SearchFeed is Great!

**chromate** · 07-05-2005, 05:12 AM

Just wanted to say how happy I am with SearchFeed.

As some of you may have read, my AdSense earnings have taken a dive since Christmas. As an example, yesterday, my average click generated only $0.03. Pretty stupid on a weight loss site. Being an AdWords advertiser I know that ads displayed on my site have bid prices WAY in excess of this, even taking into account Google's revenue share.

So, I decided enough is enough. "I can't do any worse" - so it was time to look for a new CPC advertiser. I've used SearchFeed before on lower traffic than I have now, and at the time they were nothing compared to AdSense, who were paying around $1 a click back then.

So I switched back to searchfeed on my South Beach Diet site (to start with). The ads integrated more easily than before. SearchFeed now have several different integration options. I setup a simple JavaScript feed using their control panel in seconds, to display 5 text ads. You can set width, background colour etc. All far more customizable than Google. And you don't get the "Ads by Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooogle" thing either - which I reckon pulls down your CTR a bit. So for all intents and purposes, the ads don't look like ads at all and look like they're just part of your site. Good for CTR.

I chose "low carb diet" as my keyword for the ads - being able to do that is another major advantage over AdSense.

To cut a long story short - the majority of my clicks are now generating $0.22 each GROSS. The unfortunate thing is SearchFeed take a horrible 65% of this. Still works out better than my AdSense rates though, if I can pull in the same CTR.

I've seen that Chris said in his SearchFeed review that you can negotiate them down to 50% which is more reasonable. I've only been running the ads for a day, so I will send them some more traffic over a few more days and then start negotiating.

That's another great thing about SearchFeed - their support is fantastic. No canned responses to emails, at least not for me so far. Personal help / advise doesn't seem to be a problem.

SearchFeed's reporting is nice too. You can see each individual click, even down to which IP made it. Unfortunately no channel reporting like on AdSense though. But as you can see what click was made on what keyword, it almost negates the need for channels unless you're running the same ads from the same keyword on several different sites / pages.

This is not an attack on AdSense. Well not entirely

. AdSense still have a lot of obvious qualities and probably in the majority of cases will work out better for publishers. However, if the situation is right, SearchFeed can be a nice alternative.

As I say, I've only been running the ads for a day, so this report may be a little premature. Time will tell.

**Chris** · 07-05-2005, 06:28 AM

Being able to see, exactly, what a bid price is is nice too.

**chromate** · 07-05-2005, 06:33 AM

yep, it enables you to select a good trade-off between CTR and bid price.

**Blue Cat Buxton** · 07-05-2005, 06:55 AM

I have made a wopping $3.23 since January 2004 from Searchfeed

**chromate** · 07-05-2005, 08:54 AM

How much have you made from AdSense on a similar level of traffic?

**Blue Cat Buxton** · 07-05-2005, 09:09 AM

Fair point

It is only implemented to suplement search results on one site and on low bid price terms . In comparison though, Adsense produced 5 times that last month alone.

I have just (in the last month or so) added searchfeed to another couple of sites and will experiment with different formats - I don't want all my eggs in the adsense basket so to speak.

I agree the support is great, but it is a matter of finding terms where they have reasonable bid prices.

**chromate** · 07-05-2005, 09:20 AM

Yep. That's the key. But also keep your CTR in mind. If you can hit on *exactly* what your users are after, it can make a big impact, even if the bid price isn't that high.

**Chris** · 07-05-2005, 09:22 AM

You also don't have to use one or the other. I use both on my literature site.

**Cutter** · 07-05-2005, 09:45 AM

But you can't place them both on the same page due to TOS.

**chromate** · 07-05-2005, 09:47 AM

Couldn't wait... So I asked them for a greater revenue share. They boosted my share to 45%. Still not great, but better than before. I'm sure if they offered 60% share for publishers they would be far more successful.

So many webmasters must not even give them a second look when they only offer 35% as standard.

**Chris** · 07-05-2005, 10:06 AM

Sure you can Cutter, it just depends how you do it.

You cannot place a searchfeed ad and an adsense ad on the same page, but you can place a link to a searchfeed result set on the same page as an adsense ad. In this manner you can monetize a single word in your copy by linking it to a searchfeed result set.

For instance, using the same system I use here to link to reviews of adnetworks, I could link to searchfeed result sets. For instance if you type "hosting" I could link to a search for web hosts. This is despite the fact that there is adsense at the top.