CPC advertising - Overture vs Banners/Newsletters?

Will 1000 visitors from general audience ads convert as well as search ads?

[robbie]

If 10,000 people visit me from clicking on banner/newsletter ads served to a generic non-targeted audience...will my conversion rate be similar when compared to 10,000 visitors that visit from targeted keyword ads (overture/adwords converting to sales @ 2-3%)?

It stands to reason that the 10,000 visitors from non-targeted audience would still convert reasonably well...because they qualified themselves by reading my ad and choosing to click.

May take a zillion more impressions to net 10,000 clicks...but if I only pay per click - I could care less about impressions.

Clicks are clicks and the source of clicks (assuming they come through MY ads on a major web property) should not be a major variable in conversion ratio...right? (this also assumes my ad is similar in message to my overture listings..ie: not any more promotional/hypish)

I am seriously considering a large "general audience" cpc campaign on a top 20 web property....and I want to make sure my logic doesn't have a huge flaw in it.

Thanks in advance for your comments.

[limitup]

Clicks from "targeted" web surfers are always better. Your reasoning is generally correct, however, the percentage of "curiosity seekers" who click will be higher with the general interest traffic. If you are promoting something to webmasters on a webmaster-related site, at least if they click you know they have potential to convert (i.e. subscribe to your ezine, download your free trial software, purchase your product, etc.) On the other hand, some of the general interest traffic will click on your ad just out of curiosity, when in reality there is a slim to none chance that they will convert once they get to your site. You can do well with either, but all else being equal I'd say the targeted ads are always better. As always you just need to careful track your conversions and ROI to know for sure if a particular campaign is profitable or not. Don't get them convince you that you need 5000 clicks for a test ... start out with the smallest test package they will allow.