Those with campaigns on Yahoo, Msn & Google - how do the #s compare?

[DiscoStu]

Seeing how a bunch of people have gotten banned from Adwords and there's a lot of talk about taking business elsewhere, I was wondering what difference in performance people have seen from experience with Yahoo & MSN compared to Adwords. That is, I'm not asking about their relative marketshare or anything like that, but rather those of us who run very similar campaigns on all three networks, what is the difference in traffic for you?

For one website I work with we're running very similar campaigns across all three networks. so I'll go first:

Google - 2926 clicks 750 conversions
YSM - 1465 clicks 238 conversions
MSN - 364 clicks 92 conversions

It's also worth mentioning that out of the numbers given for Google, 1000 clicks and 200 conversions come from the content network, which is not running on YSM and MSN because we haven't been able to be successful with it so far.

Anyone else care to share? If you're worried about divulging too much info, feel free to leave out what time period your data is for (as long as it's at least 7 days worth of data and the time period is the same for all three)

[DiscoStu]

I answered a question about ask.com in a different thread, but realize it's relevant to this. Here's the gist of it:

570 clicks, $245 spent - THREE covnersions. And at least 2 of those conversions are from me testing the ads (though I'm pretty sure the third one is too). I used only exact match keyword that see 30-40% conversion on G, Y and msn.

Other that that the only PPC engine I used extensively is Amazon's clickriver. Iit went thorugh a bunch of changes a year or two back, and I haven't used it since...but in it's hay day I abolsutely killed there - it was rivaling Google in terms of # of conversions, and crushing Google in terms of ROI. Has anyone used Clickriver lately?

[avalon37]

Google converts the best and is the best ROI.

Yahoo: converts at a much lower rate, but CPC prices are lower.

MSN: Converts at about the same percentage as Google, but CPC prices MUCH higher than Google.

With Yahoo & MSN I only run the top performing keywords. The second you try to expand to more/all keywords you will pay the price ROI-wise.

Ask.com: Are you kidding? Total joke. If you are spending money via keywords/cpc with anyone but the top 3 search engines you are wasting time, money and probably costing you years off your life :) I always ask people, do YOU use Ask.com or LookSmart? If not, WHY would you advertise there? It's common sense really.

[DiscoStu]

If you are spending money via keywords/cpc with anyone but the top 3 search engines you are wasting time, money and probably costing you years off your life

Like I said in my post, I did very well with Amazon's PPC engine until they changed it up - way better than Google in terms of ROI (made up about 40% of my not inconsiderable PPC profits at the time). The big three are the safest bet, but for certain verticals there are 2nd tier ppc engines that can be very profitable. If you're doing things right there will be a point where you don't have to spend as much time with your primary accounts, so for those people it may be worth while to start looking around for alternative revenue sources.

Anyway, I started this thread hoping people would put up numbers so others can have a look and decide for themselves (instead of just the usual "G is better than Y is worse than MSN & Ask sucks" type discussions).

[avalon37]

Amazon is not a search engine; and I'm also not talking about comparison shopping engines. I'm talking about ask.com, findwhat, looksmart, etc.

Discostu, you are obviously looking for other alternatives to the top 3 search engines which is concerning. Since brick and mortars have finally adopted SEM, smaller companies are finding it harder than ever to survive.

[DiscoStu]

Avalon,

I'm talking about ppc advertising, and if someone is successful with pay per click on the big 3 I'm sure they'd be interested in other profitable ppc solutions, regardless if it technically qualifies as a proper search engine or not (though Amazon is a search engine since it algorithmically pulls data from a database based on keyword searches - it just does so internally). As long as it follows the basic principle of pointing an ad to a landing page and bidding on clicks for specific keywords for profit (like business.com for example) it's obviously relevant to this discussion.

you are obviously looking for other alternatives to the top 3 search engines which is concerning.

Why would this be concerning to you? I've already told you I've had significant success with it in the past. Look , if you have any numbers to share please do, but I feel this is getting off topic. I started this thread so those who want to can pool their stats together and help each other and other forum members out, and any and all ppc stats you want to share are welcome.

[edited by: DiscoStu at 3:30 pm (utc) on Oct. 13, 2009]