Overture - I hate them

I have received today an email:

"
We wanted to remind you that Overture requires all accounts to incur a
minimum of $20.00 a month in click-through charges. Because the month is
now half over, we thought it might be helpful for you to know that your
account .... has accrued approximately $3.17 in click-through
charges. If your account does not reach the $20.00 minimum by the last
day of the month, you will be charged the difference between your spend
and $20.00.

You can avoid this charge by ensuring your site receives at least $20.00 in
click-through charges this month. Doing so will also deliver more targeted
customer leads to your business and provide you with more opportunities to
sell.

To help you receive $20.00 worth of clicks, you may wish to consider using
one or more of these simple strategies:

(1) Bid your listings higher
(2) Turn on Phrase Match or Broad Match to broaden the distribution of your
existing listings and receive more targeted leads
(3) Add new listings to your account
(4) Make sure your account doesn't go offline before receiving $20.00 in
click-through charges for the month"

When I add a listing I have to wait one week to be approved and they tell me that I should add more listings.
I HATE THEM....

 

LOL Agreed.

 

Best of all - most of my listings are declined...

 

I used them for a month and got the same message, as far as I'm concerned their no match for google adwords.

 

I think so. I didn't think when I tried Adwords. But now I think that Google Adwords is the best.

 

There are so many things that bother me about Overture.

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=8302

http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=8204

 

I guess us old guys (been with overture for 3 years or so) don't have that kind of problem, but we also spend more than $20 anyways.

Another thing is getting no listings is hardly ever a problem, why would they decline them unless they are spammy, affiliates, or just plain junk??

PM me a listing that was declined, I would be curious to see if they are picky for some fields or what??

 

I've been with Overture since the beginning, when they wre still GoTo. And I hate 'em!

Yeah, my listing changes and additions are approved right away. But overall, they're not very customer friendly.

 

at least you can phone them when you have an issue, can be handy sometimes

 

Totally agree crazy rob, they are very slow with approving ads but what i dislike the most are the Monthly Financial Reports, there is more than a month delay in showing the invoice.
They even called me that my account was not yet activated, while ads where running for over 3 weeks.
We can only hope they will improve..

 

I've never had their reporting match mine.

 

For example: I have for approval site: free sex dates (http://freesexdates.biz/) and when I add listing for approval for a keyword: "find a sex date" or "date line sex" there is written: "Non-Adult Term". I don't know why it is non-adult term.
Or there is written that "the url is broken"... But I can see my site . Maybe they have a worm in their internet explorers/operating systems

I have tried yesterday 20 keywords but... 16 was declined and 3 are pending. I don't know what can I do to use my money...

Their advice is usless...
(1) Bid your listings higher
I cannot higher...
(2) Turn on Phrase Match or Broad Match to broaden the distribution of your
existing listings and receive more targeted leads
I have tried
(3) Add new listings to your account
I have tried

 

(4) Get some friends to click your ads

They suck in many ways but they are a necessary evil to spread the 'risk'. Relying solely on Google ads isn't the best practice IMO.

Their stupid merchant centre pisses me off. Sort by a field, then increase the returned result, now sort on a different field and it will 'forget' you set the new number of results. More of those shenanigans all over their software.

 

Top30 you are still experiencing that problem in sorting? That was happening about 1 to 2 months ago but not anymore. ????

Maybe turn off your firewall while you are in and see if that changes anything??

 

And use IE.

 

Yeah I still get that but don't think it's appropriate for them to demand I turn my firewall off or use IE.

We're talking about sorting a DB table here. Why can't they figure it out?

I've got cookies enabled so they can store the last sort setting. Or they use a session if they want. I'm not going to go out of my way to make their site work. We're paying quite a bit of money so it's up to them IMO.

 

I agree. That's why I have someone else manage my bids. Overture is a Yahoo! company, so don't expect things to get better. Their DTC is so old and outdated. They just keep adding stuff to it instead of rebuilding it like they should.

 

I spend about $2500 / month on overture and i agree their system sucks. I think they would make so much more money if they just improved their system. I only use overture so that I dont rely on adwords too much. I think I also spend the same or more with adwords.

I have been with overture when it was still goto and the time to get my changes approved still takes ages. I think it is more about the time for the changes to go into effect.

I have looked and tried other alternatives but none have worked out. For some odd reason my site converts better on with adwords than overture. :-( I get a 1% conversion rate on overture and 3% on adwords.

I hope to find another way to get some new customers ;-)

 

Overture converts better cause its a better form of advertising. You pay more so you get more. I know