Since being accepted to NeverBlueAds, I have been testing some different keywords on Google, MSN and Yahoo. I have come up with a few ideas of campaigns that I would like to try, and through my testing I have found that Google can be a lot more pricey than the other two search engines.
I found one example where Google wants to charge me more than 2x the price (per click) that Yahoo or MSN would for running ads on the same keywords. I figure that even though Google is the most popular search engine, as long as Yahoo and MSN can deliver clicks, it really doesn’t matter where the clicks are coming from. The only real disadvantage would be that I would be able to make the connections between the Yahoo ads and my Google Analytics, to see which SERP Phrases are ultimately resulting into NeverBlue conversions.
This table compares Google and Yahoo, based on a $30/day limit, for a specific keyword.
Google
Yahoo
Avg CPC
$1.83
$0.62
Max CPC
$6.92
$0.74
Clicks/Day
15
48
Clicks/Mo.
450
1,451
Right there you can see the difference. Google wants way more cash from me, and promises less than half of the clicks that Yahoo will provide. Of course, this is all estimates at this point. My guess is that every average business owner just goes for Google and thus inflates the prices. Since I don’t have a lot of cash to play with at the moment, I will go with Yahoo to begin with. I will have to explore if they have some sort of conversion tracking system.