Very often, discussions about paid search revolve around Google’s AdWords advertising platform. That’s certainly understandable given the search engine’s market position. But, advertisers failing to consider pay per click campaigns on Yahoo and MSN (Google’s nearest rivals) are missing a trick.

Rather than being second and third placed contenders, marketers wishing to make the most of their search marketing budget with paid search campaigns should consider Yahoo’s Panama PPC offering and the MSN adCenter platform as advertising portals in their own right.

In the same way that the three search engines offer a different search experience – Yahoo and MSN offer much more relevant, up to date content on their home pages for example, making the search engine a complete experience with news, weather and entertainment rather than just a search box- their pay per click and content network advertising offerings also differ.

Google AdWords Pay Per Click

Undoubtedly the behemoth force behind paid search, advertisers able to direct a minimum of £1000 to a Google campaign are assured exposure levels that are second to none. The California search engine estimates that it serves around 70-80% of all internet search queries, making it the most used search engine in the world. With around 80% of online purchases originating with a web search, the statistics are skewed in favour of a Google presence.

There is of course a downside to these startling figures and that is competition levels that ratchet up daily and an increased cost per click as bidding wars develop over the most popular keywords. To put that into context, Google recorded a 42% year-on-year revenue growth upon publication of their latest financial report, putting income at $5.1 billion. With most of this revenue derived from pay per click advertising, it’s no surprise that a poorly thought out PPC campaign or one lacking management and direction can be a very costly undertaking.

Although the cost per click (CPC) of keywords is generally higher on Google than on Yahoo and MSN engines, this cash does buy you a much larger slice of internet visibility. While number of impressions gives little indication of the success of a campaign, a well targeted and well-structured AdWords advertising project should also show a correspondingly good click through rate (CTR).

If one thing Google doesn’t lack is traffic, advertisers must be careful not to play devil’s advocate and chase after a good CTR at the expense of a poor conversion rate. While this is a danger no matter which ad platform you use, the high cost per click and huge depth of search users mean that AdWords advertisers must be particularly vigilant.

Google’s other advantage and one of the most compelling reasons to include an AdWords paid search string as part of the marketing mix is the sheer range of advert formats available to pay per click users. The latest addition to the range of multimedia options is TV advertising for US account holders. Accessible directly from the AdWords user interface and based on a cost per broadcast model, the TV ad option gives online advertisers a low cost channel into mainstream TV advertising.

As well as TV spots, Google’s pay per click client base can compare conversions, acquisitions and cost per impression across radio adverts, image ads, video ads, mobile ads and local business adverts. Befitting its status as an internet innovator, the AdWords model also provides a broad depth of keyword matching and targeting functions. Although Google advertisers are spoilt for choice when it comes to deciding how their keywords appear in search phrases with broad match, phrase match, exact match and negative matches, the targeting functions do not include the demographic targeting option available to MSN advertisers. They do however include sophisticated geographical targeting and time scheduling (also known as day parting).

Coming Soon: Part 2: Yahoo

pay per click
search engine optimisation