Pradeep C.
Engineer by Education, Entrepreneur by Profession, Digital Marketer by Passion
Is it worth advertising on Business.com?
I am looking at advertising a B2B Solution on Business.com for the purpose of lead generation. Please share your experience if you have advertised (for a similar purpose) for yourself or for a client. I would appreciate if you could compare the performance on Business.com with Google Adwords.
Also, let me know if you recommend any other business directory for the mentioned purpose.
Answers (9)
Bill N.
Director, Business Development & Marketing at Bal Seal Engineering
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (1), Viral Marketing (1)
I attended a Web Seminar and they suggested Business.com in addition to Adwords. I carefully tracked the URL for both Google Adwords and Business.com (separate landing spots) to assess its impact. Although I got click-throughs, the conversion rate (purchases) were not related to that site.
You may want to gather more experiences and possibly try it out on a limited basis for a month or two and track the results. My personal opinion - a highly focused Ad words might be a better play!
P.S. Please check out our Linkedin group - Brand Strategy Resource
In terms of a link building strategy to increase organic search rankings, yes. It may not be as great in terms of clickthroughs and conversion rate, but it does impact search rankings as a whole. I say it's worth testing, and check your referral sites when you review your site traffic.
Magnus L.
Gamsun - Speaker/Consultant Social Media/Internet Marketing & Uttaget.se - Ecommerce within lighting
Best Answers in: Advertising (1), Internet Marketing (1)
Hi Pradeep,
Nice meeting you.
Business.com does supply the same model as Google Adwords does, sponsored links. I have had success using them, but it is as always up to YOU if you succeed or not. Optimized landingpages, optimised ad-texts, relevant headlines etc etc based on the correct keywords.
I hope that this helped to solve your problem.
Best,
Magnus
I'm not sure if this is just assumed in the answers here, but if you are using Google's Search network you are already showing on Business.com. For inventory Business.com can't fill they use AdWords to back fill.
If you are advertising fundamental business operations, Business.com can be "ok", but beware they lack some basic data like number of impressions served ( as of 9 months ago).
Viggy H.
Online Marketing and Demand Generation Expert
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (1), Search Marketing (1)
If you are dealing with high-end B2B products, and want to use business.com for lead generation, I would say, it's NOT worth the effort and money. If you are looking at brand visibility, use it - they are much cheaper compared to Yahoo! or Google Adwords. I've used business.com since their inception on an on-and-off basis. They have come a long way and adding new features and categories regularly. They could not filter visitors based on geography but now you can define your criteria so that you can filter out leads from non-targeted countries. They are growing... Listing on their directory however, has good SEO benefits!
BTW, you can't compare business.com with Google Adwords. In terms of feature set and flexibility, it will take another four - five years for business.com to offer what Google is offering today! Let alone the traffic you get on Google!
Another directory you can look at is Capterra.com
Quick Tip: if you are using Google Adwords and business.com, you can stratezise your PPC campaigns to compliment each other. If you are in top 3 of Google Adwords, you are there in top 6 of business.com. They display Google sponsored ads soon after the their top 3 featured ads. So be smart while choosing the keywords between Google Adwords and business.com.
Best,
Viggy Hegde
My experience with Business.com has generally been good. The ROI you get out of it is not as high as that from Google, but if you are considering going beyond Google and Yahoo, it's worth taking a look at.
On some occasions, I've also noticed my Business.com listing appear on Google's natural search results.
Jesse L.
E-mail Campaign Specialist at Norm Thompson Outfitters
Best Answers in: Internet Marketing (1), Public Relations (1)
First I would start off by figuring out if Business.com supplies enough and the type of traffic you desire. In running a domain report with quantcast it shows business.com receives and estimated 7.5 million US visitors a month. Business.com also draws an older demographic, that is less affluent, doesn't have children, with a high index of non-college students with an equally high index of african americans.
If these are the demographics of people you are targeting I would say great. I would also employ you to look into using Google Adwords and run and enhanced content target campaign. What this will do is enable you to hand select the websites that you appear on while showing up for specific keywords. It's a highly targeted way to reach your specific searching audience. You will generate a significant amount of impressions with a relatively low cost per click (CPC).
In the end I would sit down and figure out what the ROI of doing either or both campaigns. First determine what a lead really is. Is it just clicking on your ad? Is it contacting you? Is it a phone call? Next determine how much you need to make on your product to make it profitable. Then how much revenue you generate from the typical sale. Next establish a comfortable mark that you are willing to pay for each lead that will generate you a profit. How many leads would you hope to make. You've now established you cost per lead and the revenue generated from a new client. You can now break and and say if I converting 1%, 2%, or 3% of these leads to physical transactions what would be the end results?
Other directories would typically be used just as a means of link building, or generating traffic to your current site. I would really dive into the cost per lead and how much you would earn from converting those leads to determine ultimately if it is worth your advertising dollars.
Links:
Hi Pradeep
prior to my currnet position, I used to head e.com division at Times Internet Ltd. let me share some of the experinece.
1. During Valantine we put banners on Home page of indiatimes.com/econimictimes/times of india home page during the night hours. The sale of gift and flower doubled from NRI segment.
2. Moment u go to relavant website the effect is immediate. e.g. if u want your products to be compared with competition one can list product on site like NAAPTOL.com and advertise.such move can become a very lucrative lead generation model.
3. Both Rediff and Indiatimes have subscription model which comprise of SME and provides various b2b solutions. There are close to more then 3 lacs SMEs who can interact with each other for b2b inforamtion on products/services etc. I think for B2b it is better to go to this route to generate leads.
I am not a fan. At low volume they convert ok, but after a while they start magically increasing traffic, showing up in natural search in some pretty sketchy spots and targeting brand keywords. That isn't that helpful if you ask me. my website already shows up when you search for my website. Keep a close eye on it.
