A company that I do consulting for is in a very competitive industry, and is located in one of the top 3 most competitive markets for that industry (NYC).
Long-tail phrases on adwords are generally $3-6.00/click. However, they are signed up with a company that operates a small army of thin websites targeted to their industry and market. The company that controls these sites charges on a per-click basis, and only charges about $0.50 per click. Their traffic converts, too.
The more I think about this business model, the more I like it.
With a directory, people are buying a listing in the hope that it will generate traffic. With banner ads, people buy a spot on your page in the hope that it will generate traffic. With PPC, they just buy the traffic. Seems like it would be an easy sell.
I've got a list of the sites that are sending the traffic to my client (as part of the monthly report) and none of them are impressive. Most have <20 pages, many have frames. Frankly, they look like dogshit. I've spoken with one of the guys at the company and he says they basically buy aged domains or aged sites and outfit them with their listings. Most of their inbound links are from their own sites or directories... each site has less than 500 inbound links, most have around 200.
But because their traffic (I can only assume) is 100% organic, their direct COGS is simply the development and promotion of these sites. I'm sure they could go arbitrage style and buy up tons of 7search traffic, but people would start canceling their contracts pretty damn fast.
And before you start to think it's small potatoes, let me tell you that my client spends up to $600+ per month with them... all based on traffic! Want more money? Get more traffic. And then multiply that $600 by 15 advertisers for that particular market (NYC). Then think about Miami, Chicago, LA, Houston, Seattle, Vegas....
Anyone else doing or considered doing targeted traffic reselling? I can't get this company out of my mind.
Long-tail phrases on adwords are generally $3-6.00/click. However, they are signed up with a company that operates a small army of thin websites targeted to their industry and market. The company that controls these sites charges on a per-click basis, and only charges about $0.50 per click. Their traffic converts, too.
The more I think about this business model, the more I like it.
With a directory, people are buying a listing in the hope that it will generate traffic. With banner ads, people buy a spot on your page in the hope that it will generate traffic. With PPC, they just buy the traffic. Seems like it would be an easy sell.
I've got a list of the sites that are sending the traffic to my client (as part of the monthly report) and none of them are impressive. Most have <20 pages, many have frames. Frankly, they look like dogshit. I've spoken with one of the guys at the company and he says they basically buy aged domains or aged sites and outfit them with their listings. Most of their inbound links are from their own sites or directories... each site has less than 500 inbound links, most have around 200.
But because their traffic (I can only assume) is 100% organic, their direct COGS is simply the development and promotion of these sites. I'm sure they could go arbitrage style and buy up tons of 7search traffic, but people would start canceling their contracts pretty damn fast.
And before you start to think it's small potatoes, let me tell you that my client spends up to $600+ per month with them... all based on traffic! Want more money? Get more traffic. And then multiply that $600 by 15 advertisers for that particular market (NYC). Then think about Miami, Chicago, LA, Houston, Seattle, Vegas....
Anyone else doing or considered doing targeted traffic reselling? I can't get this company out of my mind.
