Sales & Marketing Authority, Bestselling Author & Business Motivational Speaker

Pay Per Click Accounts – What is Available?

Believe it or not, while one or two may have a monopoly on the market, there are actually several different pay per click companies available on the Internet. While some are more popular than others, or boast different features, each are effective in their own way.

If you are just starting out with pay per click marketing, I highly recommend setting up small accounts with a handful of different pay per click providers in order to test them and determine which ones are going to bring the best results. I personally started out with Google AdWords, Microsoft adCenter, and Yahoo! Search Marketing.

Google Adwords is by far the most popular pay per click provider on the web today. Google’s search engine is widely used by web surfers around the world, which means your ads are likely to be seen by millions of people. Google can help you to set up an ad campaign using either text or banner advertisements, though I don’t recommend the use of banner ads on a regular basis as they haven’t proven to be as successful as text. Your ads could possibly be distributed around the world, as well as on Google’s partner networks, including AOL and Netscape. Your ads will appear on Google search results as well as on web pages that have opted to show Google advertisements.

Microsoft adCenter is a division of MSN and is also considered to be amongst the three largest ad networks. In my opinion, the larger the ad network, the better the chances of your ad being seen because the network is likely to have better technology and exposure. Advertisements placed on this network are shown to users who search the web with MSN Search. Microsoft adCenter uses technology that limits your advertisement to a particular set of demographics, making it easier for them to control your costs and visibility.

Yahoo! Search Marketing is the last of the top three pay per click providers and I’ve had great success with them as well. Yahoo! purchased Overture Services, one of the very first search services that allowed advertisers to pay for placement, back in 2003. Overture was originally used by search engines like MSN and Yahoo to monetise their search results. Each later created their own pay per click services, phasing out the need for Overture itself.

There are plenty of other pay per click providers on the Internet. I encourage you to take a little bit of time to research some of the smaller networks as they may suit your needs as well. I can’t tell you which to use, but I can tell you that pay per click advertising is something you should seriously consider as you set up your marketing campaign. You won’t be disappointed.

Happy Marketing!

Sean

Sean McPheat

Marketing Consultant - Internet Marketing Consultant - Sales Expert