Indeed Officially Launches PPC Job Listings
The job classifieds search site may be the first of many to offer PPC classifieds.
Job classifieds search site Indeed has formally launched pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. The sponsored listings are sold directly by Indeed to employment advertisers and listings publishers.
Until now, most job advertising has been offered as pay-per-listing, or as Indeed CEO Paul Forster put it, “the legacy model that was ported on to the Web.” Now, continued Forster, “We’ve seen the success of pay-for-performance advertising on general search engines…and there’s no reason why this shouldn’t be the end model for classified advertising.”
The company has allowed advertisers with listings in its network, mainly publishers such as NYTimes.com and job classifieds sites like BuilderJobs, to bid for sponsored listings like they would for keyword advertising on a search engine. Sponsored listings appear above and below natural search results. Advertisers don’t need to submit ad copy or choose keywords as the job listings themselves enable that. PPC advertisers can also specify maximum bids or set daily or monthly budgets through the system.
The system has been in testing since last year. During that time, classifieds publishers including NYTimes.com, ApartmentCareers.com and BAJobs.com, a San Francisco Bay Area site have used the PPC service. Indeed supplements NYTimes.com’s classified ads, and provides all classifieds in About.com’s job search. Indeed’s PPC listings also appear in customized search results displays, called Jobrolls, on small sites and blogs within its affiliate network. Advertisers using the PPC offering can disable the feature to stick within their ad budgets.
Like other classified aggregator sites, Indeed compiles listings through direct feeds from classifieds publishers and by crawling the Web. Indeed also allows advertisers to run PPC keyword-driven ads that appear alongside sponsored and natural search results.
Job aggregator site Careerjet.com offers PPC buys for employment listings garnering more than 1,000 clicks per month. And, according to a Yahoo HotJobs spokesperson, the company has a “limited trial of pay-per-click media products across the Yahoo network for a group of recruitment customers.” Still, most other job classifieds and aggregator sites don’t offer PPC advertising.
As search engines like Google jump on the local classified ad bandwagon, however, and classifieds aggregator sites continue to portray themselves as vertical search engines, the move towards PPC classifieds advertising may be inevitable.
