Touch fixed price listing positioning

Hi there,

I received a telephone called from a sales rep from www.touchplc.com/ in regard to their advertised link service.

According to Touch I can choose one phrase, such as "mp3 player" in my case. Whenever anyone searches for "mp3 player", my advertising banner will be displayed at the very top of the page on Lycos UK, Hotbot UK, Ask Jeeves UK and Touch Local.com.

It's not PPC, Touch quoted me £749 for one year of unlimited clicks for the phrase "mp3 player". I'm a little tempted as general phrases such as "mp3 player" cost a fortune on Google Adwords / Overture / Espotting.

Anyone heard of Touch before, what do you think of this offer?

Thanks for any help.

Josh (Advanced MP3 Players)

www.advancedmp3players.co...index.html

4% commission on all MP3 Player sales. Average sales are £150 each.

How many advertisers will they let choose the same keywords?

If it's just you it sounds an excellent oppertunity.

Hi Carl,

Yes, I would be the only one with the phrase "mp3 player". My ad would only appear when someone enters "mp3 player", not when someone enters "mp3 players" for example. To see where my ad would go, please see the URL below:

www.touchnw.co.uk/lycos/tpc/

My banner ad would appear in place of the "Save Money" banner (see above URL) whenever anyone enters the phrase "mp3 player".

What do you think?

Thanks again.

Josh (Advanced MP3 Players)

Have you contacted the owners of the save money banner? I would, and then base my decision on that. Not being competitive with you they have little reason to lie, and it'd give you some idea of performance potential.

For a competitive term it seems a steal. But i'm not in the habit of spending this much on advertising in one place, with the exception of Adwords, and that's not paid up front. But if google said i could have a banner at the top of the page every time my favourite keyword was used, for a year, for £700 odd, i'd take it. And my favourite term is not as competitive as yours.

Over £700 is a lot to spend with only my opinion here though. Anyone else going to add to the thread?

What I would say with this type of banner advert is the money you pay is almost always relevant to how much the keyword is typed in, so you have to ask yourself is that set of words being typed in as much as you think (by humans not bots).. you just have to look at Google to see how useless the keyword thing is with that. Sure it gives you an idea but to be honest I think lots and lots of these searches are made by bots checking what position a company is on a search engine.

That's not to say over 2.5 million people didn't just type "sex" in last month I am just saying be careful as these companies never give you a great deal, they have to be on the make at all times as they also need to pay there partners a fee too.

Of course it is only £700 and so if it’s a donkey it’s a lesson learned but if it’s not and works out, you will be buying tons more.. if it’s the last be sure to let us know LOL

From Google etc, you'll have a rough idea of click through ratio so do some maths based on that?

I'm not a fan of Banner Ads and when scanning listings always ignore banners without even thinking about it. I know many of my colleagues do the same but obviously some people out there must respond to them? [In fact, I'm fairly certain I've NEVER clicked on a banner ad!]

How would people here rate banners against text? I'd hazard that banners only get 10% of the clicks that the same number of text impressions would get, certainly based on my peer group experiences.

So, guestimate at:
expected number of impressions x Google CTR x 10% = number of clicks

Divide the £749 by the number of clicks and you have a rough PPC.

If this is substantially lower than what you're paying now then you're on to a winner. :-)


Myron

This company is currently doing the round with a barrage of spam.

See Webmaster World forum on Touch/Lycos www.webmasterworld.com/forum7/703.htm

Hi guys,

Thanks a lot for all the advice.

I think I'll forget about Touch / Lycos, doesn't sound too good from other peoples' opinions.

I'm currently using Google Adwords, Espotting, Overture, most pages of the website are listed high in Google and I've got a Yahoo UK directory listing. We're also listed in Just35.com and have a successful Affiliate Future account. Any other suggestions on how I can increase customers?

Thanks again.

Josh (Advanced MP3 Players)

Josh whats your top 5 sellers at the mo on advance mp3. Cheers

Josh

How is Just35 working out for you?

Hello,

Regarding the Just35 listing. I am a little disappointed with the results so far. I've had only a few sales as a result of the Just35 listing, but hopefully the Just35 TV ad campaign will raise the profile even further.

It's often hard to tell if a sale results as of the Just35 listing, my tracking software is not the best. Any recommendations of decent website tracking / statistics software would be appreciated.

Hi there,

Regarding the top 5 sellers on the website, please check out the top sellers list on the main page:

www.advancedmp3players.co...index.html

Kind Regards.

Josh

www.advancedmp3players.co.uk