vertical search = better roi?
May 22nd, 2007
There’s a great article over at Practical Ecommerce entitled “Vertical Search Could Mean Better ROI.”
For example, www.indeed.com is a search engine used to find results associated with jobs. It’s nothing but jobs. It makes sense that some companies, whose businesses depend on some aspect of job creation, fulfillment or servicing might advertise on this search engine. It likely costs a bit more than advertising on Google, but its results are more narrowly focused.
From the small universe in which I float, advertisers seem to be pleased with the results vertical job search engines have provided thus far. Return on investment for most is less than those made in AdWords, although the traffic numbers aren’t close to what Google or most Web search engines can provide. It’ll be interesting, as competition and costs increase, to see if the ROI can continue to be favorable over time. I think they will.
Articles like this help support the fact that vertical search is beginning to hit a critical mass in terms of traffic numbers and awareness (although revenue numbers to support such businesses are still be in question). As much as it should be celebrated, it’s also cause for concern.
A word of warning: Success always breeds evil.
Look at any great online success story - Digg, MySpace, YouTube, Google - and spam is sure to follow. In some cases, spammers can ruin the user experience entirely. Some would argue MySpace (and a lesser degree our industry’s own Recruiting.com) is in such a predicament, leaving room for new players. And around we go again. The capacity for Indeed, Simply Hired and others to effectively control spam while finding success will be paramount and something to keep an eye on.
The most CT jobs await you on the AllCountyJobs.com regional job board network.
May 23rd, 2007 at 12:09 am
We stopped buying cpc ads through SimplyHired and Indeed because they were unable to come anywhere close to delivering a positive ROI. Perhaps they can do so for third party and corporate recruiters but when they charge $0.25 per click and higher and only 5 percent of the clicks turn into registrations….