Morning Folks!!
It's April 15th and maybe money counts more today than yesterday. So let me take a moment to tell each and every one of you reading this that has legit traffic is getting screwed and tattooed. Some of you don't even care. Maybe today you care just a tad more. After you read this you are going to be outraged.
I really hate when the media spreads misinformation. I truly believe the foundation of a free country is a free media that is factual. Anything less is not acceptable except everyone seems to accept it when they should except it. Does that make sense?
People then make decisions on misinformation. Beliefs via misinformation. I have never seen it worse then it is right now. Mark Twain wrote something to the effect…..”A lie can spread around the world before the truth can put its boots on.”
The point is if you don’t demand the truth, you’ll never get the truth. If you don’t demand facts, you’ll never get facts. If you don’t demand that crap traffic is not mixed with valuable traffic you’ll always be paid the rates that the crap traffic gets and NOW I am going to PROVE it.
I am going to continue to speak out about crap traffic. What’s the difference? Well, here it is.
A targeted clickthrogh is when you hand deliver a visitor that has an interest in something fairly specific. If you load up a Greyhound Bus with 55 people wanting to go to the casino that have money and are ready to gamble, then you hand deliver them to the casino, THAT is targeted traffic. That is the traffic type-ins and real traffic are. Then there is the crap traffic. These people and companies in THIS INDUSTRY load up the bus with 55 CORPSES that can never gamble again. WE BOTH GET PAID THE SAME!!!!!!
So these folks that disguise themselves as registrars and sponsors and domainers that could care less are costing folks with REAL traffic a FORTUNE. Now those are the FACTS! Those are the facts as I see them and I will repeat them often until Google, Yahoo and all our sponsors start figuring out the difference and I will get on the stage at TRAFFIC and articulate these thoughts for all to see for years to come. It is TIME to DEMAND that this STOPS. Google and Yahoo need to pay attention. THEY are enabling folks to do this by not understanding the real difference. They are enabling registrars and sponsors to do this. They are, perhaps unknowingly and unintentionally, SCREWING their own retail customers out of something that they don't really know about or understand to the degree they should imo. So I am saying it out loud so maybe folks will think about and discuss while they call me all types of names. And at the end of the chain are the domainers that have THE MOST POTENT TRAFFIC IN THE WORLD being mixed with CORPSES!!! That provides results and ratios that are skewed.
Now maybe you never looked at it quite this way. I use the word 'Corpse' as an extreme because it might as well be a
corpse if the chances of converting that visitor to a sale are nil. AND
THEY ARE! And we all know it! But now that I have illustrated it in the most elementary and dramatic terms, what is going to change? When? What's the excuse for letting even one more day pass with this practice in place? To me, doing it for just 5 minutes after you are aware of it is unconscionable. Year after year I have watched this abuse and with all the meeting and all the discussions 'Corpse traffic' is getting none of us where we need to go. Guess I won't be making many friends today. It's easy to be popular, just shut up, say nothing of substance, challenge nothing. Look the other way. The worst part is I probably only speak for the core domainers with that pure traffic while there are much more corpse traffic that folks are making money with. Retailers would be happy with what I said but they don't know I am even saying it or why. Maybe some day. Google and Yahoo? Who knows what goes on in their minds and meetings. All I can do is try and let them know the difference and how seriously those of us with really good traffic take it. Maybe they never looked at it in this light. Maybe we all need to. All I am saying is isolate that 'Corpse traffic' and sell it as a different grade. That should be the happy medium to make all corpses and buyers happy. ;-) No wonder some opt out of the domain channel. It isn't about the domain traffic, it is about the corpse traffic that makes targeted traffic have much less value. It is just one small diamond mixed in with a ton of sand.
Yes, these are extremes but untargeted traffic has the same value as a corpse to somebody buying that traffic trying to make a sale and obtain a new customer. Now if you don't care about that part of the equation , you should. THAT is what produces supply and demand. That supply and demand is what produces the payouts. The competition for good traffic is what drives up prices and profits. Just LABEL the traffic. Grade the traffic not just for the eyes but for the wallet and educate the end user on the differences. Why do that? If we don't, next year on April 15th, you won't owe much in taxes because payouts will continue to erode and worse. The only ones that can really demand this is Google and Yahoo. I learned long ago only a vey few sponsors are willing to do that. Now with $$ tight and businesses on the line, how low will some go to survive?
Have a GREAT Day!
Rick Schwartz
James
Move over pay-per-click; hello pay-per-action.
EM @ KING.NET
Great post Rick.
I agree with your post. I just hope they will act soon before we realize that our traffic are no value at all.
Cheers,
EM @ KING.NET
http://www.king.net
Leonard Holmes
I don’t know what you are talking about, Rick. What is corpse traffic?
