May 9, 2008
Should you advertise on Sensis.com.au?
That’s the question posed to me almost daily by clients & prospects this week. It seems that a number of Australian small businesses are being offered a package deal that guarantees a certain number of clicks (they’re people damn it! but more on that another time) for a set price. It might seem easier to manage, but what’s really going on?
Basically (in my opinion which might not be right Mr Lawyer) what Sensis are trying to achieve is getting more people to advertise on their platforms (sensis.com.au being the one they need the most help with), the problem for you as a business is that a tiny fraction of the population use that site to search for answers to their problems.
80-90% of your prospects are using Google (some markets might have a slightly higher proportion using live or yahoo, most not many)
With a package deal (from Sensis or whoever) you have no control over the proportion of your budget that goes on Google & how much goes on yahoo, Sensis & ninemsn (also not used by many people anymore!)
You are much better off having control of your own spend, putting the lions share (to start with) into the medium where most of your prospects hang out (Google), then taking those results to the other search engines which we can identify as important from your analytics… sensis.com.au might be one of those, but currently it isn’t on the list for any of our clients!
Another problem: You need to know which keywords work, which Ads work, which benefits attract people & which don’t
Therefore you need to know that whichever package deal you use can provide that granular level of detail - most don’t
But the biggest problem as I see it with a package deal is that the amount of money spent on each of the search engines is not given to you. You need to be able to control how much goes on Google, how much on Yahoo & maybe how much goes on Sensis. You also want to know how much goes on advertising & how much pays the package-deal-provider’s fee!!
Also, they’re effectively promising a cost per lead as they guarantee a number of leads at a set cost per month. But, the amount you pay for a keyword has nothing to do with the quality of that lead. Some keywords cost more, but bring in a far more targeted prospect. Likewise some long-tail keywords might not cost much, but the quality is terrible. Every phrase is different & needs to be measured. This package-deal marketing doesn’t give you a fine enough picture to be able to tell what’s working & what’s not.
So what’s my answer to clients that ask this question? Basically - don’t do it!! Start where your prospects are - on Google. Tweak. Improve. Measure. Focus on ROI not cost. Rinse & Repeat. Then take the results to the next most important tool & do it again.
And if you’d like some help - feel free to ask, we love helping small businesses succeed faster & smarter!
- Google AdWords MindMap
- Setting up Google AdWords
- Part 3 - Using AdWords to get better SEO results
- AdWords Cheatsheet
- Moving Domains From GoDaddy – CheatSheet
- Improving Your AdWords Ads
- How to (Quickly) Move Keywords between AdGroups
- Google Analytics Settings
- Setting Up A Google Account - Video
- AdWords - Campaign Settings
8 responses for "Should you advertise on Sensis.com.au?"
on 12th May 2008 at 1:35 PM
1. Neil
This artilce completely contridicts itself - yes it’s spot on that that advertisers should care about ROI not the cost of a click. So why then should advertisers care about having most of their budget targeted to google just because they have a bigger market share?
You only pay when your ad gets clicked so if Sensis has a better ROI (which apparently it does) then advertisers should hope to get as many of their clicks as possible occuring on Sensis.com.au.
Advertise directly with google and all you get is google.
on 12th May 2008 at 2:09 PM
1. WebSavvy
Fair point Neil.
I guess what I was trying to say was that the best place to start for most businesses is Google. Assuming it’s going to cost about as much to setup a new campaign on Google as it will on Sensis, and assuming resources are limited & you only want to start with one. Then for most businesses, Google makes more sense as they’ll get 20x the traffic for the same initial setup cost.
Once that’s all working & paying for itself, then by-all-means take the profits & reinvest in smaller search engines & other traffic methods.
on 12th May 2008 at 2:14 PM
1. WebSavvy
Oh & Neil - fair disclosure for our readers… you chose to comment using your private email address, yet it appears from your LinkedIn profile that you’re a Commercial Manager at Sensis…
Just so everyone’s aware of where your loyalties lie
on 12th May 2008 at 2:39 PM
1. Neil
I guess working for Sensis means i don’t need to do the research that you obviously didn’t do before posting this article. Now you say advertisers will get 20x the traffic with google when actually the Sensis package your article refers to distributes ads to the google network as well as the Sensis network so infact advertisers get less exposure with google not 20x more.
on 12th May 2008 at 2:44 PM
1. WebSavvy
Again, my fault for not explaining myself well enough. Let me try again…
By 20x I meant that if they invested all their money in Google vs all their money in Sensis. From all the real-life client traffic that I see on a daily basis, this is the general trend (admittedly for a very wide variety of Australian businesses).
I’m not saying that people shouldn’t advertise on Sensis Neil. I’m just pointing out that if they have to choose one place to start (which many small businesses need to do), then Google is *probably* a better place for them to invest their hard-earned cash.
But since you do work for Sensis, can I ask you a question about those packages? Why don’t you fully disclose to clients what the split between the various places that you advertise is?
ie how much goes to Google, Yahoo, msn/live & sensis. and how much is kept as a management fee. I’m not having a crack here - I’m genuinely interested in the reason why.
Thanks in advance,
Mike
on 12th May 2008 at 2:58 PM
1. Neil
Clearly not the forum for me to discuss the details, nor am I the right person, but no doubt you can get all the info you need if you contact Sensis.
on 15th May 2008 at 10:14 PM
1. Ash Nallawalla
It’s good to know that clients are asking about Sensis almost every day, for it shows that the brand is getting known. It would be worth pointing those people to http://www.clickmanager.com.au/faq.jsp so that they might see this factoid, “Your listings will be found by searching on Google Australia, Yahoo!7 or Sensis.com.au under keywords that have been set up for you.”
Yes, I now work for Sensis but when I managed Melbourne IT’s SEM department, the PPC product covered G/Y and Sensis. When I managed campaigns for clients in the US, I had one client who ran campaigns on the smaller engines too, because a single sale more than made up for a lot of non-converting clicks.
on 16th May 2008 at 10:03 AM
1. WebSavvy
Hi Ash,
small world.. I just had a CV on my desk with your name on it as a reference
and good point made above - I totally agree those ’smaller’ search engines do tend to convert better than Google traffic in most markets.
Tehy just have such a small search volume (for most markets) compared to Google.
And the Sensis brand is certainly well known - you’ve got no need to worry about that!
At the end of the day it all comes down to testing. You have to test traffic from different sources, measure how well it converts, then rinse & repeat.
Luckily for all of us (& our clients) we’re in the most measurable marketing medium the world has ever seen.
cheers,
mike