At work we’ve been looking into advertising with Business.com. I’ve been corresponding with them about their systems, ad serving technology, and giving them a hard time - like I always give ad sales reps. A colleague walked in on my phone call with them and was intrigued because he knew something about advertising with them that I didn’t know at the time.
He prompted me to put the call on speaker phone, so I did and muted it as the sales guy kept talking. My colleague, who had advertised with Business.com while in a different industry, told me to key in a couple keywords at Business.com. I keyed in the phrase and we started scrolling down through the results. We got about 2/3 of the way down the page and just like he had predicted there was his previous employer’s listing.
Business.com’s business model is very similar to a yellow pages advertising directory, with the added advantages of the internet. Business.com allows their customers to allocate themselves to product categories like software, finance, real estate, etc. Advertisers can also bid for keyword search results just as with Google, Yahoo, or other search engines, in order to be featured at the top of search results. The category listings are usually the more expensive placement because users navigate to listings via the categories from the home page.
I very quickly caught what my colleague was inferring as we looked at each other and pointed at the results. My colleague then asked the salesperson, “When are these listings updated? Because a listing I placed, and then discontinued a month or two later, for a company I use to work for, is still in the directory.”
The sales rep responded:
“Not all the advertisers are active and if they’re still on the page then we haven’t updated the listings or category, or we don’t have other advertisers to replace them.”
To verify what we think we’ve found I contacted a former associate of my colleague who still works at the old firm. I asked him whether they still advertise with Business.com, and this was his reply:
“We don’t currently advertise there. As you probably know you can buy a listing in their directory, or use their PPC services. Last year we actively did both, but we currently do not have any spots there now.”
So, the lack of clients and delay in updating category listings may pay off for ex-advertisers with Business.com. I don’t know exactly whether you can do the “self-serve” advertising program, or if you have to work with a sales rep and spend a minimum of $750/month to have your listings linger.
At a minimum, if you’ve advertised with Business.com and discontinue, your company name will become a keyword result and considered a “Sponsored Link” result when queried. This can be great exposure for brand names, like “SEO” for seo.com, or “realtor” for realtor.com (both of which are not current advertisers).
This business practice is evidence of the balance Business.com faces, like yellow page advertising, with providing quality content for users and selling ad space. I am surprised though that they allow listings to persist like they do.
