I looking at overture and wondering if is ..... dont know word good, should do, ? sorry

as start up company hosting would you do overture ?

$50.00 fee .05 click how long do money last ?


Thank you for help

I don't think that will be money well spent.

I hardly ever use Overture. It's just a big advertising engine. I don't have much respect for the site. I don't understand how people can pay so much. I see some big companies paying $5.00/click. That is ridiculous. I would just go to overture and click 10 times for no reason. Your gonna end up paying $50 for my clicks, even when I have no interest in your company.

I think it's wiser to spend your money advertising at Google or Yahoo. Those search engines get more hits and have a much wider audience.

I would even suggest spending the money wisely at one of the top hosting showcase sites. (Top Hosts, WebHostDir, etc.)

But a per-per-click scheme is no longer as enticing as it once was.

Just my 2 cents. :homer:

Originally posted by GraphicRev
as start up company hosting would you do overture ?

$50.00 fee .05 click how long do money last ? The real problem with that is that you won't find any worthwhile hosting-related search terms for which you'll get reasonable placement for .05 per click. And if you're paying $1.50, or $3.00, or $6.50, your money goes fast.

So Overture for a hosting startup is only an option if you're extremely well-funded, and if you want to start building a brand identity. In most circumstances for a new, small company I wouldn't recommend it.

Overture is great if and only if you have an acceptable cost to value relationship.

I use overture on over 50 web sites of my own. But I average only about $.10 / click.

The keys are: Cost per click, conversion rate of clicks to sales, margin on product sold.

Example...One site sells inexpensive gifts. Average sale = $40. Average gross margin = $15.

If you have clicks for $.10 and can convert 1 out of 20, then average cost per sale is $2. Return on advertising dollars is great.

Now, as to web hosting, etc. too many people bidding too much. Let's look at an example of when Overture is not good.

Lets say advertise hosting for $9.99 per month. After expenses you figure average profit of $5 per month. Average per year of $60, average first 6 months of $30. So, I use the $30 as my starting point and average value of a sale.

If clicks cost you $5 and you convert one out of 10, then average cost per sale is $50. A money losing proposition.

Originally posted by Incognito
A money losing proposition. Sure. But so, probably, will be every TV spot shown at halftime during the Super Bowl. That doesn't mean they were all bad buys. Besides the straight dollars-and-cents analysis it depends on what your goals are.

Admittedly, for the audience here that's just a mental exercise. As I said, I probably wouldn't recommend popular search terms at Overture for a small hosting company with a typically small budget -- but at the same time I wouldn't say that the Dellhost, Verio, and Earthlink are mistaken in making their $6-plus bids for "web hosting." They have other goals then making money off every click, and can afford to have those goals.

And it's also the case that you could identify less popular terms that would probably pay off at Overture: they'd bring fewer clicks, but at much lower cost. There's a lot of potential from Overture that companies don't tap into because either they don't realize it's there or they realize that it'd be a lot of work.

By the way,
I think it's wiser to spend your money advertising at Google or Yahoo. Don't forget that right now the top five Overture matches for specific search terms are displayed as "Sponsor Matches" and "More Sponsor Matches" on Yahoo's SERPs.

Originally posted by JayC
Don't forget that right now the top five Overture matches for specific search terms are displayed as "Sponsor Matches" and "More Sponsor Matches" on Yahoo's SERPs.

Speaking personally, I dont think that the term "web hosting" (which is the term with the highest CPC rates) is actually that specific a search term. Its a little too general to be of much use to anyone.

Originally posted by James Cross
Speaking personally, I dont think that the term "web hosting" (which is the term with the highest CPC rates) is actually that specific a search term. Its a little too general to be of much use to anyone. Of course. But in that context I meant that if you search at Yahoo for any term that's found in Overture, the top five Overture sites are presented as "sponsor matches."

So by "specific term" I meant "a given term"... obviously how unique the term is would make no difference as to what elements the SERP would contain -- as long as it's a term in the Overture database, the top five pages for that term will be listed at Yahoo as "sponsor matches."

It'd make sense in buying at overture to purchase something more targeted than "web hosting." Which in fact is what I said: "And it's also the case that you could identify less popular terms that would probably pay off at Overture: they'd bring fewer clicks, but at much lower cost."