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by: JoshPrizer
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If you are looking to get involved in pay per click advertising or expand the current reach of your existing pay per click advertising, where do you turn? Here are our recommendations on where your ad spend is best used ... and a few tips to optimize your accounts.

The Big Three in PPC

In the PPC search marketing world, the best results come from Google, Yahoo and MSN. These days, the Big Three share a lot more common ground, offering close to the same sort of PPC services -- geo targeting, setting adds to switch on and off during optimum times, splitting test the copy on your ads, optimizing quality scores, and so on. Google remains dominate in search traffic, but Yahoo and MSN are major players.

Google AdWords

Google drives more quality traffic than ever, but you still need to be careful about monitoring your results with frequency. Either do this yourself or hire a professional PPC management company.

Keep in mind that pay per click with Google can sometimes be a challenge. Sure, the competition can be fierce in the PPC arena, and that can make things difficult. But the real challenge is how complex Google continues to get. "Quality Scores" play a major role these days and more bids come up "Inactive for Search." And there's more factors to consider in the making of a successful Google campaign. Don't be discouraged. If you make the effort to continually test and monitor your keywords, you can maintain a thriving account and avoid getting penalized. You'll also avoid seeing bid minimums raised or even being priced out. With a steady vigilance, you can finely adjust your ad campaigns to the point where you are actually paying lower prices, but getting higher ranks than the competition.

With any of the PPC engines, you need to make sure you separate out your content network advertising from your search advertising and track those separately. If you don't in Google, bad keywords are probably leaking your account right now.

Again, Google produces results, but you must be constantly vigilant, especially if you are an advertiser with a high-end budget. Spending more time, dedicating more staffing and hours or outsourcing your PPC campaign to a professional management company will pay off.

Yahoo Search Marketing

Yahoo Search Marketing (Formerly Overture, which was formerly Goto.com) underwent a major change early in 2007 with their Panama update. This overhaul was in direct response to what Google had done in the PPC marketplace. While they no longer dominate the pay per click arena as they had years back, they are still a very worthwhile place to invest.

Yahoo also followed suit with their own "Quality Index" ... again, this is something that you have to work at. Quality scores must be dialed up with continual testing. Yahoo won't slap you with the frequency and force that Google does, but you will suffer if you don't do frequent split testing to refine your ad quality.

We recommend focusing on the three C's when it comes to testing that ad copy: Customer, Competition and your Company. Why are you better than your competition? Why are you more relevant to your client or consumer? Try varying your approaches with your ads. Once you've discovered one that really works, use it as a control and tweak your ad with little changes. For best results, continue the testing to drive up that Yahoo Quality Index.

High Quality With MSN AdCenter

MSN is a late comer to the PPC game, but still a player to consider. MSN's AdCenter has some excellent quality traffic and some unique targeting tools. AdCenter lets you manage the same geo-targeting type of local pay per click campaigns as the others, but you can also take it up a notch and target user demographics. If you find that you have high conversions for a certain demographic segment, you turn up your bids when AdCenter identifies those potential customers searching your specific keywords.

MSN also recently launched a new method to import your campaigns from Google AdWords. This will make your expansion easier than before. Word of caution when you do this: Make sure your Google account is as fine tuned and optimized as possible, or you will be simply repeating the same mistakes. If you have large Ad Groups with large lists of keywords, you need to break those down into smaller, more manageable ones. This will allow you to target the searches with more relevant ads. Again, test, test and re-test that ad copy.

The Others

We've seen mixed results with Ask and Looksmart. You can find some traffic that will pay off one week, then next week you are flooded with bad results and your Earnings Per Click go south for the winter ... and sometimes the other three seasons, as well. Miva can also be hit or miss. If you are doing a poor job managing your other PPC accounts, we definitely suggest you don't push your luck into any of these others. There is some good traffic there, but you have to double your efforts on tracking and keep a tight eye on results since things can turn sour fast. Avoid all the other pay per click engines.

Should you as a PPC advertiser use more than the Big Three? Well, if you are already using Google, Yahoo and MSN, you are probably more than busy. Especially if you are going about it the right way -- running split tests every day, monitoring earnings per click results down to the keyword, and continually looking for the profitable keyword real estate that your competition is on and expanding to relevant keywords. Make sure you are investing your time wisely with the Big Three before venturing elsewhere.

Protect Your Investment

If you have been ignoring the daily management needs of your PPC accounts, bad keywords are likely leaking your funds. Meanwhile, the good keywords are getting more and more expensive because your quality scores are slipping compared to your competitors. Protect your investment with close supervision or hire a professional pay per click management company to do the critical work for you.

About the Author

Josh Prizer is a Senior Account Executive and PPC Expert for Zero Company Performance Marketing, a pay per click management company. Visit his site now to learn more info on improving your PPC advertising campaigns and results.

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