I will not lie to you, if you are looking for quality traffic in large amounts, you will find it on the major search engines (Google, MSN Live, Yahoo! and Ask.com), but finding targeted traffic on these engines can require a larger budget than many have to invest. However, you can still find great traffic on the smaller engines and marketing portals that won’t require a venture capitalist to get started.
Unlike the ad platforms from the major search engines (Google AdWords, Microsoft AdCenter, Yahoo! Search Marketing and Ask Sponsored Listings), the following advertising platforms bring targeted visitors and traffic from niche websites that are reaching the visitors that you want to reach… and at a lower cost.
Why choose a smaller provider?
With cost/benefit analysis, search engine advertising has given marketers the ability to target specific visitors by finding the visitors that are searching for the products or services the marketer is providing. The smaller providers can provide the targeted traffic your website needs, without the number of competitors that the major engines attract.
Here are some of the best performing “secondary” marketing portals. They are listed in alphabetical order, not by any given ranking factors.
Trusted by over 37,000 advertisers since 1999, 7Search has earned a respected status in the online advertising community by focusing on the quality, and not the quantity, of its search results. With the strongest patent-pending fraud detection in the industry, 7Search is putting the pieces of PPC advertising together for Web businesses.
Quick Notes:
- Excellent support staff (personal experience)
- Exposure to over 150 English search engines
- Keyword bidding starting at $0.01
- Over 1.5 billion searches per month
- more details about 7Search
Whether you need a wave of traffic or a steady stream of people who are likely to buy, ABCSearch is the solution to your online marketing dilemma. We’re one of the web’s fastest-growing suppliers of cost-per-click advertising opportunities. Handling more than two billion searches every month through our network, we can make your online success as easy as ABC.
Quick Notes:
- Start an account with as little as $25
- Phrase match helping you build your keyword list without all of the variations
- Exposure across more than 1,000 niche search engines
- Contextual advertising
- more details about ABCSearch
Reach prospects that match your customer profile with up to 16 million unique visitors and 400 million searches daily.
Quick Notes:
- Premium property placements
- Webinars
- Newsletter and research information
- API
- more details about LookSmart
MIVA is all about helping your business grow through performance marketing services. From setting up storefronts to delivering customers to your website, MIVA can help in multiple ways.
Quick Notes:
- Pay per click
- Precision network
- Vertical advertising
- more details about Miva
AdSonar enables cost-per-click advertising on best-in-breed publisher sites, and arms advertisers with the ability to find their target markets within those sites. With content targeted or site specific placements, AdSonar gives advertisers the tools to convert an interested, captive audience into customers.
Quick Notes:
- Choose the website to show your ads
- Recognizable brand and media websites
- Channel search traffic
- more details about Quigo
Depending on your needs, these (and other) smaller online marketing portals can provide enough targeted traffic than you need to continue to grow and gain exposure in your vertical. As the web grows with more users and more usage, the need for additional marketing access will be necessary to provide users with what they are looking for.
Please feel free to share other advertising portals that are getting you targeted traffic at lower costs.
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{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Nice posting Pittfall. It’s true, the major search engines provide tons of traffic, however EVERY online advertiser is there creating a highly saturated marketplace rendering small to large advertisers unable to afford the overbid traffic. This leaves them with the need to diversify their reach of traffic sources. “Tier two’s” have gotten a bad rap in the past but much has changed since. There have been many networks that have fallen off with their inability to meet advertiser demand for quality leaving the remaining networks to focus on building strategic relationships with quality traffic channels that the larger engines overlook. Additionally, to maximize their reach and profits, online advertisers MUST test new traffic channels in tandem with other campaigns as they can provide a much more affordable traffic producing higher ROI. I have seen many advertisers and agencies overlook these traffic channels as they continue to work on optimizing their campaigns on the larger engines while their competitors experience great success taking advantage of the smaller networks.
-Daniel Yomtobian
Daniel,
Thanks for the comment. I would have to agree, affordable traffic has a better chance at higher ROI in the first place and the fact that there are fewer competitors is just gravy!