Overture about to raise US rates
 

I got an email a few days ago about them raising UK rates, but I just came across this article. Sucks for niche traffic getting in at low bids.

http://business2-cnet.com.com/2100-1...feed&subj=news

I am looking forward to giving more money to Overture. Those thieves have had plummiting quality over the past 2 months that I personally think it would be a bad idea to raise prices. Not just because Overture wants more money, but because customer satisfaction is at an all-time low right now on Overture... Guess time will tell if it goes up...

WG

hey WG hit me up sometime during the day, wanna chat about SE stuff and our gay sites 1148977

Hey there Dawgy... After talking to a few sources it seems that this Overture thing can hit the US markets as soon as Thursday night so the next 24 hours will be extremely rough for us to get some new campaigns on Overture ASAP.

WG

time to get even more nitchey, cuz the majority of thier hits now that I've experienced are pretty well SHIT for ROI

:/

If they do raise their minimum bid, then they're really dumb. I would say that at least 40% of their advertisers will not continue advertising if minimum bid is 10 cents, hell, we're about to pull the plug on overture, they got deals with all the major search engines and it's draining our listings like crazy. It's going to be another case of e-company losing its touch. They used to be great when you could start your bid at 1 cent, then when it went to 5 cents minimum, well, it was still ok. But 10 cents, give me a break. Already we pulled from the UK version, 5 pences = 8 cents, so now 10 pences = 16 cents, they must be mad!!!!
Hope that the other ppc don't follow the same route.
It looks like Yahoo will set up its own pay per click se very soon, they already snatched one of overture's top executive....

Unfortunately the worth of those 600 buck yahoo listtings have dROPPED dramatically recently too :(

seems like it's time to find new shit to sell....the old shit ain't working no more ;)

it's FUN time now hehe

I stopped using overture already

Ditto that. I mean it is great if you can't afford a dominatrix and want to have a customer service rep talk to you about how disgusting and worthless your search terms are. :thumbsup

> I mean it is great if you can't afford a dominatrix and want
> to have a customer service rep talk to you about
> how disgusting and worthless your search terms are.

Hahaha! As we say in the UK, "thats a goodun" (but only with an english accent".

While I agree with most of you that Overture is extremely difficult to work with, they also have a large volume of adult traffic and as such cannot be ignored so easily. I have my grievances with their staff and editors as well but you need to co-operate with them if they have something you really want. Lately however we've questioned their ROI as their quality has been slipping recently...

WG

> Lately however we've questioned their ROI as their quality
> has been slipping recently...

I reckon its been improving in non-adult, though generally I blame much of the fall for partners like:

Oingo Domain Park

Shitty partners like that send in shitty fucked up traffic from people who are (a) nerds or (b) bored to death. They basically send smelly users who havent had a bath in like 4 years and spend their year in the same pyjamas surfing the web like a hit bot.

There should be a name for those people. Whatever but its crap traffic like that which never converts, unless youre promoting PyjamaCash.com

I totally agree, their search partners have been slipping recently. Domain surfers like oingo are not searchers in my opinion but curious surfers who have been thrown around into a search engine. They weren't interested originally to begin with so their quality is a lot worse. Similiarly, their other partners have slipped and their traffic has been slipping since they lost AOL.

WG

Don't forget that you have something that Overture really wants: money.

Google is good.

It's AdWords program is still nice - relatively cheap along with huge amount of traffic.

overture is garbage.boycott it already.

Really? They're not acting like they want it. I want to give them money but they keep bumping up prices, changing editorial policies on the fly and making it impossible for me to spend my money. Just how much longer are their advertisers going to tolerate this? I really would love to see their market share start to spread out to the smaller engines.

WG

:1orglaugh

yeah their traffic is worthless

To heck with the *&^%$ mainstream search engine guys!

come and buy traffic from us fun kids over at Sex.com.

We have US, UK, and about a zillion other countries all round the world.

Plus we are LOTS more fun than they are and you can hang with us at conferences. I've been told I'm funny at least once.

We have a killer roster of clients who've worked with us for lots of time and are happy, and we can do so much for you
xoxox
Roxx
icq 159579382

I definitely think they are on the way out unless they make some major policy changes. Their editors suck and if Yahoo dumps them and does it themselves then they'll wind up as an overpriced second tier PPC

if you are in at say $0.06/click for a term right now, aren't you grandfathered in at that rate or would that be raised to $0.10?

I was not impressed for the few months I used them.

That's because they know that they can do anything they want and you'll still kowtow to their demands. Even if their policies drive a few adveritisers away, I don't think it would make much difference to their bottom line as other listings would rise to fill the vacated spots.

I think Overture takes their advertisers more or less for granted. The editors don't care, their paycheck doesn't reflect advertiser satisfaction. The management doesn't care because they are more concerned making Overture appealing to partnerships.

The problems really started when Overture ditched the GoTo brand and started whoring themselves out as a provider of search results. They stopped having to satisfy their advertisers and started having to satisfy their partners. The whole bruhaha over minimum bid ties into their partnerships, it sounds better to a partner when Overture can tell them that an average cost-per-click has gone up.

Dealing with Overture is a real pain these days. In fact we haven't launched any new campaigns in over a year and our current campaigns are about 1/4 the size they were in 2001.
I too would love to see some of the other PPCs gain market share, but I really don't see how its going to happen. Unfortunately Overture's got the market nicely locked up and short of a mass exodus of advertisers they're not likely to change. As long as its cost effective to advertise there, that's not going to happen. For the time being atleast its cost effective, just not for the range of words and sites it once was.