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captiva marketing_St. Louis
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Industrial Directory Advertising

One of the most common questions we get from our industrial clients is, "In which industrial directories should we advertise?" Prior to the rise in the popularity of the Internet, most industrial companies advertised in the Thomas Register, the Buyer's Guides of their Industry's trade magazines, and possibly some regional manufacturer's directories. Obviously the Internet has changed all of this.

The biggest fundamental change in the marketplace is that search engines have essentially replaced directories as the resource that most engineers, purchasing managers, and other industrial buyers go to when sourcing new suppliers. As such, the three largest sources of leads for most of our industrial clients marketing online are now Google, Yahoo, and MSN Search. Industrial directories (now referred to as vertical search engines) like Thomasnet.com and Globalspec.com can also play an important role in generating leads as they continue to improve their online search engines and gain more exposure.

The following research is based on our experience with dozens of industrial advertisers over the past five years. Data was gathered using multiple web analytics tools including WebTrends, Urchin, and ClickTracks as well as hard data provided by prospects filling out actual Request for Quote forms on our client's sites.

General Search Engines/Directories

Google – For nearly every industrial company, Google will be its largest source of traffic and leads if it has an optimized website. In fact, coupled with a Google Adwords PPC advertising campaign, Google will typically provide over half of a site's visitors that originated from a search engine or directory.

Yahoo – While Yahoo still maintains its original directory, it is its search engine that provides the biggest number or visitors and leads for most industrial companies. For most of our industrial clients, Yahoo is the second leading source of leads. Gaining exposure here requires an optimized website and PPC programs in Yahoo Search Solutions.

MSN – Part of the benefit of having the default browser on the majority of the world's PCs is that Microsoft also has the third most utilized search engine. For most of our industrial advertisers with optimized websites and PPC programs, MSN will represent the third largest source of traffic and leads.

Others – There is a huge drop from the top three general search engines to the next tier of players like AOL, Netscape, Dogpile, and AltaVista and none of these typically play an important role in a campaign.

Industrial/Business Directories

Business.com – Perhaps the most utilized general business directory, Business.com does well for many of our clients. With listings costing only $199, it can be a very inexpensive source of quality traffic. The PPC program can get a bit pricey and the bids are limited to categories instead of keyword phrases, but we'll typically consider it when designing a campaign.

ThomasNet (Thomas Register) – Prior to the Internet, the Thomas Register was the most widely used and most comprehensive directory of industrial manufacturers. ThomasNet, their vertical search engine, benefits from this brand recognition and the search engine is much more user friendly than it was in prior years. The downside to ThomasNet is that the cost is still relatively high, as advertisers typically need a significant number of ranking points at about $240 each to get into the top rankings of a popularly searched category.

For our clients with aggressive campaigns on Thomasnet.com, we can see as many as 5% of their leads coming from this directory/search engine. Unfortunately, the costs are often so high that the ROI continues to be relatively low compared to other options like optimization and PPC. If one does implement a program in ThomasNet, it is important to structure the ad copy to contain all important keyword phrases as its technology functions in a very similar manner to other directory based search engines.

GlobalSpec – This directory/search engine is generally considered to be the most sophisticated industrial sourcing site available on the web and ThomasNet's main competition. Their search engine refines searches to technical and industrial related sites while their directory not only provides visitors with information about the manufacturer, but also allows them to specify the attributes that are most important to them in sourcing a product or supplier. Aggressive marketing has allowed GlobalSpec to grow significantly and challenge ThomasNet for the spot as the leading industrial search engine/directory.

Listings in the GlobalSpec directory are free and their search engine will index most industrial sites without the need for submission. The only negative is that the cost to load your product database into their directory and take advantage of all of the lead generation benefits of the main part of the site runs about $15,000 per year for a product oriented company and $7,500 per year for a service oriented company, like a custom injection molder. Therefore, it can be an expensive option for marketers with smaller budgets and there really are not any packages for smaller advertisers.

