Top Pay Per Click Search Engines: The Big Three And The Others
Josh Prizer
You've decided to optimize your pay per click advertising, but aren't exactly sure where to start. Where should you invest your ad dollars? We've come up with best approach to pay per click advertising or expanding what you are already doing now.
Google, Yahoo and MSN
Google, Yahoo and MSN provide the best results these days. They've morphed into more or less the same sort of PPC services. You can geo-target ads, you can set ads to turn on and off during peak times, you can split test ad copy, you've got complicated quality scores to optimize, etc., etc. Google still holds the lion's share of the search traffic, but each has something to offer.
AdWords From Google
More and more quality traffic is being driven by Google, but you should still monitor your results often to maintain that quality. You can do this yourself if you have the time, expertise and attention to detail, or you can hire a professional PPC management company.
One of the main problems with Google is that it is not only becoming more and more competitive, it is also getting more and more difficult to master. With "Quality Scores" playing a more important role these days and more bids coming up "Inactive for Search," it introduces more variables into the equations. If you are willing to put in the time to continually test and monitor your keywords, you can maintain a healthy Google account. If you don't, you get penalized. You'll see bid minimums raised or forced to pay higher prices, or even be purposely priced out. The good news is that with consistent effort, you can actually fine tune and tweak your ad campaigns to the point where you are actually paying lower prices, but getting higher ranks than your competitors.
With any of the PPC engines, you need to make sure you separate out your content network advertising from your search advertising and track those separately. If you don't in Google, bad keywords are probably leaking your account right now.
Again, Google produces results, but you must be constantly vigilant, especially if you are an advertiser with a high-end budget. Spending more time, dedicating more staffing and hours or outsourcing your PPC campaign to a professional management company will pay off.
Yahoo Search Marketing
In response to what Google had done in the PPC marketplace, Yahoo Search Marketing (which used to be called Overture, and before that, Goto.com/ re-tooled their network early in 2007 with its Panama update. While Yahoo is no longer on top of the pay per click field as they had been in the past, it's still a worthy place to invest.
Similar to Google, Yahoo has a "Quality Index" ... and again, this is something that you have to pay attention to. Continual testing is a must. Yahoo won't hit you as often and as strongly as Google, but your campaign will suffer if you don't frequently split test to fine tune your ad quality.
With ad copy testing, you want to focus on the three C's: Customer, Competition and your Company. What makes you special from your competition? What makes you more relevant to your customers? Test different ad concepts. Then, when you find a winner, use that as a control and refine your ad with small changes to variables. The key is to consistently test to crank up that Yahoo Quality Index.
AdCenter by MSN
Even though MSN was late to the party with pay per click advertising, they shouldn't be ignored. We've noticed some high quality traffic to go along with their very useful targeting capabilities. You'll be able to utilize the same geo-targeting type of local PPC campaigns as the others. Additionally, however, is the ability to target the demographics of users. For example, if you see high conversions on your website for a specific type of visitor, MSN will allow you to raise your bids when it finds those potential clients or consumers using the MSN search network.
An important new feature from MSN allows you to import your Google AdWords accounts with much more ease. Note: Make sure your Google campaigns are as optimized and finely tuned as possible, or you will be making the same errors twice by importing them. And unless you have time to monitor them both daily, it might better to smooth out your problems in Google first. If you have large Ad Groups with huge lists of keywords, you need to condense those down into smaller, more manageable ones. Doing this will allow you to pinpoint the keywords with more relevant ads. And, again, keep testing and re-testing your targeted ads over and over.
The Others
We've seen mixed results with Ask and Looksmart. You can find some traffic that will pay off one week, then next week you are flooded with bad results and your Earnings Per Click go south for the winter ... and sometimes the other three seasons, as well. Miva can also be hit or miss. If you are doing a poor job managing your other PPC accounts, we definitely suggest you don't push your luck into any of these others. There is some good traffic there, but you have to double your efforts on tracking and keep a tight eye on results since things can turn sour fast. Avoid all the other pay per click engines.
You'll find that the PPC programs of Google, Yahoo, and MSN are probably more than enough work to keep you occupied -- especially if you are playing the game correctly. If you are not doing daily ad split tests, if you aren't keeping track of sales results down to the keyword level, if you are not searching for the money-making keywords that your competition is using, then you are not using the Big Three to the fullest potential. Invest your time, effort and money there before pushing on to others...you will get a better return on your investment.
Continual Effort Pays Off
If you are not taking care of the daily management needs of your PPC accounts, bad keywords are probably draining your funds and effectiveness. At the same time, the prices of good keywords keep going up because your quality scores are lower compared to your competition. Make sure you get more from your investment by closely supervising your account or hiring a professional pay per click management company to do this crucial work for you.
Josh Prizer is a Senior Account Executive and http://www.zerocompany.com/experts.htm) PPC Expert for Zero Company Performance Marketing, a http://www.zerocompany.com/ pay per click management company. Visit his website now to discover more about how to improve your PPC advertising accounts and performance.
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