BT Webclicks is based on the PPC click campaign process and is derived from Google Adwords in essence. The service combines many different elements of internet PPC.

BT Web Clicks is a new advertising proposition which offers small businesses advertisers media exposure via a range of sources to deliver a Guaranteed package of ‘contacts’ (clicks and calls). Customers choose a contacts package with a sales person for a 12 month term. For a fixed monthly fee, BT Web Clicks places priority listings on BT Exchanges and Google, Yahoo and Bing; and a few smaller search engines which BT now own which are: UFindUs, SmileUK and MoreUK to fulfil the customer’s contacts package.

Advertisers can track the performance of their contacts package via monthly analysis and a performance guarantee applies across the minimum contract term (12 months) with a credit or refund policy for contacts not delivered (money back guarantee.)

Our business was in Tier 3 on one package and T1 on another. This at first seems a bit confusing until you understand the logic behind what the tiers are and costs etc.

Tier 5 – Mortgage Companies, Accident Claim Experts etc
Tier 4 – Call Centres, Debt Collection, Casinos etc
Tier 3 – Kitchen Design and Installation, E-Commerce, Energy Saving Consultants
Tier 2 – Plumbers, Double Glazing Installation, Car Body Repairs, Computer Services
Tier 1 – Garage Doors, Golf Shops, Sign Makers, Vets, Water Sports

The main reason for the tier policy is to make it as cost effective as possible for both parties as BT give you unlimited keywords to run your campaign for the full 12 months.

Instead of paying for every word that you add to your campaign a fixed cost is put in place, so that you do not let it run your business which we did with Google Adwords.

The Tier policy allows for a straight forward cost and click process worked out as an average cost over the year. We think BT are taking a bit of a gamble on this service as we have 80+ keywords on each campaign we are running which cannot be cost effective for BT buying from Yahoo, Bing and Google.

I see on the other forums people ranting about paying £15.00 for a contact etc, well that may of been the old webclicks service, this is called BT Webclicks +. They have enhanced the solution now.. the system they use actually makes good business sense to us, as we know what we pay all year round and it does not fluctuate every day like other PPC campaigns.

Tier 5 – £10 a contact//click – Mortgage Companies, Insurance etc
Tier 4 – £5 a contact//click – Debt Collection, Call Centres etc
Tier 3 – £3 a contact//click – Kitchen Design and Installation etc
Tier 2 – £2 a contact//click – Computer Services, Car Repairs etc
Tier 1 – £1 a contact//click – Sign Makers, Painters etc

So from here you can see how it all works.

We have a Tier 3 package with Mobile Phone Shops for 1200 contacts for the year and the cost is £3600. We pay the whole lot on 12 months Direct Debit and our costs are spread evenly every month, BT manage the whole solution so we can run our business. They email us every month telling us how the campaign is working.

Our second business is in a Tier 1 campaign and we pay a 1200 contacts package, so 100 contacts a month in the Yacht industry sector. This is not a huge part of our business as the profit is not very high, unlike the Mobile phone shops.

Packages start from £1400 and go upto £72k – If you want to know more or you want a consultation you should contact our sales consultant to learn more.

Many thanks for reading, listening and allowing us to offer our opinions.

BigBalls.

Thanks for your comments.

“Strangely and coincidentally” I knew your response would be exactly this. Your problem is your refusal to listen to reason and see avenues of solution. Read between the lines and you will see that I was trying to offer you advice, I cannot offer direct legal advice but I can use a third party scenario to highlight a procedure which you may wish to employ.

Now if you still think that I work for BT, go visit your solicitor, take this blog with you, and your contract from BT and see what he says… that’s if you want to pay someone to tell you the same thing in a more direct manner.

I think you would do well to listen to your own words, “Give ‘em enough rope”. Your thinly disguised veil has slipped. Strange coincidences indeed!

It is not your plight that I find amusing but the fact that BT have allowed this blog to continue, with so much power I would have assumed that BT would somehow have managed to have the blog removed or closed down.

I do however dislike the frivolous use of the word “victim”.

Strangely and coincidentally, a client called my office on Monday about how BT was holding him to term on his “internet campaign”. Pretty much the same story as many of those already here. I asked him to call into my office (for free may I add) as I was curious to see first hand some of the material that had been left for my client by the sales woman that had sold him the webclicks and any subsequent communication he had received from BT regarding his online advertising campaign.

Now in a nutshell, I understood exactly why he was annoyed, but he was ultimately responsible for monitoring and checking that his campaign was working, so the part where BT say “we take the hassle out of your online campaign” could be construed as misleading…at a push!

I’m no web expert, but to me it was clear that the problem was his keywords… Some, if not most, were irrelevant to his business or at least the part of his business that he wanted to promote… He was a car dealer, but also had an MOT station and a car service centre, accident repair centre and body shop, all of which were mentioned on his website.

My client was told that the web team would go to his website and pick out selected keywords that were relevant to his business… and that’s what they did, the problem was that my client wanted to promote only the used car sales part of his business, so you would assume that the keywords would reflect this… but no they don’t! To mention a few… “MOT’s in X” “Car Body repairs in X” and “Car Hire in X” (he doesn’t hire cars but he does offer a courtesy car)! So the keyword was obviously not relevant. He was sent a list of around 16 keywords from the BT Webclicks team and was asked to identify any that he thought were not relevant, he didn’t reply and so he now has “Car Hire” as a keyword which means his listing is presented to people on search engines when they look for Car Hire, they visit his website and leave almost straight away because he does not hire cars. (I said this was in a nutshell… it’s a big nut).

I suggested that he contact BT again, but this time about his keywords rather than jumping up and down demanding to cancel his contract. I was interested to see what feedback they gave, and thought the new approach would be far more appealing to some poor soul in a call centre than my client’s usual all guns blazing approach, or maybe BT would say something that I could catch them with.

Today, my client called my office to say he had received an email from BT, it was an apology for the misuse of the keyword/s and an offer of crediting his campaign with the 146 clicks that had been to his website looking for car hire. Not an all singing with jazz hands or perfect end, but certainly a rectification when presented with the opportunity to do so.

I’ve been trying to think of a philosophical Jerry Springer type way of getting my point across but the best I can conjure is this:

Imagine that you bought the hen that laid golden eggs…

You have the hen for two weeks and for the first 11 days it lays a golden egg every day but on the 12th, 13th and 14th day it lays just an ordinary egg…

Do you shoot the hen because it only delivered part of the deal… so you never have a chance of a golden egg ever again?

or

Do you keep the hen and try to find a way to make it lay a golden egg every day?

Then there’s the one that accuses BT of being dodgy scammers, and another that accuses BT of being incompetent b******s.

Here’s a thought… you have probably heard the saying “give them enough rope”… By the way, no I don’t work for BT, no I am not a BT Webclicks customer (before the accusations fly) but maybe I’ll give it a try… see what all the fuss is about and then report back here later.

Digruntled, Edinburgh