The Big Three In Pay Per Click Search Engines

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 PPC

In the PPC search marketing world, the best results come from Google, Yahoo and MSN. These days, the Big Three share a lot more common ground, offering close to the same sort of PPC services -- geo targeting, setting adds to switch on and off during optimum times, splitting test the copy on your ads, optimizing quality scores, and so on. Google remains dominate in search traffic, but Yahoo and MSN are major players.

AdWords From Google

Quality 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.

Be aware that Google is not only becoming increasingly competitive, but its pay per click marketplace is also getting harder to ace. These days, there are more variables to consider with "Quality Scores" playing a more important role and more bids turning up "Inactive for Search." One of the keys to maintaining a healthy Google account is to make sure you put in the time to continually test and monitor your relevant keywords. You'll get penalized if you don't -- bid minimums might be increased, you may be forced to pay higher prices, or worse yet, be priced out by a Google slap. However, with a steady effort, you can turn your ad program around with fine tuning and tweaking. Done correctly and you'll be actually paying lower prices AND leaving your competitors behind in rank.

With Google as with any PPC engine, you should always track your content network advertising and your search network advertising separately. You may be losing money on bad keywords as you read this, especially if you are not making adjustments in tracking and monitoring your content network advertising.

Are you an advertiser with a big monthly budget? If so, you can't afford to put down your guard with Google -- it can be costly. We recommend either dedicating more time, allocating more staff and hours or using a professional management company.

Yahoo Search Marketing

Yahoo Search Marketing (Formerly Overture, which was formerly Goto.com) underwent a major change early in 2007 with their Panama update. This overhaul was in direct response to what Google had done in the PPC marketplace. While they no longer dominate the pay per click arena as they had years back, they are still a very worthwhile place to invest.

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.

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.

MSN AdCenter

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.

Need to import your PPC keywords and campaigns from Google AdWords? MSN recently introduced a new method to do just that. Your expansion is now easier than ever. You'll want to be certain your Google account is refined and optimized, or you will be making the same mistakes with MSN's program as you did in Google. Break down those large Ad Groups with big lists of keywords into tighter and more relevant groups. Doing so will let you target the keywords with more effective, relevant ads. Once again, test and re-test those ads repeatedly.

The Others

With others like Ask and Looksmart, we've seen varied results. You can launch a campaign, see it succeed short term, then absolutely bottom out and put you in the hole. You can't afford to mess around with these results for too long...your budget may not survive. Miva can also have up and down results. Be very cautious with high bids and don't ignore your account for days at a time. Should you still venture into these other search engine markets? Not if you are struggling with managing your other PPC accounts. The good traffic is attainable, but you have to double your efforts on tracking and keep a tight eye on results since things can turn sour fast. Beyond these PPC engines, don't waste time on all the others.

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

Ignoring 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.