I've been going back and forth with Looksmart about their awful sponsored listing service. The gist of my argument is this: 1. Their search network is about as hokey as they get 2. Their search partners include PORN sites 3. Their tracking and reporting tools are about 3-4 days behind Basically, we spent $45 with them, so it's not that much money, but it seems ridiculous that they include PORN search partners when they don't even accept PORN sites in their directory. Here's the latest email I sent to their support team: I guess I may have to concede that you did deliver that traffic, but it was from sites like these: totallyamateur.com (give me a break!!) hausfraunsex.forcedsexstory.com (what kind of operation do you guys run?!?!?) youjustask.com abcsearch.com freewebcounter.com cockta.com galaxysearch.com faxo.com whattofind.com overppc.com goiga.com wy-drunkdrivinglawyer.com searchyet.com lopsearch.com dollar-searching.com finderup.com searchband.com emberhsearch.com yoho.com If I would've known that you had some flakey search partners, I would've never even considered your services. I know that Google places AdWords on other sites, but they are KEYWORD TARGETED based on the content of the site. I don't believe for one second that any of the above sites--especially the PORN ones--have delivered any worthwhile traffic. And, if I had known what the "Broad Match" meant, I would've never clicked it. I guess broad match means that you'll put our site on PORN sites!!!! That is totally unprofessional and ridiculous! Time to spread the word about your awful service on all the search engine forums!!! Good luck in the future.
I didn't even think it existed still... I know a few UK portals like BT and NTL world used to use looksmart
so, is looksmart more or less "dead" now or? they must be in some serious financial troubles if they suddenly accept porn sites...
Well, I sure wish I had become a member of this forum and read this thread a bit sooner. Would have saved myself Fifty Bucks! I decided on a whim (maybe that's the clue I should notice, eh?) to try the LookSmart service after noticing their ad in a seo newsletter that I read regularly. They offered $25.00 in free advertising when you signed up and so I thought what the heck. I did a quick search for "adwords software" and saw listings from some of my competitors (I was just finishing up my own Adwords software app) and so I figured if they're advertising here, maybe I should give it a try. Let me stress this ... I saw my competitors' ads and thought I'd jump in the game. Like I said, the software was still under construction and not on the market yet (actually just went "live" yesterday) so I decided to try an ad in LookSmart for another product that I have an affiliate relationship with. It's a really nice little eBook on working with programming your subconscious mind; I've been making a few bucks with it using an AdWords campaign and so I figured it would be a nice comparison. When I got the LS campaign all setup and running I searched for my listing and found my ad. Only I also found the ad from my AdWords campaign! It turns out that apparently LS partners with Google for their "sponsored ads". I'm betting that the ads from my competitors that I saw were Adwords ads not LookSmart ads! Well, I sure wasn't too impressed with this. I'm paying twice to advertise against myself on the same srp but, like a dummy, I decided to "let it ride" to see what the results were. Well, the results s**ked! My $50.00 went down the toilet in just over two weeks - not sure exactly how long it took because I wasn't closely monitoring the campaign (I'm burning the midnight oil to get my software testing completed, remember? ). AFAIK, the traffic (350+ clicks, according to LS) didn't even produce any sales! By comparison, 350 clicks on Google would have cost me around $35.00 and yielded 2-4 sales for an income of between $75 - $150! I could go on further lamenting the LS experience but it's late and I'm not done with some other tasks yet. Suffice it to say, I have cancelled my LookSmart campaign. Come to think of it, I never even got the free $25.00 in advertising that they lured me in with. Boy, don't I LookStupid! Oh well .............
Okay call me stupid-er because I just done even better. I lost $100 bucks in a few hours...as of now 12 p.m. my balance is at $0 and I started the listing at 2 a.m. this morning. I don't know what actual time it hit zero, but I guess no sense crying over spilled milk. I thought, what the heck, put a listing up in looksmart (since for some reason I'm no where in there along with wisenut and those others). Why you ask? I'm obsessed with SEO, is anyone else? Once you are on top in G, Y, MSN etc, SEO is all consuming and incredibly addictive --for me at least. I wanted to be #1 or 2 in all of them BIG and SMALL, like Wisenut or Clusty - tough lesson: DON'T LOOK AT THEM! (I could blame Turboscout but I won't since I still like it). Anyways, I put up a $.20 mpc and thought, how much traffic could it be. That $100 should last weeks right? Or at the very worse, I'll get some buyers. Afterall, my conversion rate averages 40-50%. Well, that backfired. I guess it didn't help that I put it up at 2 a.m., because just as the rest of america was going to bed, europe, australia, china were wide AWAKE! I do ship worldwide, but I can't imagine it could be that good. Needless to say, the clicks came through from the most godawful sites (sex sites included), the money drained out, but no change in the normal sales volume. I could wait a couple days to see if they convert, but I'm not holding my breath. Don't pay for looksmart, it will make you look very stupid!
Sorry to bring this old thread back up, but I'm doing research on some ppc programs and definitely cannot disagree with what is being said here. Yahoo! Search Marketing and Google Adwords are the only ones that I can really say have been beneficial to those that I know. Is there any success story with another pay per click program someone can share? Thanks!