Adam
Rick you talking about TM traffic? foreign traffic ? arbitraged ? bots ?
Via Nisle
Go you, Rick! I saw this referenced on http://www.OceanfrontDomains.Com and wanted to say that you shouldn’t feel sorry for the moron who agrees to pay per impression–instead of per click. Survival of the fittest. He will quickly figure out that he is terribly wasting his money.
Anthony
From another angel….. curios about your opinion on this as well Mr. Schwartz.
Would’nt the increased ratio of junk to quality make the quality all that more valuable. Especially in these times.
Would it be safe to say that they just have not woken up to it yet, just as big business took so long to wake up to the fact that domains were of value.
One of the things I wonder about….. Google is THE search engine! They know the difference between quality traffic and junk, they write thier sacred algorithm to find just that. Could they possibly be doing this to avoid paying the premium they know would come on that traffic that is the river of gold?
Barry Morgan
Most people would not understand this concept if it was diagrammed, flow charted and animated.
There is still a huge
disconnect for what advertisers think they are getting and the reality of what they are getting.
Sadly its costing some people their jobs or businesses since they were so focused on the wrong numbers of getting anyone to the site that they forgot to check the visitors pulse (or as I call it intent).
A visitor that has no intention of completing anything that resembles a transaction during that visit is pretty much worthless. Sure 1 or 2 percent of them will come back in a couple years to buy something when they can but by then the campaign they came in on will have been retired. So you’ll never really know why they bought that day.
If you don’t know what your visitors intent is for that visit (ie gambling or pushing daisy’s) then you have just paid top dollar for something that should have been a free sample.
B
Rick —
Yahoo has a system called”Traffic Quality Scores”.
Google has a system called”SmartPricing”.
Both of these things are used to discount bad traffic. If you do not have bad traffic you do not get discounted.
Eytan discussed this very issue at one of your shows. I have the audio cd’s where it is discussed if you would like them. :)
Josh
“No wonder some opt out of the domain channel. It isn’t about the domain traffic, it is about the corpse traffic that makes targeted traffic have much less value. It is just one small diamond mixed in with a ton of sand.”
You’re exactly right, Rick. I also liked your post about the iPhone making you want to buy a Mac. I did the exact same thing last year. I was so impressed with the iPhone, I gotta mac.
Shaun Pilfold
In my opinion, fraudulent activity (clicks) in the PPC marketplace is a bigger problem that junk traffic. I think Google/Yahoo scrub the crap traffic reasonably well.
Also, Yahoo and Google don’t owe us a living. If we don’t like what their doing we should look for better solutions… and many are. People have been bitching since PPC started; time to take control of our own destiny.
If you don’t control the cash register, you don’t control shit. IMHO.
Bill Robathan
Rick,
I have a little trouble with your analogies. I wouldn’t characterize directing traffic as sweat inducing hand work. But, I like your distinction and most important point: Mixing crap with quality has deleterious effects.
I’m intrigued by what Shaun Pilford wrote. We have sufficient numbers and resources to design a system that we can collectively use that would certainly bring us more revenue. We have the extraordinary luxury of identifying our potential customers on the Google and Yahoo sidebars.
It’s more than risky to rely upon Google and Yahoo for revenue. Push has come to getting shoved.
Is there will to collectively develop a system we can offer advertisers (something akin to the private direct traffic brokers)? There is opportunity and margin to exploit.
Lisa
Hi Rick,
I just finished watching your Bido interview the other day. Every word gets me thinking and I like that. Also, nice that you registered CorpseTraffic.com today.
Cheers!
email@dotty.biz
That hurts, nut your so right. I’ve denied myself, life, and that is being irresponsible to others. Direct, and to the point. I’ll try to do better.
robin
Tia Wood
What Rick is saying: there is a difference between traffic that converts into sales for an advertiser and traffic that doesn’t convert. Traffic is worthless if it’s not targeted. unTargeted traffic does not lead to sales for an advertiser and is therefore worthless.
There are programs that can”pump” you traffic. There are mini development methods that can”pump” you traffic. But in the end, traffic is a fancy term for”lots of visitors that aren’t focused on a particular niche”. What you want is TARGETED traffic; your visitor is there for a REASON, you know WHY and you can SERVE their surfing habits. This is what advertisers want.
email@dotty.biz
Like This: http://www.victoriatx.us/Enjoy/showthread.php?t=9
robin
Jamie
There’s no doubt you need to deliver targeted traffic, but I am a big believer there needs to be an onus on the advertiser’s ability to convert traffic. If the traffic arrives and the landing page does not pull the visitor over the line, why should I as the referrer, suffer with a bad TQ?