12 Pay Per Click Networks Tested and Rated

This is an update to the first Pay Per Click Network challenge of a few weeks ago. There is new data, new PPC networks included, and a new scoring system based on everyone’s input from the last one. Hopefully it will be even more helpful now.

To review:

These networks were all tested running the same PPC campaign (meaning the keywords and the ad texts were the same) to an affiliate offer with the exact same landing page.

Scoring system:

I threw out the interface rating as many people thought it skewed the results of bad performing networks that had a good interface. I agree that performance is king and if something converts well I can live with a bad interface (MSN, cough, cough). Now the scoring is based on 3 factors with 2 being double weighted. This should more accurately show the total performance of a PPC network.

• Traffic Volume (Highest volume = 10 out of possible 10)
• Conversion Rate (Best conversion rate = 10 out of possible 10)
• Click Pricing (Lowest pricing = 5 out of possible 5)

For a possible total score of 30

The Results:

PPC Network Traffic
Volume
Conversion
Rate
Click
Pricing
Total
Score
MSN 6 9 4 19
Yahoo 8 7 3 18
Google 10 7 1 18
Searchfeed 6 6 3 15
Looksmart 3 7 4 14
Miva 2 6 4 12
Adbrite 2 2 4 8
7Search 1 2 5 8
Enhance 1 1 5 7
Kanoodle 1 1 5 7
Search 123 1 1 4 6
Bidvertiser 1 1 4 6

Traffic Volume Winner:

As always Google is king of traffic volume. The only thing that keeps it from the overall leader is its stiff click pricing.

Conversion Rate Winner:

MSN is the tops for conversions. Too bad their volume isn’t up to Google or Yahoo’s levels.

Recommended:
• MSN
• Yahoo
• Google
• Searchfeed
• Looksmart
• Miva

Stay Away!
• Adbrite
• 7Search
• Enhance
• Kanoodle
• Search 123
• Bidvertiser

Remember these results are based on my campaign and niche, your results may vary wildly.

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Posted in PPC Smackdown, MSN Adcenter, Adwords, Pay Per Click, Yahoo by Chad on 01|15|07
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16 Comments »

Comment by blin
2007-01-16 06:32:41

yep!
also shit PPCs like 7search even do not offer geo-targeting! 8(

 
Comment by Steve Myers
2007-01-16 09:40:06

Awesome information. Thanks for posting this. I was thinking about trying 7search, now I think i will save my money.

 
Comment by sourcer
2007-01-16 10:13:04

Nice research :) Do you mind if blog about this post and put a link to your blog ?

 
Comment by Chad
2007-01-16 12:22:14

Don’t mind at all, thanks!

———–
sourcer Says:
January 16th, 2007 at 10:13 am e

Nice research :) Do you mind if blog about this post and put a link to your blog ?

 
Comment by CPA Affiliates
2007-01-16 18:11:44

I have to agree with your experiment results with exception of 7Search and enhance. Depending on your niche these two can also work quite well. I will have to say STAY AWAY from KANOODLE and FINDOLOGY. Adbrite can be good but you have to target the right blog with the correct offer in the whole scheme adbrite can lose you a LOT of money.

 
Comment by Miha
2007-01-17 00:56:57

You should give us some more numbers.
I’m interested in the volume of your test. How many impressions, clicks, CTR,…

 
Comment by ShoeMoney
2007-01-20 00:30:55

Great Post!

 
Comment by Alex
2007-01-22 21:38:17

Niche is very important with PPC. If you could mention the niche you tested PPC perfomance with that would make your research even more valuable.

 
Comment by Melvin the Magnificant
2007-01-28 17:30:03

Did anyone notice that the DNS for searchfeed.com is findwhat.com?

 
Comment by david
2007-02-23 23:01:59

I have found MIVA to convert far worse for me than these results would imply.

Are these numbers actual arithmetic percentages, or what methodology did you employ to come up with the numbers assigned?

 
2007-02-28 08:34:25

[…] 12 Pay Per Click Networks Tested and Rated […]

 
Comment by Jimmy Tang
2007-03-01 15:06:24

Thanks for sharing these findings! Save us a lot of time!

 
Comment by CatherineL
2007-09-11 20:53:08

Cheers for the results. This is really useful. Setting up pay per click campaigns is the one thing that really does my head in.

 
2007-09-18 14:39:39

[…] January of this year, I posted my extensive test results of 12 PPC networks. Since 8 months is an eternity in affiliate marketing, I decided to […]

 
Comment by Matt L
2007-09-22 23:49:48

Great study - now if I can just keep MSN from disabling extremely relevant keywords on extremely relevant landing pages, seemingly at random…

 
Comment by CalvinProblogs
2007-09-29 06:21:06

Hi Chad,

This is good scoring and analysis for per per click advertisers.

 
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