one, but it's very helpful!