What's going on across the PPC industry????

[Focus]

Don't want to scare everyone out of the PPC industry but the eventuality of the industry is that it will move to ONLY a CPA advertising/revenue model as alot of big companies with solid business plans have done, sure there might be some stragglers and some nickel and dime clicks left over for everyone from the small guys but nothing to write home about or pay all the bills...it's gonna happen and it's gonna suck and your income will depend on the actual money and business you generate for advertisers..so...enjoy those random clicks while you can guys..you don't have to take my word for it..just watch the next 2-3 years and what happens with pay per click profits..

Chris

Ps- Remember, the only domains with true long term value & lasting income generating power are generic one or two word type-ins closely related to the target industry...so make sure you don't waste big money on here today gone tommorow traffic domains...

[mike031]

people with highly targeted and "pure" traffic are already making big bucks and are getting rewarded from selling leads and direct signups via affiliates instead of parking names earning a quarter or so per click on average at any of the programs.....cpa is the way of the future? ...sooner or later, yes...while this technology is already available everybody must adapt and this will take time even though things do move rapidly on the web... we are talking about billions of dollars here, internet advertising still has a long way to go...ppc has flaws..those who can deliver and deliver consistently have something to be excited about because everybody is going to want to do business with you and the pay is going to be very good.

[hookah]

I'd say it simple: 'traffic' is the core concept - if you've got it, a half of success is yours whatever business model you chose (although I know there are better and worse ones). Just a little of flexibility and some new solutions will come. I treat it as a temporary crisis which forces everybody to be more creative and active in using his/her net-estates. So good luck and good night (at least to europeans .

[namestrands]

Google has posted record profits from its PPC arm.. a rise greater than previous quarters. Does make you wonder why a CERTAIN parking programs CPC has declined while the Average adsense click is at its highest... hmm ... Sarcastic Evil Domain Oppressors thats all I go to say.

Oh and the doom and gloom comments of the PPC industry reminds me of a little conversation from one of my favourite films.. 100 $DNF if you guess what one.:

COSMO: Posit. People think a bank might be financially shaky.
BISHOP: Consequence. People start to withdraw their money.
COSMO: Result. Pretty soon it IS financially shaky.
BISHOP: Conclusion. You can make banks fail.

[Focus]

Wow, some circular logic going on there, will make ya dizzy if you go with it
......theres always a cause and effect that can INFLUENCE most things to happen
but when it actually changes, either you change with the times or you get left behind...

[totenmaske]

Currently I work both sides of the fence so to speak PPC and CPA and while the rewards for CPA can be significantly higher you have to make the mental adjustment to having dozens (if not hundreds or thousands) of unpaid clicks.

The (IMHO) current obstacle to the increased usage of CPA vs PPC is the lack of an integrated contextual "ad-matching" distribution system. Adsense was at minimum evolutionary and arguable revolutionary and it's Adsense like technology that will be required to take CPA to the next level, as right now I cannot name one major CPA network that has the technology in place to allow publishers to easily and effortlessly integrate CPA ads into their websites...not Commission Junction, Linkshare, BeFree/Reporting.net. Currently integrating CPA ads can be time consuming and most publishers would rather spend their time developing and not having to worry about choosing merchants, choosing ads and then integrating those advertisements into their websites.

[NameYourself]

Hmm... I wonder which of those three google should buyout next. You are correct, the AdWords/CPA type setup will be the ultimate solution.

A good example of this would be this scenario:

Say you just started a site that sells candles. You have two options to advertise it.. first you could use a ppc bid setup and hope the traffic converts and constantly watch bid amounts, tracking quality, keywords, etc... all this lies heavily on the person advertising to manage all this and determine if it is profitable for them.

Or, you could have the option to not spend a dime on buying clicks and only pay someone when they refer a sale and make you money. The advertisers cannot lose at all this way, and a bigger share of the pie will also be given to the ad program and the domain / website referring the action. I would also expect to see a similar ranking to how AdWords currently works. If you want to get one of the top ad spots for the widest distribution it won't just come down to how much you're willing to pay the ad network for that referral, the average RPM (what makes the most money overall) will be what matters and determines rankings. It certainly would not be an easy task, and either google or yahoo is probably in the best position to acquire CJ or a similar affiliate network that already has the CPA technology.

The pay per click model will probably still exist to some extent on certain sites and certain networks, but it certainly won't be mainstream.

[namestrands]

Ah.. you guys need to step outside the box a little and out side of the contextual program the reasons why I will get to in a moment..

Contextual CPA could be done now with CJ sponsors that use Keyword Links at the moment.. Its simply a database query, also the fact that CJs advertisers are broken right down to its vertical market is another reason why it would work.

However back to my first answer. I was in fact reffering more to the PPC Parking industry and not so much to adsense concept for sites.

