Meta sites see PPC clicks soar

Meta search sites are waging a battle for traffic through pay-per-click advertising as the market gears up for new entrants from the US. Hitwise figures for the four weeks to October 7 revealed almost four-fifths of traffic to Travelsupermarket from search engines came from paid-for advertising slots, although the company has not increased the number…

Meta search sites are waging a battle for traffic through pay-per-click advertising as the market gears up for new entrants from the US.


Hitwise figures for the four weeks to October 7 revealed almost four-fifths of traffic to Travelsupermarket from search engines came from paid-for
advertising slots, although the company has not increased the number of its PPC campaigns.


Over the same period around 60% of traffic to Teletext Holidays and 82% to new US-entrant SideStep came from PPC leads.


SideStep launched officially in the UK and Ireland at the end of September, although the site had been attracting around 500,000 users during its ‘soft’ launch phase by July. Rival US site Kayak is expected to beef up its European presence later this year.