Both businesses and pay per click experts are re-evaluating the playing field when it comes to structuring their PPC marketing and PPC Campaign Plan. For the moment Google is still the biggest player but industry experts and businesses owners alike are keeping an eye on the ball, especially with the new Yahoo and Microsoft agreement. The following is a pay per click expert's overview and comparison of the main players for the English speaking markets.
1. Google
Google is the leading search engine and dominates the global search market. Google have over the last decade set a standard its rivals have failed to keep up with and continued to innovate and offer an improved search experience to the end user.
For online marketers and ecommerce websites alike Google AdWords offers a huge audience but at the same time with specific targeting options to enable a wide variety of businesses to reach their target markets. With a well optimized Google campaign your business stands a good chance of being a success.
Unfortunately some people over the years have claimed Google to be expensive and this is due largely to ineffective AdWords campaigns which have not been optimized. By employing the services of a specialist in pay per click marketing you can harness the power of Google and reach your customers with increased efficiency, profitability whilst reducing your advertising costs at the same time.
The beauty of Google AdWords is the tools that are available to improve your campaigns results. Whether your market is international, national, regional or local and you are able to target geographical areas specifically. The times of the day and days of the week can also be targeted so that your advertising budget can be applied at the most productive times for your business.
2. Yahoo
The first ever global search engine found itself overtaken by Google several years ago but nevertheless remains another way to reach your customers. Having joined up with Microsoft the industry is waiting to see how this business deal will affect advertising campaigns over the medium to long term.
Yahoo is another platform to generate business but one that needs to be treated differently to Google. A successful Yahoo campaign requires more than just copying over a marketing campaign that works on another search engine. It remains strong for brand advertising and with a structured yet selective approach you can reach your customers and although the market is smaller and it isn't possible to target as specifically as with Google.
3. Microsoft (Bing and MSN)
Microsoft is making waves in the search marketing world in its attempt to catch up with Google. It launched its new search engine Bing in June (2009) amid much excitement and expectation.
When you set up a Microsoft ad centre campaign you immediately get 2 for 1 as your ads will show too on Bing as well as MSN. The much improved ad centre has even better targeting than Google and allows you to target geographically and demographically at a ad group level as well as campaign level.
The only thing lacking is the volume of traffic but that is increasing steadily as already Bing lays claim to the number 2 spot as the search engine of choice. One of the advantages over Google is that there is less competition on keywords so the cost per click is generally lower than that of Google whilst at the same time with less sponsored link results for any search term the click through rates and conversion rates are also favourable.
Going forward it is important to have a campaign on the Microsoft ad centre especially with the expected continued success of Bing which is a distant but very welcome challenger to Google.