Just what exactly are Trusted Feed programs?
Just what exactly are Trusted Feed programs?
With today’s many PPC (Pay per Click), PFP (Pay for Placement) and PFI (Paid for Inclusion) programs from so many vendors, it’s no surprise that some people can be confused. While organic SEO (search engine optimization) search results (the ones you see at the left of Google’s screen) are considered the best and generally constitute the highest ROI, for companies that just launched a new site and that need sales real fast, these various ‘paid’ programs can make a big difference in their search engine marketing campaigns.
Enter the trusted feed arena
Before I start describing some of the advantages and disadvantages of using trusted feed programs and how you can benefit from them, let’s see what the term ‘trusted feed’ means and what it entails for companies that are considering using such programs.
When a company has a large website, with more than 400, 500 or maybe 600 pages, a trusted feed program would make a lot of sense. With most trusted feed programs offered today, your site’s listings are given the same chance to rank among the generic or organic listings, usually on the same pages.
With certain PFI programs such as Inktomi, you need to pay for each Web page you submit. Trusted feed programs differ from this, since you are required to pay a fee only for the clicks your links are getting.
So, what makes trusted feed programs popular with some companies is that you only pay if there is traffic to your site, as opposed to PFI where you have to pay, whether you get traffic or not.
Trusted feed programs are also called XML feed, since they are based on the XML protocol, a technology developed specifically for Web services. It also used to be called Direct Data when it first came out, but the two most popular terms we hear of today are either trusted feed or XML feed.
Advantages of Trusted Feed programs:
1. Trusted feed is continually re-indexed
2. Appears as generic listings, not advertisements
3. Can boost more keyword and key phrase rankings
4. Greatly facilitates indexing of sites that are database-driven
5. Helps with indexing information that is buried deep in a site
Similarities between Trusted Feed and PFP
Trusted Feed and Pay for Placement (PFP) programs have one thing in common: both programs rely on a Cost per Click (CPC) pricing model. However, PFP click charges for every keyword fluctuate constantly, since advertisers keep modifying their bids all the time. In the case of trusted feed, you can negotiate a single, fixed CPC cost with some of the search engines or their inclusion partners.
Two of the most popular and most recognized PFP search engines are Google’s AdWords program and Overture. A lower and more stable CPC rate makes trusted feed programs a more attractive option to some larger advertisers, since it helps facilitate its monitoring.
Inventory management
If you are a manufacturer or distributor, what happens if you temporarily run out of stock on a certain product? Another popular advantage of trusted feed programs is that there are mechanisms in place that allow an advertiser to remove discontinued or temporarily unavailable products pages from the engine’s database.
Additionally, XML and trusted feeds support the utilization of most third party tracking URL’s from each search engine, for their corresponding individual landing pages. All of this helps companies better manage their ad programs, while at the same time offering them better flexibility.
Trusted Feed limitations
Everything can never be perfect and there are a few limitations to trusted feed. Although trusted feed can significantly improve the indexing of a database-driven website, top rankings can never be guaranteed. Sometimes, certain positions that are achieved can be located in a further down (lower) position than those of sponsored ads.
Another drawback to using trusted feed programs is the time it can take to carefully manage them, in certain situations. Generally speaking, there are certain types of trusted feed programs that were designed mainly for bigger companies that have large advertising budgets to work with. Furthermore, even with trusted feed, don’t neglect the fact that your title tags and description tags still need to be written in a convincing fashion that will entice visitors to click on your link.
Other disadvantages of Trusted Feed
Although advertisers using trusted feed don’t need to worry of large outbursts of click-fees or such big variations, they still need to monitor their campaigns closely, to ensure their maximum profitability. A steady stream of visitors from trusted feed listings could, in certain cases, come to an unexpected halt.
As with conventional and generic SEO, with trusted feed, you will still need to have your Web pages optimized, if you want the best positioning on most engines.
Another common disadvantage to using trusted feed is the amount of people it generally takes to prepare all the data. It is fairly easy and simple for a programmer to export data inside a document. However, in some large companies with thousands of different products to sell on their sites, this can take a few months if there are some problems. So there could be additional delays, which might in effect circumvent one of trusted feed’s main features: faster time to market.
Conclusion
Trusted feed inclusion programs are not for every marketer or advertiser. By their inherent design, some trusted feed programs are more appropriate for larger companies, or advertisers that have larger budgets and can afford longer-lasting ad campaigns.
Carefully evaluate your advertising needs and consider the ad budget you have to work with, in order to determine if a trusted feed program is really appropriate for your company.
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Reference:
‘Search Engine Advertising’ by Catherine Seda.
347 pages. New Riders Publishing. Indianapolis, IN. 46240.
Author:
Serge Thibodeau of Rank For Sales
