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:

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.

I have to say after 2 months of use, I am liking YSM more and more all the time. From the totally un-useable system it was before, they really nailed it with Panama. Is it perfect? Of course not, but it’s pretty damn good. The upload/campaign conversion tool is the best feature. If you are a spreadsheet geek like me, being able to lay out the whole campaign in Excel, then hit upload is great. Or if you already have a campaign running in Adwords and you want to lauch it on YSM, it’s as simple as opening your Adwords editor, exporting the campaign to a CSV, running the convert tool in YSM, then uploading the converted CSV back to YSM. I took a 40 adgroup campaign with a hundred ads and 8,000 keywords from Adcenter to YSM in under 5 minutes. Another great technique I have found is to build the campaign in the Adwords editor, then export, convert, and upload to YSM.

Are you listening MSN? You need to make a solid, campaign level upload tool!

I have found it really hard to find objective information about different Pay Per Click (PPC) networks, especially second tier networks. If you pose the question in a forum, the response will usually be something like “XYZ sucks”, which isn’t too helpful as far as hard data is concerned. So I decided to run my own, somewhat scientific test of PPC networks. Here is what happened.

About the test

I chose a set of ads and keywords that were proven to do well on Google Adwords for these tests. I won’t say the niche (competition is tough enough already), but it’s about a mid-range set of keywords as far as monthly impressions and click pricing. The minimum spent at each PPC network was $50, with most of the test running in the $100-$300 range. If it was clear the traffic was not going to convert, I cut the test short, but if it showed some promise I let it run for a while.

After examining the results, I assigned a score between 1 and 5, with 5 being the highest, to each of these 5 categories:

• Traffic Volume (Highest volume = 5)
• Conversion Rate (Best conversion rate = 5)
• Click Pricing (Lowest pricing = 5)
• Keyword Competition (Lowest competition = 5)
• Interface ease of use (Easiest to use = 5)

After totaling up the scores, each PPC network was given a final score. Winners for each category and an overall winner were chosen, based on the scores.

The 10 networks tested

• Google Adwords
• Yahoo Search Marketing (Panama system)
• MSN Adcenter
• Adbrite
• Miva
• Searchfeed
• Kanoodle
• Enhance
• Looksmart
• Search123

The Results

Category Winners

Traffic Volume:

Not a big surprise here, the king of Traffic is Google by a long shot.

Conversion Rate:

MSN takes the prize for the best conversion rate. Adcenter’s traffic converted about 10% better than the closest competitor.

Click Pricing:

The lower traffic networks are always going to have the cheapest clicks, so we have a 5 way tie here between MSN, Miva, Adbrite, Enhance, and Kanoodle.

Keyword Competition:

Keywords were easy to buy with little to no competition on Enhance, Kanoodle, and Search 123.

Interface ease of use:

Google reigns supreme again in the interface department. Their continually improving web interface along with its offline Adwords editor make it tough to beat. Although the new Yahoo Panama system is a close second and gaining quickly.

Overall Winner:

The winner of the smackdown is MSN. Their strong placing for conversions and click pricing, coupled with a decent traffic volume puts them in the number one spot. A surprisingly strong second place tie goes to Searchfeed and Looksmart. Their low click pricing, and low competition helped them edge out some of the Tier 1 heavyweights in the field.

Although the undisputed kings of volume, Google and Yahoo were hit hard by their higher pricing and extreme keyword competition.

Keep in mind these results were for one specific niche and keyword group, your results may vary wildly.

One of the new metrics in the PPC universe is the concept of keyword assists. The idea is that the final keyword that actually converts the action you are tracking may have had a trail of non-converting keywords that lead to this action. In other words, the keyword or phrase that the customer’s search began with was probably not the keyword that ended in a conversion. Wouldn’t it be nice to know the value that these “helper” keywords have, that don’t directly show on stats? Well Yahoo is on the ball with their new analytics program built into their PPC interface. You can configure it to count the number of times that a keyword contributed to the conversion of another keyword within a timeframe of 45 days. I think this is a significant stat that can really be put to good use in optimizing campaigns!

Last week posted some initial thoughts about the new Yahoo PPC interface. After spending about a week playing around with it, I can definitely now give it the thumbs up. They have improved it about 1000% from their old version. The reporting and graphing system is awesome. Hands down the best of any PPC network. It is super quick to get a snapshot of the performance for all your adgroups or keywords. So the big question is what PPC interface is the best out of the big 3 now?

I’d have to say Yahoo and Google are now tied. In fact the new Yahoo system kind of makes Adwords show its age a bit. The only big advantage Adwords has is it’s offline editor. I almost exclusively use the offline editor in Adwords. Yahoo if you are listening, how about starting work on your own offline editor? That might push you into my #1 slot. Oh ya, I guess that puts MSN in third

I upgraded to the eagerly anticipated “Panama” the other day. This is the loooong overdue update to Yahoo’s sponsored search interface.

Here are some of my random thoughts:

The interface has a slick flash feel to it, and it works well in Firefox.

The Geo-targeting with map-based interface is awesome. You can now target right down to the city level. The only negative is that you still can’t target other countries like the UK without having a separate Yahoo UK account.

When you are entering keywords, it has a tool which essentially a keyword scraper. You just input a URL and it pulls keywords from the page. Nice, Yahoo is going black hat!

When you are entering your bid prices it has a slider bar that shows you how your bid affects your number of clicks, as well are you estimated position and share of clicks. Slider bars are always a crowd pleaser.

You can enter Google like strings while entering your keywords. For example:

hawaii trip**1.75**http://travel.yahoo.com**trips to Hawaii**N

I just started playing with their analytics tracking but it definitely looks promising. You even have the ability to track keyword assists. (more on assists in another post to come).

I would like to see more match types, instead of the standard and advanced.

The bulk upload via spreadsheet is great.