While there are other PPC (Pay-Per-Click) networks on the net, such as Looksmart, Miva, etc., the top dogs of this space remain Google Adwords and Yahoo Sponsored Search (formerly Overture). Following is a side-by-side comparison of the two from an advertiser's point of view.
| PPC Feature |
Google Adwords |
Yahoo Search Marketing |
Advantage! |
| Advertiser Reach |
Google, AOL, Lycos, Netscape, AskJeeves, AdSense - 80% Internet Users. |
Yahoo, Altavista, MSN, CNN, CNET, Yahoo Publisher Network - also reaches 80% Internet Users, but receives about 20%-40% less searches than Google Network. |
Google Adwords |
| Creative Size |
Small Ad. 25 character headline, plus two more 35-character details |
Bigger Ad: 40 character headline plus 190 character details |
Yahoo Search Marketing |
| Copy Testing |
Easy to test copies through UI |
Hard to copy test. |
Google Adwords |
| Pricing |
$5 deposit + Pay per Click (minimum $.05 bid) |
$30 deposit + Pay per Click (minimum .10 bid). has $20 monthly minimum. To sweeten the pot, Yahoo does offers $50 credit for Self-Service Sign-ups |
Google Adwords. |
| CPC (Cost Per Click) |
Massive popolarity with advertisers pushes bid prices up. |
Anecdotal wisdom says Yahoo's CPC are lower. Also more forgiving of low CTR ads(Click Through Rates) |
Yahoo Search Marketing |
| Bidding Process |
Opaque: Ad Ranking depends on both Bid Price and CTR(Click Through Rates). Bidders don't know each other's bid price, don't even know the exact per click click except as an estimate/average, even though Adwords do respect maximum bid. In this way, google encourages better relevancy |
Transparent: Everyone knows everyone else's bid price. This has the perhaps unintended consequence that bidding software on yahoo gets more room for maneuvering |
Neutral |
| Fraud |
Has sophiscated software to detect fraudulent clicks and very committed to protecting advertisers.
Adsense Advertising seems more fraud prone. |
Has sophiscated software to detect fraudulent clicks and very committed to protecting advertisers. |
Neutral |
| Convenience |
Easy to Use UI. Fast editorial approval. |
More clumsy UI and slower editorial approval process tends to discourage advertisers. See CPC. Has nice Bid View Tool |
Google Adwords |
Conclusion
Google Adwords and YahooSM are very comparible in reaches and each has advantages and disadvantages. So unless an advertiser have special needs such as Etailer or Local Advertising, he/she should not miss either one.