Kellysearch.com – "Kelly's was established in the United Kingdom over two hundred years ago in 1799 and has been published ever since." For all intents and purposes, it is the largest Industrial Directory in Europe and since going online; they have made quite an inroad in the US. We first noticed leads from Kelly's showing up in the Request for Quotes of some of our clients who operate internationally, but now we are seeing their US version of Kellysearch provide a fair amount of quality traffic.

The biggest advantage that Kellysearch has for US suppliers is its cost. They have been aggressive by offering primary positions in their directories on a trial basis at very low rates.

Zycon – This industrial directory was started by a group of manufacturers in the Detroit area to provide an easier to use and more cost effective advertising vehicle for industrial manufacturers. Their system tracks visitors, click thrus, and RFQs and is very straightforward and easy to use.

Pricing for 3 categories and any subcategories within these is a flat fee of about $1,800 per year (at the time of writing). The directory does not have the presence that ThomasNet or GlobalSpec enjoy, but it is much less cluttered and can still provide a decent ROI in some categories.

Engineersedge.com – This site is more of an information portal for engineers, but it does include a directory that sells listings for $125 from pages with decent link popularity. The publisher will also publish impartial informative articles free of charge with a link to your company in the byline. We consider it a must for any company selling engineering related products.

Industrial Directory – This relatively new directory is similar to Industrial Quick Search in that it really is a compilation of small niche directories that are optimized for the search engines with very specific keyword rich domain names. In fact, the owner of the Industrial Directory says that a good portion of their traffic comes from people who actually search by typing the domain names in the browser bar.

At $35 per listing, the link popularity boost alone is worth the cost for most advertisers, but the fact that so many of these directories rank so well in Yahoo and MSN makes them even better. You can check out a list of their directories at www.industrialdirectory.com, but be sure to request a quote because they have many directories that are not published yet. Some of the directories that have been built out can be viewed here: www.expansionbolts.com and www.clustergears.com.

MotionNet.com – While this directory does not cover the number of categories that many of the larger industrial directories do, it does have a nice presence in the search engines and can be very cost effective at $25 a listing.

B2Byellowopages.com – At $49 for a one time listing, it's hard to argue the benefit of being in this directory. Premium listings go for $149 per year, a fairly reasonable fee for top position in a directory.

Thomas B2B – a joint venture between FindWhat and Thomas Publishing, this is one of the only large industrial pay per click programs on the market of any size. We are still testing programs from this supplier. Initial data indicates that while the number of leads generated will be low, so will the costs so the ROI is decent if you can justify the time to set it up.

MfgQuote.com – This site and others like it act like the eBay of the custom manufacturing world. Subscribers pay a fee (typically about $400-$500 a month) to get access to companies that are requesting quotes for custom-made components. This particular site claims to have over 33,000 buyers posting over 1100 RFQ's per month. They use an eBay style rating system for buyers and provide contact information for personal follow up.

Other B2B and Industrial Directories – Depending on one's industry, there may be specific directories or trade magazine buyer's guides applicable to a business that will generate leads in a cost effective manner. Analyzing the back links of competitive sites can identify many of these opportunities, although we typically find these to be fairly costly in comparison to organic or PPC advertising. On the positive side, these sites can often attract high quality leads and help a site's link popularity. Some examples include:

• Plasticsnews.com - Plastics industry magazine with major directory.
• Packworld.com - Packaging directory.
• Devicelink.com - Medical device manufacturers directory.

Written by Mark Forst

Mark Forst is a Partner at the Search Engine Marketing firm, Captiva Marketing. He specializes in developing and managing online marketing programs for manufacturers and distributors of industrial products, equipment, and services. The information in this report reflects opinions based on actual results with numerous industrial advertisers. Results that can be achieved from each directory listed here will vary greatly depending on a large number of factors and this information should only be used as a general guideline.