When it comes to pay per click advertising, does it matter which company you use for your campaigns? I think it does. And I think that there are two measures that you can use to judge where you should start your pay per click campaign:
- Budget
- Market Share
Budget is the more difficult of the two while market share is pretty easy. Google AdWords pretty much owns the pay per click market. If you advertise through Google AdWords then you will catch the lion’s share of search traffic. But beware, a click at Google AdWords could cost you considerably more than a click through other pay per click providers – Yahoo! Search Marketing and Microsoft adCenter included. So is that good or bad?
Well, it’s both. Consider this: If you have a low monthly budget, say $200, you could easily eat that up on Google in a few days. On the other hand, you might go through an entire month and not spend $200 on Microsoft adCenter. So does that make Microsoft adCenter better than Google? Not necessarily.
Google could produce a better ROI. How much does your product cost? Can you expect to make up your advertising spend with enough conversions? If so then it might be worth your time to pursue Google.
My recommendation is almost always to start with Google. When you start realizing an ROI from your efforts at Google AdWords, take your earnings and apply them to pay per click campaigns at the other companies because while Google may be the top dog in search, it isn’t the only gig in town and there are still people who never use it. You don’t want to leave any searcher behind.
