- What is Business.com?
- Which ad product is best for me?
- How do I get started?
- How and where will my ad be shown?
- Why is my listing not appearing on Business.com?
- How does bidding and ranking work?
- How can I make changes to my account?
- What is Business.com's policy on invalid clicks?
- What click quality control system is in place at Business.com?
- How can I get help?
1. What is Business.com?
Business.com is the leading business-to-business search engine, directory and pay-per-click advertising network. Advertisers can reach over 40* million unique business users every month through the Business.com Advertising Network. The Network includes the Business.com site and other premier online business destinations such as Forbes, BusinessWeek, Financial Times, AllBusiness, StartupNation and more.
2. Which ad product is best for me?
Business.com offers two ad products: Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising and annual Internet Directory Inclusion. The PPC product receives prominent placement on Business.com and is distributed on our Advertising Network of leading business publication sites such as BusinessWeek, Forbes and more. With a reach of over 40 million unique visitors a month, our pay for performance product exposes your company to a targeted audience of business buyers. Click here for more information or to sign up.
The Internet Directory Inclusion product places your company directly in front of a B2B audience of over 6 million monthly unique visitors. For a fee of $299 per year, you get to list your company in our business directory of over 65,000 categories. Click here for more information or to sign up.
3. How do I get started?
Setting up an account with Business.com is easy and can be completed in a matter of minutes. With our online sign-up tool, you can set-up your Pay-Per-Click campaign in four easy steps. Creating an Internet Directory Listing is just as fast. Sign-up now.
4. How and where will my ad be shown?
Pay-Per-Click ads appear on Business.com and are distributed on the Business.com Advertising Network of leading business publication sites such as BusinessWeek, Forbes and more.
Internet Directory listings appear on Business.com and are viewable via search results or directory browsing. Advertisers select the directory categories in which their ads will appear.
5. Why is my listing not appearing on Business.com?
As a convenience to you, the Business.com listing management system is configured to deliver a consistent flow of quality traffic to your site within the limits of your advertising budget. Our goal is to try to make it easier for advertisers by automatically smoothing your budget across the month.
As such, your listing may be temporarily removed from, and returned to, the Business.com site and Network without any action required on your part. Please note, this temporary removal from our network partner sites may lag slightly behind the removal from the Business.com site. Advertisers with no campaign or monthly cap will not be affected.
6. How does bidding and ranking work?
Our Pay-Per-Click ads are ranked using our Performance Ranking algorithm. Advertisers with the most effective listings rise to the top and have the best opportunity to generate the most traffic. The result - higher click-through rates, more qualified leads, and better conversions for your listings.
Performance Ranking is determined by two factors: The cost per click (CPC) and the Performance Indicator (PI). You set your CPC and have the ability to adjust it at anytime via our online account management system. Your Performance Indicator is based on your listing's click-through-rate (CTR) which is determined by factors such as title, description, brand recognition, and relevance to the category.
7. How can I make changes to my account?
Our robust online account management tool puts our advertisers in control. You can set your CPCs, raise your monthly spending caps, edit your ad copy, add keywords, and much more through our tool. Detailed reporting on your account’s performance allows you to make informed decisions to help optimize your ad campaigns.
8. What is Business.com's policy on invalid clicks?
Business.com actively employs a robust click filtering system to proactively counter invalid click activity. We take all reasonable efforts to identify and remove invalid redirects from spiders or other automated programs, and we make a good faith effort to not charge you for non-human-generated redirects. Our entire team is committed to attracting relevant, focused traffic to our clients' ad campaigns. We encourage you to monitor your traffic by logging into your account on a regular basis and contacting us with questions or concerns.
9. What click quality control system is in place at Business.com?
Business.com receives millions of searches per month which lead to thousands of paid clicks each day. Our Click Filtering System is sophisticated logic that evaluates each of our advertisers' clicks. This logic makes decisions as to the validity of any click. Our Click Filtering System uses rules-based inferences and pattern recognition-based inferences about which clicks are valid clicks. Our proprietary methods and core mechanics involve many data points.
Some of the data points evaluated are:
- IP address
- User session information
- The network to which an IP belongs
- The user's browser information
- The search term requested by the user
- The rank of the advertiser's listing
- The CPC of the advertiser's listing
- The time of the search
- The time of the click
- Evolving comprehensive list of known web crawlers/spiders
If the data points indicate that the click is invalid, our Click Filtering System filters the click from our billing system, and the advertiser is not charged for it. However, we are unable to remove the click from the advertiser's own Web logs.
10. How can I get help?
Our personalized customer service is ready to assist you with your ad campaign. Contact us at 1-888-441-4466 or 310-586-4085 (outside the U.S), Monday - Friday from 9am - 5pm PST.
*Source: comScore Media Metrix, July 2007
