Top Pay Per Click Search Engines: The Big Three And The Others
Top Pay Per Click Search Engines: The Big Three And The Others
By: Josh Prizer
If you are looking to get involved in pay per click advertising or expand the current reach of your existing pay per click advertising, where do you turn? Here are our recommendations on where your ad spend is best used ... and a few tips to optimize your accounts.The Big Three in PPCGoogle, 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.Let's Start With Google AdWordsQuality traffic is important and Google AdWords remains on top in delivering high-volume clicks that count.
However, don't sleep on Google's success -- you still need to monitor your results with frequency.
With enough the time, knowledge and the right tools, you can do this yourself, or you can outsource all that to a professional PPC management company.Keep in mind that pay per click with Google can sometimes be a challenge. Sure, the competition can be fierce in the PPC arena, and that can make things difficult. But the real challenge is how complex Google continues to get. "Quality Scores" play a major role these days and more bids come up "Inactive for Search." And there's more factors to consider in the making of a successful Google campaign. Don't be discouraged. If you make the effort to continually test and monitor your keywords, you can maintain a thriving account and avoid getting penalized. You'll also avoid seeing bid minimums raised or even being priced out. With a steady vigilance, you can finely adjust your ad campaigns to the point where you are actually paying lower prices, but getting higher ranks than the competition.
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.If you are an advertiser with a large monthly budget, you just can't afford to ignore constant vigilance with Google -- it will cost you. Either spend more time on it, dedicate more staffing and hours or outsource it to a professional management company.Yahoo Search Marketing: Still EssentialWhile Yahoo no longer dominates the pay per click arena as they once did, it's still wise to invest ad dollars with them. Yahoo Search Marketing (previously named Overture, which was previously Goto.com) made major changes last year in response to Google's moves in the PPC marketplace.Yahoo also followed suit with their own "Quality Index" ... again, this is something that you have to work at. Quality scores must be dialed up with continual testing. Yahoo won't slap you with the frequency and force that Google does, but you will suffer if you don't do frequent split testing to refine your ad quality.Throttling up the Yahoo Quality Index usually means asking and answering the important questions:
What makes you stand out from your competitors?
Does your ad campaign relate to your customers? With ad copy testing you want to focus on the three
C's: your Customer, your Competition, and your Company. Work it until you have an ad concept that consistently out produces the others. Then, work it some more. Use that as a control, refining and making small changes to variables to produce the best results.AdCenter by MSNEven 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.MSN also recently launched a new method to import your campaigns from Google AdWords. This will make your expansion easier than before. Word of caution when you do this: Make sure your Google account is as fine tuned and optimized as possible, or you will be simply repeating the same mistakes. If you have large Ad Groups with large lists of keywords, you need to break those down into smaller, more manageable ones. This will allow you to target the searches with more relevant ads.
Again, test, test and re-test that ad copy.The OthersWe'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 OffIgnoring the daily management needs of your PPC accounts will most likely result in bad keywords depleting your funds. On top of that, good keywords are getting more and more expensive because your quality scores are slipping compared to your competitors. Under-performing campaigns cost advertisers a huge chunk of potential business. It's up to you to protect your investment with effective, intelligent supervision of your in-house PPC marketing or by outsourcing this essential work to a professional pay per click management company.
By: Josh Prizer
If you are looking to get involved in pay per click advertising or expand the current reach of your existing pay per click advertising, where do you turn? Here are our recommendations on where your ad spend is best used ... and a few tips to optimize your accounts.The Big Three in PPCGoogle, 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.Let's Start With Google AdWordsQuality traffic is important and Google AdWords remains on top in delivering high-volume clicks that count.
However, don't sleep on Google's success -- you still need to monitor your results with frequency.
With enough the time, knowledge and the right tools, you can do this yourself, or you can outsource all that to a professional PPC management company.Keep in mind that pay per click with Google can sometimes be a challenge. Sure, the competition can be fierce in the PPC arena, and that can make things difficult. But the real challenge is how complex Google continues to get. "Quality Scores" play a major role these days and more bids come up "Inactive for Search." And there's more factors to consider in the making of a successful Google campaign. Don't be discouraged. If you make the effort to continually test and monitor your keywords, you can maintain a thriving account and avoid getting penalized. You'll also avoid seeing bid minimums raised or even being priced out. With a steady vigilance, you can finely adjust your ad campaigns to the point where you are actually paying lower prices, but getting higher ranks than the competition.
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.If you are an advertiser with a large monthly budget, you just can't afford to ignore constant vigilance with Google -- it will cost you. Either spend more time on it, dedicate more staffing and hours or outsource it to a professional management company.Yahoo Search Marketing: Still EssentialWhile Yahoo no longer dominates the pay per click arena as they once did, it's still wise to invest ad dollars with them. Yahoo Search Marketing (previously named Overture, which was previously Goto.com) made major changes last year in response to Google's moves in the PPC marketplace.Yahoo also followed suit with their own "Quality Index" ... again, this is something that you have to work at. Quality scores must be dialed up with continual testing. Yahoo won't slap you with the frequency and force that Google does, but you will suffer if you don't do frequent split testing to refine your ad quality.Throttling up the Yahoo Quality Index usually means asking and answering the important questions:
What makes you stand out from your competitors?
Does your ad campaign relate to your customers? With ad copy testing you want to focus on the three
C's: your Customer, your Competition, and your Company. Work it until you have an ad concept that consistently out produces the others. Then, work it some more. Use that as a control, refining and making small changes to variables to produce the best results.AdCenter by MSNEven 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.MSN also recently launched a new method to import your campaigns from Google AdWords. This will make your expansion easier than before. Word of caution when you do this: Make sure your Google account is as fine tuned and optimized as possible, or you will be simply repeating the same mistakes. If you have large Ad Groups with large lists of keywords, you need to break those down into smaller, more manageable ones. This will allow you to target the searches with more relevant ads.
Again, test, test and re-test that ad copy.The OthersWe'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 OffIgnoring the daily management needs of your PPC accounts will most likely result in bad keywords depleting your funds. On top of that, good keywords are getting more and more expensive because your quality scores are slipping compared to your competitors. Under-performing campaigns cost advertisers a huge chunk of potential business. It's up to you to protect your investment with effective, intelligent supervision of your in-house PPC marketing or by outsourcing this essential work to a professional pay per click management company.
เขียนโดย The Wayfarer @ 23:20
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