It goes back to basics of an advertiser buying targetted traffic.. my concept is:
example:

• You have a domain that gets 100 uniques a day
• The domain is www.babyclothes.com
• 8 Advertisers on the network sell baby clothes
• Your Domain Redirects directly to the sites in rotation
• The Surfer Sees a Live Site with baby clothes
• They buy something(30day cookie), You get your Commission
• The Surfer is more likely to return to your domain.
• Conversion Rates are higher
• The advertisers can then bid a premium for your traffic.

publishers would rather spend their time developing and not having to worry about choosing merchants, choosing ads and then integrating those advertisements into their websites.

spending time choosing advertisers and integrating them, while time consuming it may be, taking the time even now, would of course reap you the rewards. I hate to tar us all with the same brush but by being a domainer my whole purpose is to make money from my domains/sites. If I have a site, I am always thinking how I can make money from it and I take that into consideration when I create the design. I have redesigned my Games Site 5 times this year to better increase the revenue. I religously try out advertisers (CPA).. and if I get one that converts I integrate to the point that of redesign. I have on occasions went back to the advertiser and asked if they could design a banner around my site. If you are converting for them then they will oblige.

Taking the time to research is a must.. I initially spend the best part of 30 minutes on any domain I buy to check out its history, rankings, and keyword prices on its market and vertical I think its most suited to.. I park it on my server initially and forward to the program of choice, then I analyze the logs to check the GEOLocation of its traffic and find out who and what its referrers are; if it get search engine traffic.. What are the keywords.. taking this time allows me to ensure that the keywords are 100% relative to the traffic, in turn I am rewarded with higher Conversion/RPC

[CashCowDomains]

Mr. Doyle, that would be Sneakers of course!

Roy

Oh and the doom and gloom comments of the PPC industry reminds me of a little conversation from one of my favourite films.. 100 $DNF if you guess what one.:

COSMO: Posit. People think a bank might be financially shaky.
BISHOP: Consequence. People start to withdraw their money.
COSMO: Result. Pretty soon it IS financially shaky.
BISHOP: Conclusion. You can make banks fail.

[namestrands]

LOL.. you know the movie.. then..

As promised - $DNF100 on its way..

Mr. Doyle, that would be Sneakers of course!

Roy

[Edwin]

I think there will be a wider and wider divergence between "quality" traffic and lower-quality, or even junk traffic.

Subjective "quality" ranking, from best to worst
1. Generic typeins applicable to specific products/services (sneakers.com, maps.co.uk, lifeinsurance.com) - no trademark issues, easy to monetize
2. Generic typeins unrelated to obvious products/services (bandits.com, hell.co.uk, reckless.com) - no trademark issues, but harder to monetize
----
3. Domains of "dead" sites with "generic" names and leftover link generated traffic i.e. like 1. or 2. above, but the traffic is mainly not typeins.
----
4. Typos of pure generics
5. Domains of "dead" sites with "made up" domain names
----
6. Obvious trademark infringements (typos of "made up" site names, famous people, etc.)

Each "----" represents a point at which the value of the traffic being generated decreases because its perceived quality drops.

There may come a day where PPC networks will no longer touch traffic in category 6, or even categories 4 and 5. Meanwhile the folks with domains in category 1 (especially) and category 2 should see the value of their traffic continue to rise and rise.

More and more money will flow into PPC for a number of years, but the pie may end up being shared by a smaller and smaller group of progressively more elite players, with just scraps left over for everyone else. Of course, it may still be possible to make a meal out of enough scraps...

I'd welcome any suggestions on refining the above hierarchy.

[namestrands]

I think you pretty much covered it Edwin..

Obvious TM will be a huge issue for the PPC industry with pressure on the programs advertisers and threat of legal action to the program as domain owners now reply to the once dreaded C&D asking for figures up to $500 as they know its going to cost the TM owner $1500 plus legal costs just to file a UDRP, so most times they settle for a little less.

Threatning the Programs and ISP is considerably much cheaper than UDRP these days.

Personally even being a victim of CyberSquatting and Attempted Extortion from a wannabie.. I can not begin to explain the anger I felt towards this.. even so I am still on the fence about this issue.

Fads come and they go, Parking Programs have peaked and things should start levelling out.. the programs that will survive will be the likes of DomainSponsor as I have to give them some Kudos for merging with Oversee.net on this, however they should start integrating oversee advertisers in to the search result (if they dont already).

sedo are part owned by a domain registration company, and sedo do make a ridiculous amount of money, probably due in part to the fact that there staff costs are less than 1/2 of its competitors and they do have one of the best deals with google. So I will imagine they will be around for a while yet..

Fabulous, I just dont know. They seem to be stale for the moment, and from what I have tested outside of Casino Related domains, they really are not that competitive for my domains. No innovations from the Crew Down under.. perhaps this is a case of "if its not broke why fix it"

Trafficz. Hailed once as the best payouts out of the programs.. I just dont know if that was self-promotion as each time I have tested them has been nothing short of a disaster. However the CPM part is great for Junk traffic.. that you cant convert anywhere else.

The rest of the programs, really will have to innovate to stay in the game or have some other Successful Vertical Market or Brand to Cross-Promote with. 2006/07 is going to see a boom in parking program sales and mergers. Watch out for the Affiliate Programs themselves moving in to Contextual CPA and rumours of a certain Affiliate Management Program taking on the Parking Programs.

Yahoo for Domains and Microsoft Bcentral will be the ones to watch in 2007.

Exciting times ahead, and "quality revenue for quality domains" (*wonders if someone will rip off that slogan too*)

[Focus]

Confucious saaaaaay: "Namestrands very smarty pants man with silly cartoon boy picture" huhuhuhuhuhuhu "Me think he really wise like old owl" huhuhuhuhuhu