Most Cost Effective Search Engines Today

[jtouboul]

With the three big guys (Google, MSN, Yahoo) cost per keyword sky rocketing I wonder if anyone has a "preferred" list of search engines where to run an SEM campaign effectively and cost efficiently.

For example everyone is talking of MIVA. 7Search and search123 have also been around for quite some time. Kanoodle and Mama can be in turn tricky or very disappointing. One thing in common is that they seem to all lack the depth of a Google (for obvious reasons). I wonder if anyone has had some positive experience with any of these "second tier" search engines and if so in what particular area (for example mortgage or car sales leads with xyz search engine and how did it work).

Jon posted something about creating a content site and using arbitrage to generate revenues but the key element to success in my view (aside from well conceived site, keywords, etc.) is the search engine where your SEM campaign is going to run. Google is a sure thing because of the sheer amount of volume and popularity. Yahoo and MSN are a bit trickier but still manageable. It becomes very tricky as far as what works and what doesn't when one plays around with the other search engines. I had great thing happens with search123 for example with real estate but horrible result with more generic stuff like shopping or coupons.

It would be good to read what worked for you.

Thanks,

PS: I posted this thread on Search Engine Watch as well so if it sounds familiar this is probably why!

 

[dvduval]

I definitely don't like Kanoodle or 7search, but the MIVA sounds interesting.

 

[gopher]

I definitely don't like Kanoodle or 7search, but the MIVA sounds interesting.

Miva has shitty traffic though. I was getting a CTR of around 60-70% with 7Search, and for the same adcopy, keywords and domain about 5% with Miva.

 

[jtouboul]

Miva has shitty traffic though. I was getting a CTR of around 60-70% with 7Search, and for the same adcopy, keywords and domain about 5% with Miva.

What was the category/ type of product or services that you were promoting via 7Search?

 

[jtouboul]

I definitely don't like Kanoodle or 7search, but the MIVA sounds interesting.

What did you hear about MIVA that made it sound interesting to you?

 

[mason]

What did you hear about MIVA that made it sound interesting to you?

prob the fact that he's never heard of it before.

 

[imiq]

If you haven't heard of it what is the chance the average surfer has heard of it?

Google Yahoo are big time name recognized brands. Even CSI and many other shows are "Googling" things.

These "search engines" feed ads to a lot of really crappy converting sites.

A few years back it was worth the effort for me to use some of them, but no longer.

 

[jtouboul]

If you haven't heard of it what is the chance the average surfer has heard of it?

Google Yahoo are big time name recognized brands. Even CSI and many other shows are "Googling" things.

These "search engines" feed ads to a lot of really crappy converting sites.

A few years back it was worth the effort for me to use some of them, but no longer.

Google is a phenomenum and Yahoo and MSN are trying to get a peice of the cake but they are all three costing gazillions for any decent keyword and SEM campaigns hardly make any $$ (and I'm an optimist -- They probably loose a lo of $$ but are hoping to hook customers).

The only solution for now is to find alternate (tier 2) SE hence my original question of what works where. No secrets here but it would be good to know that car (in general) work well on XYZ search engines or that refinance does not work on 123 search engine (both being saturated it wouldn't make much difference if I told you that refinance worked well on search 123 --- I doubt it does anymore but this tells me something as far as the tyep of traffic to expect)