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Overture Doubles Minimum Bid for Advertisers  

Overture has doubled their minimum bid for U.S. PPC campaigns from USD 0.05 to 0.10 and advertisers are far from happy. The warning signs started flashing when Overture UK announced last month that their minimum bid was going to increase from £0.05 to £0.10 from February 6. 

Overture U.S. customers had their fears confirmed with the arrival of an email from Overture on February 8, with the USD minimum bid increase taking immediate effect. Thankfully, existing bids between 0.05 and 0.09 are being "grandfathered" at their current max bid for the foreseeable future. But if advertisers decide to change existing bid amounts or add new bids, they must comply with the new minimum.

>> Interestingly, long-term advertisers at Overture who retain grandfathered listings ranging from 0.01 to 0.04 (prior to Overture's last minimum bid increase to 0.05) will see their minimum bid increase to 0.05 from March 29.

Fortunately, Overture's shift in focus provides an enormous opportunity for other PPC search providers to step in and gather up Overture's so called "left-overs". Overture's biggest competitor, Google AdWords, still offers a USD 0.05 minimum bid, as does Kanoodle, Ah-ha, FindWhat and Europe's most popular PPC engine Espotting. In fact Kanoodle is offering Pandia readers a free $5 PPC account with no deposit required. There are of course many other smaller PPC players who will be celebrating Overture's price increase because it gives them an opportunity to increase their market share.

As Pandia comments on the subject: "Overture is one of the most important pay-per-click text ads providers on the Net. When Overture changes its price structure, this has consequences for the whole industry".