What is Paid Search?
Paid search as the name suggests is traffic that comes from advertisements placed on search engines. These ads usually come in the form of text ads and sometimes banner ads. Paid search allows you to bid on keywords allowing you to advertise to visitors who are actively searching for your product or service. Paid search is a great choice for marketers looking to promote most products and services.
Google Adwords
Pros:
Tons of traffic. Google has 75.2 percent of the search market, not including mobile. Tons of tools and ways to optimize your campaigns. Ability to scale your campaign, once you find some winning metrics.
Cons:
Highly competitive and expensive as hell. We’re talking over $100 per click for more competitive industries. Very picky with what they allow on their network. Very high chance of account suspension if you don’t follow the rules.
Conclusion:
Yes, I know, almost everyone and their mother knows what Adwords is already. However, because of it’s massive market share if you want to scale, then you want Adwords. If you’re brand new to paid traffic, I would stay away from Adwords personally. Why? Because you can lose your budget in a matter of minutes if you mess up. Adwords also offers the ability to do remarketing which is extremely powerful.
YouTube
Pros:
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world. Many of you are probly surprised I’m considering YouTube a paid search traffic source. The awesome thing about YouTube is there is a TON of traffic and it’s still very cheap. I’ve gotten my cost per visitor down to $.02 CPC. Not often can you get search traffic this cheap.
Cons:
Like I mentioned above, the audience on YouTube is very different than other search engines. What I mean by this is you have to have video content on YouTube to be able to drive traffic. This may be a con for some companies that have never created video before. I’ve also noticed 75%+ of your traffic won’t watch more than 30 seconds of your video.
Conclusion:
If you have some kick ass video content, then YouTube is the place for you. I’ve gotten several campaigns to work on YouTube because traffic is cheap and plentiful. Just be sure to put call to actions throughout your video and try to capture their attention in the first 5-10 seconds of the video. No long winded introductions, just hope right into the meat of your content.
Bing Ads (Updated)
Pros:
Bing & Yahoo are teamed up. If you create a campaign on Bing Ads you show up on both Bing.com & Yahoo.com properties. Traffic is often both higher quality and much cheaper than compared to Google. Bing is very forgiving and approves almost any campaign.
Cons:
About 1/10th of the traffic, Google can provide. Their interface is complete garbage and needs an update. Can’t scale your campaign very much once you do find a winner.
Conclusion:
If you believe Paid Search is the way to go for your business then I would definitely test out Bing ads. Your chances of finding a winner are much higher and will cost you much less. However, don’t expect to be spending over $100-200 a day in most niches.
Yahoo Gemini
Pros:
Gemini has a nice clean interface that makes setting up any campaign a breeze. Even though Gemini is relatively new, I’ve already ran quite a few successful campaigns on it. It is quite easy to get clicks for .05 CPC in the US for Display. Yahoo inventory is usually an older audience, which means they have more money and frequently purchase.
Cons:
So far Yahoo is following in the steps of Google in the sense that they’re very picky on what they allow. Also, if you plan to run search campaigns on Gemini, the CPC is quite expensive for both mobile and Desktop inventory.
Conclusion:
Gemini still isn’t known by many advertisers so that alone has it’s advantages. If you’re already successfully running on Google & Bing and want to expand your traffic I highly suggest trying out Gemini.
Yandex
Pros:
High-quality traffic that’s fairly cheap. It’s pretty surprising how few advertisers are using Yandex. Very clean interface and many friendly marketing tools.
Cons:
Unless you want to advertise in Russia, Yandex won’t have volume very much.
Conclusion:
I’ve ran quite a bit of traffic with Yandex and overall I’m very pleased with the platform. If you’ve already tested both Google & Bing and are looking to diversify your traffic in paid search. Then Yandex is a great option for you.
7 Search
Pros:
Very transparent when it comes to showing it’s rankings & price per click costs. So keywords are very cheap to rank for. I’ve gotten traffic at .05 CPC for several head terms.
Cons:
Every internet marketing newbie flocks here because several blogs push it as a go to the source. Since everything is transparent, you often get outbid by a penny every couple of hours. Making it very difficult to get any solid data.
Conclusion:
If you’re just looking to dabble in paid search to get your feet wet, then by all means check out 7 Search. However, if you’re looking to actually generate enough sales to make more than $10-15 dollars a day, I wouldn’t waste my time.
Baidu
Pros:
Massive Asian search traffic.
Cons:
Very difficult to get up and to run with Baidu, unless you speak Mandarin. Not much traffic outside of the Asian Market.
Conclusion:
I’ve never ran traffic with Baidu. As every time I’ve tried has been very difficult for me. With the growth of the Chinese market however in mobile Baidu is a huge opportunity.